BERKELEY 

Y 

Y  OF 
&L      CALIFORNIA 


COMPLETE  WORKS  OF 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


T 


\ 


FROM  AN  ORIGINAL,  TJNRETODCHKD  NEGATIVE,  MADE  IN  1864,  AT  THE  TIME  THE  PRESI 
DENT  COMMISSIONED  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT  LIEUTENANT-GENERAL  AND  COMMANDER  OF 
ALL  THE  ARMIES  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.  IT  IS  STATED  THAT  THIS  NEGATIVE,  "WITH 
ONE  OF  GENERAL  U.  S.  GRANT,"  WAS  MADE  IN  COMMEMORATION  OF  THAT  EVENT. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


COMPLETE  WORKS 


COMPRISING  HIS  SPEECHES,  LETTERS,  STATE 
PAPERS,  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS 


EDITED  BY 


JOHN  G.  NICOLAY 
AND  JOHN  HAY 


VOLUME  ONE 


NEW  YORK 
THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1894 


REPLACING 


Copyright,  1894, 

by  JOHN  G.  NICOLA  Y 

and  JOHN  HAT. 


THE  DEVINNE   PRESS. 


PREFACE 


"May  30,  1893. 

11  My  dear  Nicolay:  As  you  and  Colonel  Hay  have  now  brought 
your  great  work  to  a  most  successful  conclusion  by  the  publication 
of  your  life  of  my  father,  I  hope  and  request  that  you  and  he  will 
supplement  it  by  collecting,  editing,  and  publishing  the  speeches, 
letters,  state  papers,  and  miscellaneous  writings  of  my  father.  You 
and  Colonel  Hay  have  my  consent  and  authority  to  obtain  for  your 
selves  such  protection  by  copyright,  or  otherwise,  in  respect  to  the 
whole  or  any  part  of  such  a  collection,  as  I  might  for  any  reason  be 
entitled  to  have.  Believe  me,  very  sincerely  yours, 

"  ROBERT  T.  LINCOLN. 

"  JOHN  G.  NICOLAY." 

Both  in  fulfilment  of  the  request  contained  in  the  foregoing  let 
ter,  and  in  execution  of  a  long-cherished  design,  we  present  to  the 
public  this  edition  of  the  Complete  Works  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
hoping  and  trusting  that  it  will  be  received  as  a  welcome  addition 
to  American  historical  literature. 

JOHN  G.  NICOLAY. 

JOHN  HAY. 


91.5 


COMPLETE  WORKS  OF 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

VOLUME  ONE 


ADDRESSES  AND  LETTERS  OF 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

March  9,  1832. — ADDRESS  TO  THE  PEOPLE  OF  SANGAMON  COUNTY. 

Fellow-citizens:  Having  become  a  candidate  for  the  honorable 
office  of  one  of  your  Representatives  in  the  next  General  Assembly 
of  this  State,  in  accordance  with  an  established  custom  and  the  prin 
ciples  of  true  Republicanism  it  becomes  my  duty  to  make  known  to 
you,  the  people  whom  I  propose  to  represent,  my  sentiments  with 
regard  to  local  affairs. 

Time  and  experience  have  verified  to  a  demonstration  the  public 
utility  of  internal  improvements.  That  the  poorest  and  most  thinly 
populated  countries  would  be  greatly  benefited  by  the  opening  of 
good  roads,  and  in  the  clearing  of  navigable  streams  within  their 
limits,  is  what  no  person  will  deny.  Yet  it  is  folly  to  undertake 
works  of  this  or  any  other  kind  without  first  knowing  that  we  are 
able  to  finish  them, —  as  half -finished  work  generally  proves  to  be 
labor  lost.  There  cannot  justly  be  any  objection  to  having  rail 
roads  and  canals,  any  more  than  to  other  good  things,  provided  they 
cost  nothing.  The  only  objection  is  to  paying  for  them;  and  the 
objection  arises  from  the  want  of  ability  to  pay. 

With  respect  to  the  County  of  Sangamon,  some  more  easy  means 
of  communication  than  it  now  possesses,  for  the  purpose  of  facili 
tating  the  task  of  exporting  the  surplus  products  of  its  fertile  soil, 
and  importing  necessary  articles  from  abroad,  are  indispensably 
necessary.  A  meeting  has  been  held  of  the  citizens  of  Jacksonville 
and  the  adjacent  country,  for  the  purpose  of  deliberating  and  in 
quiring  into  the  expediency  of  constructing  a  railroad  from  some 
eligible  point  on  the  Illinois  River,  through  the  town  of  Jackson 
ville,  in  Morgan  County,  to  the  town  of  Springfield,  in  Sangamon 
County.  This  is,  indeed,  a  very  desirable  object.  No  other  im 
provement  that  reason  will  justify  us  in  hoping  for  can  equal  in 
utility  the  railroad.  It  is  a  never-failing  source  of  communication 
between  places  of  business  remotely  situated  from  each  other. 
Upon  the  railroad  the  regular  progress  of  commercial  intercourse 
is  not  interrupted  by  either  high  or  low  water,  or  freezing  weather, 
which  are  the  principal  difficulties  that  render  our  future  hopes  of 
water  communication  precarious  and  uncertain. 

Yet,  however  desirable  an  object  the  construction  of  a  railroad 
through  our  country  may  be ;  however  high  our  imaginations  may 
VOL.  I.— 1. 


2  ADDRESSES  AND  LETTERS  OP  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

be  heated  at  thoughts  of  it, — there  is  always  a  heart-appalling  shock 
accompanying  the  amount  of  its  cost,  which  forces  us  to  shrink  from 
our  pleasing  anticipations.  The  probable  cost  of  this  contemplated 
railroad  is  estimated  at  $290,000 ;  the  bare  statement  of  which,  in 
my  opinion,  is  sufficient  to  justify  the  belief  that  the  improvement 
of  the  Sangamon  River  is  an  object  much  better  suited  to  our  infant 
resources. 

Respecting  this  view,  I  think  I  may  say,  without  the  fear  of  being 
contradicted,  that  its  navigation  may  be  rendered  completely  prac 
ticable  as  high  as  the  mouth  of  the  South  Fork,  or  probably  higher, 
to  vessels  of  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  tons  burden,  for  at  least  one 
half  of  all  common  years,  and  to  vessels  of  much  greater  burden  a 
part  of  the  time.  From  my  peculiar  circumstances,  it  is  probable 
that  for  the  last  twelve  months  I  have  given  as  particular  attention 
to  the  stage  of  the  water  in  this  river  as  any  other  person  in  the 
country.  In  the  month  of  March,  1831,  in  company  with  others,  I 
commenced  the  building  of  a  flatboat  on  the  Sangamon,  and  finished 
and  took  her  out  in  the  course  of  the  spring.  Since  that  time  I  have 
been  concerned  in  the  mill  at  New  Salem.  These  circumstances  are 
sufficient  evidence  that  I  have  not  been  very  inattentive  to  the  stages 
of  the  water.  The  time  at  which  we  crossed  the  mill-dam  being  in 
the  last  days  of  April,  the  water  was  lower  than  it  had  been  since 
the  breaking  of  winter  in  February,  or  than  it  was  for  several  weeks 
after.  The  principal  difficulties  we  encountered  in  descending  the 
river  were  from  the  drifted  timber,  which  obstructions  all  know  are 
not  difficult  to  be  removed.  Knowing  almost  precisely  the  height 
of  water  at  that  time,  I  believe  I  am  safe  in  saying  that  it  has  as 
often  been  higher  as  lower  since. 

From  this  view  of  the  subject  it  appears  that  my  calculations  witli 
regard  to  the  navigation  of  the  Sangamon  cannot  but  be  founded 
in  reason  5  but,  whatever  may  be  its  natural  advantages,  certain  it 
is  that  it  never  can  be  practically  useful  to  any  great  extent  with 
out  being  greatly  improved  by  art.  The  drifted  timber,  as  I  have 
before  mentioned,  is  the  most  formidable  barrier  to  this  object.  Of 
all  parts  of  this  river,  none  will  require  so  much  labor  in  propor 
tion  to  make  it  navigable  as  the  last  thirty  or  thirty-five  miles ;  and 
going  with  the  meanderings  of  the  channel,  when  we  are  this  dis 
tance  above  its  mouth  we  are  only  between  twelve  and  eighteen 
miles  above  Beardstown  in  something  near  a  straight  direction; 
and  this  route  is  upon  such  low  ground  as  to  retain  water  in  many 
places  during  the  season,  and  in  all  parts  such  as  to  draw  two  thirds 
or  three  fourths  of  the  river  water  at  all  high  stages. 

This  route  is  on  prairie-land  the  whole  distance,  so  that  it  appears 
to  me,  by  removing  the  turf  a  sufficient  width,  and  damming  up  the 
old  channel,  the  whole  river  in  a  short  time  would  wash  its  way 
through,  thereby  curtailing  the  distance  and  increasing  the  velocity 
of  the  current  very  considerably,  while  there  would  be  no  timber 
on  the  banks  to  obstruct  its  navigation  in  future ;  and  being  nearly 
straight,  the  timber  which  might  float  in  at  the  head  would  be  apt 
to  go  clear  through.  There  are  also  many  places  above  this  where 
the  river,  in  its  zigzag  course,  forms  such  complete  peninsulas  as 


ADDRESSES  AND  LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  3 

to  be  easier  to  cut  at  the  necks  than  to  remove  the  obstructions  from 
the  bends,  which,  if  done,  would  also  lessen  the  distance. 

What  the  cost  of  this  work  would  be,  I  am  unable  to  say.  It  is 
probable,  however,  that  it  would  not  be  greater  than  is  common  to 
streams  of  the  same  length.  Finally,  I  believe  the  improvement  of 
the  Saugamon  River  to  be  vastly  important  and  highly  desirable  to 
the  people  of  the  county ;  and,  if  elected,  any  measure  in  the  legis 
lature  having  this  for  its  object,  which  may  appear  judicious,  will 
meet  my  approbation  and  receive  my  support. 

It  appears  that  the  practice  of  loaning  money  at  exorbitant  rates 
of  interest  has  already  been  opened  as  a  field  for  discussion :  so  I 
suppose  I  may  enter  upon  it  without  claiming  the  honor,  or  risking 
the  danger  which  may  await  its  first  explorer.  It  seems  as  though 
we  are  never  to  have  an  end  to  this  baneful  and  corroding  system, 
acting  almost  as  prejudicially  to  the  general  interests  of  the  commu 
nity  as  a  direct  tax  of  several  thousand  dollars  annually  laid  on 
each  county  for  the  benefit  of  a  few  individuals  only,  unless  there 
be  a  law  made  fixing  the  limits  of  usury.  A  law  for  this  purpose, 
I  am  of  opinion,  may  be  made  without  materially  injuring  any  class 
of  people.  In  cases  of  extreme  necessity,  there  could  always  be 
means  found  to  cheat  the  law;  while  in  all  other  cases  it  would 
have  its  intended  effect.  I  would  favor  the  passage  of  a  law  on  this 
subject  which  might  not  be  very  easily  evaded.  Let  it  be  such  that 
the  labor  and  difficulty  of  evading  it  could  only  be  justified  in  cases 
of  greatest  necessity. 

Upon  the  subject  of  education,  not  presuming  to  dictate  any  plan 
or  system  respecting  it,  I  can  only  say  that  I  view  it  as  the  most 
important  subject  which  we  as  a  people  can  be  engaged  in.  That 
every  man  may  receive  at  least  a  moderate  education,  and  thereby 
be  enabled  to  read  the  histories  of  his  own  and  other  countries,  by 
which  he  may  duly  appreciate  the  value  of  our  free  institutions,  ap 
pears  to  be  an  object  of  vital  importance,  even  on  this  account  alone, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  advantages  and  satisfaction  to  be  derived  from 
all  being  able  to  read  the  Scriptures,  and  other  works  both  of  a  reli 
gious  and  moral  nature,  for  themselves. 

For  my  part,  I  desire  to  see  the  time  when  education — and  by  its 
means,  morality,  sobriety,  enterprise,  and  industry — shall  become 
much  more  general  than  at  present,  and  should  be  gratified  to  have 
it  in  my  power  to  contribute  something  to  the  advancement  of  any 
measure  which  might  have  a  tendency  to  accelerate  that  happy 
period. 

With  regard  to  existing  laws,  some  alterations  are  thought  to  be 
necessary.  Many  respectable  men  have  suggested  that  our  estray 
laws,  the  law  respecting  the  issuing  of  executions,  the  road  law,  and 
some  others,  are  deficient  in  their  present  form,  and  require  altera 
tions.  But,  considering  the  great  probability  that  the  framers  of 
those  laws  were  wiser  than  myself,  I  should  prefer  not  meddling 
with  them,  unless  they  were  first  attacked  by  others ;  in  which  case 
I  should  feel  it  both  a  privilege  and  a  duty  to  take  that  stand  which, 
in  my  view,  might  tend  most  to  the  advancement  of  justice. 

But,  fellow-citizens,  I  shall  conclude.     Considering  the  great  de- 


4  ADDEESSES  AND   LETTEES   OF  ABEAHAM  LINCOLN 

gree  of  modesty  which  should  always  attend  youth,  it  is  probable 
I  have  already  been  more  presuming  than  becomes  me.  However, 
upon  the  subjects  of  which  I  have  treated,  I  have  spoken  as  I  have 
thought.  I  may  be  wrong  in  regard  to  any  or  all  of  them ;  but, 
holding  it  a  sound  maxim  that  it  is  better  only  sometimes  to  be 
right  than  at  all  times  to  be  wrong,  so  soon  as  I  discover  my  opin 
ions  to  be  erroneous,  I  shall  be  ready  to  renounce  them. 

Every  man  is  said  to  have  his  peculiar  ambition.  Whether  it  be 
true  or  not,  I  can  say,  for  one,  that  I  have  no  other  so  great  as  that 
of  being  truly  esteemed  of  my  fellow-men,  by  rendering  myself 
worthy  of  their  esteem.  How  far  I  shall  succeed  in  gratifying  this 
ambition  is  yet  to  be  developed.  I  am  young,  and  unknown  to 
many  of  you.  I  was  born,  and  have  ever  remained,  in  the  most 
humble  walks  of  life.  I  have  no  wealthy  or  popular  relations  or 
friends  to  recommend  me.  My  case  is  thrown  exclusively  upon  the 
independent  voters  of  the  country ;  and,  if  elected,  they  will  have 
conferred  a  favor  upon  me  for  which  I  shall  be  unremitting  in  my 
labors  to  compensate.  But,  if  the  good  people  in  their  wisdom 
shall  see  fit  to  keep  me  in  the  background,  I  have  been  too  familiar 
with  disappointments  to  be  very  much  chagrined. 

Your  friend  and  fellow-citizen,  A.  LINCOLN. 

NEW  SALEM,  March  9,  1832. 

April  28,  1832. — RECEIPT  FOR  ARMS. 

Special  Order  (No.—).  BEARDSTOWN,  April  28,  1832. 

The  Brigade  Inspector,  having  inspected  Captain  Abraham  Lin 
coln's  Company  and  mustered  them  into  service,  reports  that  thirty 
guns  are  wanting  to  arm  the  Company  completely.  Quartermaster- 
General  Edwards  will  furnish  the  Captain  with  that  number  of 
arms,  if  to  be  had  in  his  department. 

JOHN  J.  HARDIN,  Brig.  Major. 

By  order  of  BRIGADIER-GENERAL  SAMUEL  WHITESIDE. 
Commanding  B.  M.  V.  Illinois. 

Received  April  28,  1832,  for  the  use  of  the  Sangamon  County 
company  under  my  command,  thirty  muskets,  bayonets,  screws,  and 
wipers,  which  I  oblige  myself  to  return  upon  demand. 

A.  LINCOLN,  Captain. 

Guns.  Bayonets.          Screws.  Wipers. 

19  15  9  21 

3211 
1  1  4  1 

1  1         

1         ..  1 

1         

26  20  14  23 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS    OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 


ADDBESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF  ABEAHAM  LINCOLN 


(Indorsement  in  pencil  on  the  foregoing.) 

A.  Lincoln — 5  days  at  $3.00 $15.00 

John  A.  Kelsoe,  chain  bearer  for  5  days  at  75  cts 3.75 

Robert  Lloyd,  5  days  at  75  cts 3.75 

Hugh  Armstrong,  for  services  as  axeman,  5  days  at  75  cts  .  3.75 

A.  Lincoln,  for  making  plat  and  report 2.50 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN 


June  13,  1836. — ANNOUNCEMENT  OP  POLITICAL  VIEWS. 

NEW  SALEM,  June  13,  1836. 

To  tlie  Editor  of  the  "Journal" :  In  your  paper  of  last  Saturday 
I  see  a  communication,  over  the  signature  of  "Many  Voters/'  in 
which  the  candidates  who  are  announced  in  the  "Journal"  are 
called  upon  to  "  show  their  hands."  Agreed.  Here  7s  mine. 

I  go  for  all  sharing  the  privileges  of  the  government  who  assist 
in  bearing  its  burdens.  Consequently,  I  go  for  admitting  all  whites 
to  the  right  of  suffrage  who  pay  taxes  or  bear  arms  (by  no  means 
excluding  females). 

If  elected,  I  shall  consider  the  whole  people  of  Sangamon  my  con 
stituents,  as  well  those  that  oppose  as  those  that  support  me. 

While  acting  as  their  representative,  I  shall  be  governed  by  their 
will  on  all  subjects  upon  which  I  have  the  means  of  knowing  what 
their  will  is ;  and  upon  all  others  I  shall  do  what  my  own  judgment 
teaches  me  will  best  advance  their  interests.  Whether  elected  or 
not,  I  go  for  distributing  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public 
lands  to  the  several  States,  to  enable  our  State,  in  common  with 
others,  to  dig  canals  and  construct  railroads  without  borrowing 
money  and  paying  the  interest  on  it. 

If  alive  on  the  first  Monday  in  November,  I  shall  vote  for  Hugh 
L.  White  for  President.  Very  respectfully, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

June  21,  1836. — LETTER  TO  ROBERT  ALLEN. 

NEW  SALEM,  June  21,  1836. 

Dear  Colonel :  I  am  told  that  during  my  absence  last  week  you 
passed  through  this  place,  and  stated  publicly  that  you  were  in  pos 
session  of  a  fact  or  facts  which,  if  known  to  the  public,  would  en 
tirely  destroy  the  prospects  of  N.  W.  Edwards  and  myself  at  the 
ensuing  election ;  but  that,  through  favor  to  us,  you  should  forbear 
to  divulge  them.  No  one  has  needed  favors  more  than  I,  and,  gen 
erally,  few  have  been  less  unwilling  to  accept  them  ;  but  in  this  case 
favor  to  me  would  be  injustice  to  the  public,  and  therefore  I  must 
beg  your  pardon  for  declining  it.  That  I  once  had  the  confidence 
of  the  people  of  Saugamon,  is  sufficiently  evident;  and  if  I  have 
since  done  anything,  either  by  design  or  misadventure,  which  if 
known  would  subject  me  to  a  forfeiture  of  that  confidence,  he  that 
knows  of  that  thing,  and  conceals  it,  is  a  traitor  to  his  country's 
interest. 

I  find  myself  wholly  unable  to  form  any  conjecture  of  what  fact 
or  facts,  real  or  supposed,  you  spoke;  but  my  opinion  of  your  ve 
racity  will  not  permit  me  for  a  moment  to  doubt  that  you  at  least 
believed  what  you  said.  I  am  flattered  with  the  personal  regard 
you  manifested  for  me;  but  I  do  hope  that,  on  more  mature  reflec 
tion,  you  will  view  the  public  interest  as  a  paramount  consideration, 
and  therefore  determine  to  let  the  worst  come.  I  here  assure  you 
that  the  candid  statement  of  facts  on  your  part,  however  low  it 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

may  sink  me,  shall  never  break  the  tie  of  personal  friendship  be 
tween  us.     I  wish  an  answer  to  this,  and  you  are  at  liberty  to  pub 
lish  both,  if  you  choose.    Very  respectfully, 
COL.  ROBERT  ALLEN.  A.  LINCOLN. 

December  13,  1836. — LETTER  TO  Miss  MARY  OWENS. 

VANDALIA,  December  13,  1836. 

Mary  :  I  have  been  sick  ever  since  my  arrival,  or  I  should  have 
written  sooner.  It  is  but  little  difference,  however,  as  I  have  very 
little  even  yet  to  write.  And  more,  the  longer  I  can  avoid  the  mor 
tification  of  looking  in  the  post-office  for  your  letter  and  not  finding 
it,  the  better.  You  see  I  am  mad  about  that  old  letter  yet.  I  don't 
like  very  well  to  risk  you  again.  I'll  try  you  once  more,  anyhow. 

The  new  State  House  is  not  yet  finished,  and  consequently  the 
legislature  is  doing  little  or  nothing.  The  governor  delivered  an 
inflammatory  political  message,  and  it  is  expected  there  will  be  some 
sparring  between  the  parties  about  it  as  soon  as  the  two  Houses  get 
to  business.  Taylor  delivered  up  his  petition  for  the  new  county 
to  one  of  our  members  this  morning.  I  am  told  he  despairs  of  its 
success,  on  account  of  all  the  members  from  Morgan  County  oppos 
ing  it.  There  are  names  enough  on  the  petition,  I  think,  to  justify 
the  members  from  our  county  in  going  for  it ;  but  if  the  members 
from  Morgan  oppose  it,  which  they  say  they  will,  the  chance  will 
be  bad. 

Our  chance  to  take  the  seat  of  government  to  Springfield  is  better 
than  I  expected.  An  internal-improvement  convention  was  held 
here  since  we  met,  which  recommended  a  loan  of  several  millions  of 
dollars,  on  the  faith  of  the  State,  to  construct  railroads.  Some  of  the 
legislature  are  for  it,  and  some  against  it  j  which  has  the  majority 
I  cannot  tell.  There  is  great  strife  and  struggling  for  the  office  of 
the  United  States  Senator  here  at  this  time.  It  is  probable  we  shall 
ease  their  pains  in  a  few  days.  The  opposition  men  have  no  candi 
date  of  their  own,  and  consequently  they  will  smile  as  complacently 
at  the  angry  snarl  of  the  contending  Van  Buren  candidates  and  their 
respective  friends  as  the  Christian  does  at  Satan's  rage.  You  recol 
lect  that  I  mentioned  at  the  outset  of  this  letter  that  I  had  been  un 
well.  That  is  the  fact,  though  I  believe  I  am  about  well  now ;  but 
that,  with  other  things  I  cannot  account  for,  have  conspired,  and 
have  gotten  my  spirits  so  low  that  I  feel  that  I  would  rather  be  any 
place  in  the  world  than  here.  I  really  cannot  endure  the  thought 
of  staying  here  ten  weeks.  Write  back  as  soon  as  you  get  this,  and, 
if  possible,  say  something  that  will  please  me,  for  really  I  have  not 
been  pleased  since  I  left  you.  This  letter  is  so  dry  and  stupid  that 
I  am  ashamed  to  send  it,  but  with  my  present  feelings  I  cannot  do- 
any  better. 

Give  my  best  respects  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Able  and  family. 

Your  friend,  LINCOLN. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


January  27,  1837. — ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  YOUNG  MEN'S  LYCEUM 
OF  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS. 

As  a  subject  for  the  remarks  of  the  evening,  "  The  perpetuation  of 
our  political  institutions  "  is  selected. 

In  the  great  journal  of  things  happening  under  the  sun,  we,  the 
American  people,  find  our  account  running  under  date  of  the  nine 
teenth  century  of  the  Christian  era.  We  find  ourselves  in  the  peace 
ful  possession  of  the  fairest  portion  of  the  earth  as  regards  extent 
of  territory,  fertility  of  soil,  and  salubrity  of  climate.  We  find  our 
selves  under  the  government  of  a  system  of  political  institutions 
conducing  more  essentially  to  the  ends  of  civil  and  religious  liberty 
than  any  of  which  the  history  of  former  times  tells  us.  We,  when 
mounting  the  stage  of  existence,  found  ourselves  the  legal  inheri 
tors  of  these  fundamental  blessings.  We  toiled  not  in  the  acquire 
ment  or  establishment  of  them;  they  are  a  legacy  bequeathed  us  by 
a  once  hardy,  brave,  and  patriotic,  but  now  lamented  and  departed, 
race  of  ancestors.  Theirs  was  the  task  (and  nobly  they  performed 
it)  to  possess  themselves,  and  through  themselves  us,  of  this  goodly 
land,  and  to  uprear  upon  its  hills  and  its  valleys  a  political  edifice 
of  liberty  and  equal  rights;  'tis  ours  only  to  transmit  these  — 
the  former  unprofaned  by  the  foot  of  an  invader,  the  latter  unde- 
cayed  by  the  lapse  of  time  and  untorn  by  usurpation — to  the  latest 
generation  that  fate  shall  permit  the  world  to  know.  This  task, 
gratitude  to  our  fathers,  justice  to  ourselves,  duty  to  posterity,  and 
love  for  our  species  in  general,  all  imperatively  require  us  faith 
fully  to  perform. 

How  then  shall  we  perform  it  ?  At  what  point  shall  we  expect 
the  approach  of  danger  ?  By  what  means  shall  we  fortify  against  it? 
Shall  we  expect  some  transatlantic  military  giant  to  step  the  ocean 
and  crush  us  at  a  blow  ?  Never !  All  the  armies  of  Europe,  Asia, 
and  Africa  combined,  with  all  the  treasure  of  the  earth  (our  own 
excepted)  in  their  military  chest,  with  a  Bonaparte  for  a  com 
mander,  could  not  by  force  take  a  drink  from  the  Ohio  or  make  a 
track  on  the  Blue  Ridge  in  a  trial  of  a  thousand  years. 

At  what  point  then  is  the  approach  of  danger  to  be  expected  ?  I 
answer,  If  it  ever  reach  us  it  must  spring  up  amongst  us;  it  cannot 
come  from  abroad.  If  destruction  be  our  lot  we  must  ourselves 
be  its  author  and  finisher.  As  a  nation  of  freemen  we  must  live 
through  all  time,  or  die  by  suicide. 

I  hope  I  am  over  wary ;  but  if  I  am  not,  there  is  even  now  some 
thing  of  ill  omen  amongst  us.  I  mean  the  increasing  disregard 
for  law  which  pervades  the  country — the  growing  disposition  to 
substitute  the  wild  and  furious  passions  in  lieu  of  the  sober 
judgment  of  courts,  and  the  worse  than  savage  mobs  for  the  execu 
tive  ministers  of  justice.  This  disposition  is  awfully  fearful  in  any 
community;  and  that  it  now  exists  in  ours,  though  grating  to  our 
feelings  to  admit,  it  would  be  a  violation  of  truth  and  an  insult  to 
our  intelligence  to  deny.  Accounts  of  outrages  committed  by  mobs 
form  the  every-day  news  of  the  times.  They  have  pervaded  the 


10  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

country  from  New  England  to  Louisiana ;  they  are  neither  peculiar 
to  the  eternal  snows  of  the  former  nor  the  burning  suns  of  the  lat 
ter  ;  they  are  not  the  creature  of  climate,  neither  are  they  confined 
to  the  slaveholding  or  the  non-slaveholding  States.  Alike  they 
spring  up  among  the  pleasure-hunting  masters  of  Southern  slaves, 
and  the  order-loving  citizens  of  the  land  of  steady  habits.  What 
ever  then  their  cause  may  be,  it  is  common  to  the  whole  country. 

It  would  be  tedious  as  well  as  useless  to  recount  the  horrors  of  all 
of  them.  Those  happening  in  the  State  of  Mississippi  and  at  St. 
Louis  are  perhaps  the  most  dangerous  in  example  and  revolting  to 
humanity.  In  the  Mississippi  case  they  first  commenced  by  hanging 
the  regular  gamblers — a  set  of  men  certainly  not  following  for  a 
livelihood  a  very  useful  or  very  honest  occupation,  but  one  which, 
so  far  from  being  forbidden  by  the  laws,  was  actually  licensed  by 
an  act  of  the  legislature  passed  but  a  single  year  before.  Next, 
negroes  suspected  of  conspiring  to  raise  an  insurrection  were 
caught  up  and  hanged  in  all  parts  of  the  State;  then,  white  men 
supposed  to  be  leagued  with  the  negroes;  and  finally,  strangers 
from  neighboring  States,  going  thither  on  business,  were  in  many 
instances  subjected  to  the  same  fate.  Thus  went  on  this  process  of 
hanging,  from  gamblers  to  negroes,  from  negroes  to  white  citizens, 
and  from  these  to  strangers,  till  dead  men  were  seen  literally  dang 
ling  from  the  boughs  of  trees  upon  every  roadside,  and  in  numbers 
almost  sufficient  to  rival  the  native  Spanish  moss  of  the  country  as 
a  drapery  of  the  forest. 

Turn  then  to  that  horror-striking  scene  at  St.  Louis.  A  single 
victim  only  was  sacrificed  there.  This  story  is  very  short,  and  is 
perhaps  the  most  highly  tragic  of  anything  of  its  length  that  has 
ever  been  witnessed  in  real  life.  A  mulatto  man  by  the  name  of 
Mclntosh  was  seized  in  the  street,  dragged  to  the  suburbs  of  the 
city,  chained  to  a  tree,  and  actually  burned  to  death ;  and  all  within 
a  single  hour  from  the  time  he  had  been  a  freeman  attending  to  his 
own  business  and  at  peace  with  the  world. 

Such  are  the  effects  of  mob  law,  and  such  are  the  scenes  becoming 
more  and  more  frequent  in  this  land  so  lately  famed  for  love  of  law 
and  order,  and  the  stories  of  which  have  even  now  grown  too  fa 
miliar  to  attract  anything  more  than  an  idle  remark. 

But  you  are  perhaps  ready  to  ask,  "  What  has  this  to  do  with  the 
perpetuation  of  our  political  institutions  ?  "  I  answer,  "  It  has  much 
to  do  with  it."  Its  direct  consequences  are,  comparatively  speaking, 
but  a  small  evil,  and  much  of  its  danger  consists  in  the  proneness 
of  our  minds  to  regard  its  direct  as  its  only  consequences.  Ab 
stractly  considered,  the  hanging  of  the  gamblers  at  Vicksburg  was 
of  but  little  consequence.  They  constitute  a  portion  of  population 
that  is  worse  than  useless  in  any  community ;  and  their  death,  if  no 
pernicious  example  be  set  by  it,  is  never  matter  of  reasonable  regret 
with  any  one.  If  they  were  annually  swept  from  the  stage  of  exis 
tence  by  the  plague  or  smallpox,  honest  men  would  perhaps  be 
much  profited  by  the  operation.  Similar  too  is  the  correct  reason 
ing  in  regard  to  the  burning  of  the  negro  at  St.  Louis.  He  had 
forfeited  his  life  by  the  perpetration  of  an  outrageous  murder  upon 


ADDKESSES  AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN  11 

one  of  the  most  worthy  and  respectable  citizens  of  the  city,  and  had 
he  not  died  as  he  did,  he  must  have  died  by  the  sentence  of  the  law 
in  a  very  short  time  afterward.  As  to  him  alone,  it  was  as  well  the 
way  it  was  as  it  could  otherwise  have  been.  But  the  example  in 
either  case  was  fearful.  When  men  take  it  in  their  heads  to-day  to 
hang  gamblers  or  burn  murderers,  they  should  recollect  that  in  the 
confusion  usually  attending  such  transactions  they  will  be  as  likely 
to  hang  or  burn  some  one  who  is  neither  a  gambler  nor  a  murderer 
as  one  who  is,  and  that,  acting  upon  the  example  they  set,  the  mob 
of  to-morrow  may,  and  probably  will,  hang  or  burn  some  of  them 
by  the  very  same  mistake.  And  not  only  so ;  the  innocent,  those 
who  have  ever  set  their  faces  against  violations  of  law  in  every  shape, 
alike  with  the  guilty  fall  victims  to  the  ravages  of  mob  law ;  and  thus 
it  goes  on,  step  by  step,till  all  the  walls  erected  for  the  defense  of  the 
persons  and  property  of  individuals  are  trodden  down  and  disre 
garded.  But  all  this,  even,  is  not  the  full  extent  of  the  evil.  By  such 
examples,  by  instances  of  the  perpetrators  of  such  acts  going  unpun 
ished,  the  lawless  in  spirit  are  encouraged  to  become  lawless  in 
practice ;  and  having  been  used  to  no  restraint  but  dread  of  punish 
ment,  they  thus  become  absolutely  unrestrained.  Having  ever  re 
garded  government  as  their  deadliest  bane,  they  make  a  jubilee  of 
the  suspension  of  its  operations,  and  pray  for  nothing  so  much  as 
its  total  annihilation.  While,  on  the  other  hand,  good  men,  men 
who  love  tranquillity,  who  desire  to  abide  by  the  laws  and  enjoy  their 
benefits,  who  would  gladly  spill  their  blood  in  the  defense  of  their 
country,  seeing  their  property  destroyed,  their  families  insulted, 
and  their  lives  endangered,  their  persons  injured,  and  seeing  no 
thing  in  prospect  that  forebodes  a  change  for  the  better,  become  tired 
of  and  disgusted  with  a  government  that  offers  them  no  protection, 
and  are  not  much  averse  to  a  change  in  which  they  imagine  they 
have  nothing  to  lose.  Thus,  then,  by  the  operation  of  this  mobo- 
cratic  spirit  which  all  must  admit  is  now  abroad  in  the  land,  the 
strongest  bulwark  of  any  government,  and  particularly  of  those 
constituted  like  ours,  may  effectually  be  broken  down  and  de 
stroyed —  I  mean  the  attachment  of  the  people.  Whenever  this 
effect  shall  be  produced  among  us ;  whenever  the  vicious  portion  of 
population  shall  be  permitted  to  gather  in  bands  of  hundreds  and 
thousands,  and  burn  churches,  ravage  and  rob  provision-stores, 
throw  printing-presses  into  rivers,  shoot  editors,  and  hang  and  burn 
obnoxious  persons  at  pleasure  and  with  impunity,  depend  on  it, 
this  government  cannot  last.  By  such  things  the  feelings  of  the 
best  citizens  will  become  more  or  less  alienated  from  it,  and  thus  it 
will  be  left  without  friends,  or  with  too  few,  and  those  few  too  weak 
to  make  their  friendship  effectual.  At  such  a  time,  and  under  such 
circumstances,  men  of  sufficient  talent  and  ambition  will  not  be 
wanting  to  seize  the  opportunity,  strike  the  blow,  and  overturn  that 
fair  fabric  which  for  the  last  half  century  has  been  the  fondest 
hope  of  the  lovers  of  freedom  throughout  the  world. 

I  know  the  American  people  are  much  attached  to  their  govern 
ment  ;  I  know  they  would  suffer  much  for  its  sake ;  I  know  they 
would  endure  evils  long  and  patiently  before  they  would  ever  think 


12  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

of  exchanging  it  for  another, — yet,  notwithstanding  all  this,  if  the 
laws  be  continually  despised  and  disregarded,  if  their  rights  to  be 
secure  in  their  persons  and  property  are  held  by  no  better  tenure 
than  the  caprice  of  a  mob,  the  alienation  of  their  affections  from 
the  government  is  the  natural  consequence  5  and  to  that,  sooner  or 
later,  it  must  come. 

Here,  then,  is  one  point  at  which  danger  may  be  expected. 

The  question  recurs,  "How  shall  we  fortify  against  it?"  The 
answer  is  simple.  Let  every  American,  every  lover  of  liberty,  every 
well-wisher  to  his  posterity  swear  by  the  blood  of  the  Revolution 
never  to  violate  in  the  least  particular  the  laws  of  the  country,  and 
never  to  tolerate  their  violation  by  others.  As  the  patriots  of 
seventy-six  did  to  the  support  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
so  to  the  support  of  the  Constitution  and  laws  let  every  American 
pledge  his  life,  his  property,  and  his  sacred  honor  —  let  every  man 
remember  that  to  violate  the  law  is  to  trample  on  the  blood  of  his 
father,  and  to  tear  the  charter  of  his  own  and  his  children's  lib 
erty.  Let  reverence  for  the  laws  be  breathed  by  every  American 
mother  to  the  lisping  babe  that  prattles  on  her  lap ;  let  it  be  taught 
in  schools,  in  seminaries,  and  in  colleges;  let  it  be  written  in 
primers,  spelling-books,  and  in  almanacs;  let  it  be  preached  from 
the  pulpit,  proclaimed  in  legislative  halls,  and  enforced  in  courts  of 
justice.  And,  in  short,  let  it  become  the  political  religion  of  the 
nation ;  and  let  the  old  and  the  young,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the 
grave  and  the  gay  of  all  sexes  and  tongues  and  colors  and  condi 
tions,  sacrifice  unceasingly  upon  its  altars. 

While  ever  a  state  of  feeling  such  as  this  shall  universally  or 
even  very  generally  prevail  throughout  the  nation,  vain  will  be 
every  effort,  and  fruitless  every  attempt,  to  subvert  our  national 
freedom. 

When  I  so  pressingly  urge  a  strict  observance  of  all  the  laws,  let 
me  not  be  understood  as  saying  there  are  no  bad  laws,  or  that 
grievances  may  not  arise  for  the  redress  of  which  no  legal  pro 
visions  have  been  made.  I  mean  to  say  no  such  thing.  But  I 
do  mean  to  say  that  although  bad  laws,  if  they  exist,  should  be 
repealed  as  soon  as  possible,  still,  while  they  continue  in  force,  for 
the  sake  of  example  they  should  be  religiously  observed.  So  also 
in  unprovided  cases.  If  such  arise,  let  proper  legal  provisions  be 
made  for  them  with  the  least  possible  delay,  but  till  then  let  them, 
if  not  too  intolerable,  be  borne  with. 

There  is  no  grievance  that  is  a  fit  object  of  redress  by  mob  law. 
In  any  case  that  may  arise,  as,  for  instance,  the  promulgation  of 
abolitionism,  one  of  two  positions  is  necessarily  true — that  is,  the 
thing  is  right  within  itself,  and  therefore  deserves  the  protection 
of  all  law  and  all  good  citizens,  or  it  is  wrong,  and  therefore  proper  to 
be  prohibited  by  legal  enactments ;  and  in  neither  case  is  the  inter 
position  of  mob  law  either  necessary,  justifiable,  or  excusable. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  "  Why  suppose  danger  to  our  political  insti 
tutions  ?  Have  we  not  preserved  them  for  more  than  fifty  years  ? 
And  why  may  we  not  for  fifty  times  as  long?" 

We  hope  there  is  no  sufficient  reason.     We  hope  all  danger  may 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN  13 

be  overcome ;  but  to  conclude  that  no  danger  may  ever  arise  would 
itself  be  extremely  dangerous.  There  are  now,  and  will  hereafter 
be,  many  causes,  dangerous  in  their  tendency,  which  have  not  ex 
isted  heretofore,  and  which  are  not  too  insignificant  to  merit  atten 
tion.  That  our  government  should  have  been  maintained  in  its 
original  form,  from  its  establishment  until  now,  is  not  much  to  be 
wondered  at.  It  had  many  props  to  support  it  through  that  pe 
riod,  which  now  are  decayed  arid  crumbled  away.  Through  that 
period  it  was  felt  by  all  to  be  an  undecided  experiment;  now  it  is 
understood  to  be  a  successful  one.  Then,  all  that  sought  celebrity 
and  fame  and  distinction  expected  to  find  them  in  the  success  of 
that  experiment.  Their  all  was  staked  upon  it  j  their  destiny  was 
inseparably  linked  with  it.  Their  ambition  aspired  to  display  be 
fore  an  admiring  world  a  practical  demonstration  of  the  truth  "of  a 
proposition  which  had  hitherto  been  considered  at  best  no  better 
than  problematical  —  namely,  the  capability  of  a  people  to  govern 
themselves.  If  they  succeeded  they  were  to  be  immortalized  ;  their 
names  were  to  be  transferred  to  counties,  and  cities,  and  rivers,  and 
mountains ;  and  to  be  revered  and  sung,  toasted  through  all  time. 
If  they  failed,  they  were  to  be  called  knaves,  and  fools,  and  fanatics 
for  a  fleeting  hour ;  then  to  sink  and  be  forgotten.  They  succeeded. 
The  experiment  is  successful,  and  thousands  have  won  their  death 
less  names  in  making  it  so.  But  the  game  is  caught ;  and  I  believe 
it  is  true  that  with  the  catching  end  the  pleasures  of  the  chase. 
This  field  of  glory  is  harvested,  and  the  crop  is  already  appropriated. 
But  new  reapers  will  arise,  and  they  too  will  seek  a  field.  It  is  to 
deny  what  the  history  of  the  world  tells  us  is  true,  to  suppose  that 
men  of  ambition  and  talents  will  not  continue  to  spring  up  amongst 
us.  And  when  they  do,  they  will  as  naturally  seek  the  gratification 
of  their  ruling  passion  as  others  have  done  before  them.  The 
question  then  is,  Can  that  gratification  be  found  in  supporting  and 
maintaining  an  edifice  that  has  been  erected  by  others  ?  Most  cer 
tainly  it  cannot.  Many  great  and  good  men,  sufficiently  qualified 
for  any  task  they  should  undertake,  may  ever  be  found  whose  am 
bition  would  aspire  to  nothing  beyond  a  seat  in  Congress,  a  guber 
natorial  or  a  presidential  chair ;  but  such  belong  not  to  the  family 
of  the  lion,  or  the  tribe  of  the  eagle.  What !  think  you  these  places 
would  satisfy  an  Alexander,  a  Cagsar,  or  a  Napoleon  ?  Never ! 
Towering  genius  disdains  a  beaten  path.  It  seeks  regions  hitherto 
unexplored.  It  sees  no  distinction  in  adding  story  to  story  upon 
the  monuments  of  fame  erected  to  the  memory  of  others.  It  de 
nies  that  it  is  glory  enough  to  serve  under  any  chief.  It  scorns  to 
tread  in  the  footsteps  of  any  predecessor,  however  illustrious.  It 
thirsts  and  burns  for  distinction  j  and  if  possible,  it  will  have  it, 
whether  at  the  expense  of  emancipating  slaves  or  enslaving  free 
men.  Is  it  unreasonable,  then,  to  expect  that  some  man  possessed 
of  the  loftiest  genius,  coupled  with  ambition  sufficient  to  push  it  to 
its  utmost  stretch,  will  at  some  time  spring  up  among  us?  And 
when  such  an  one  does,  it  will  require  the  people  to  be  united  with 
each  other,  attached  to  the  government  and  laws,  and  generally  in 
telligent,  to  successfully  frustrate  his  designs. 


14  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Distinction  will  be  his  paramount  object,  and  although  he  would 
as  willingly,  perhaps  more  so,  acquire  it  by  doing  good  as  harm, 
yet,  that  opportunity  being  past,  and  nothing  left  to  be  done  in  the 
way  of  building  up,  he  would  set  boldly  to  the  task  of  pulling  down. 

Here  then  is  a  probable  case,  highly  dangerous,  and  such  an  one 
as  could  not  have  well  existed  heretofore. 

Another  reason  which  once  was,  but  which,  to  the  same  extent,  is 
now  no  more,  has  done  much  in  maintaining  our  institutions  thus 
far.  I  mean  the  powerful  influence  which  the  interesting  scenes  of 
the  Revolution  had  upon  the  passions  of  the  people  as  distinguished 
from  their  judgment.  By  this  influence,  the  jealousy,  envy,  and 
avarice  incident  to  our  nature,  and  so  common  to  a  state  of  peace, 
prosperity,  and  conscious  strength,  were  for  the  time  in  a  great 
measure  smothered*  and  rendered  inactive,  while  the  deep-rooted 
principles  of  hate,  and  the  powerful  motive  of  revenge,  instead  of 
being  turned  against  each  other,  were  directed  exclusively  against 
the  British  nation.  And  thus,  from  the  force  of  circumstances,  the 
basest  principles  of  our  nature  were  either  made  to  lie  dormant,  or 
to  become  the  active  agents  in  the  advancement  of  the  noblest  of 
causes  —  that  of  establishing  and  maintaining  civil  and  religious 
liberty. 

But  this  state  of  feeling  must  fade,  is  fading,  has  faded,  with  the 
circumstances  that  produced  it. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  scenes  of  the  Revolution  are  now 
or  ever  will  be  entirely  forgotten,  but  that,  like  everything  else, 
they  must  fade  upon  the  memory  of  the  world,  and  grow  more  and 
more  dim  by  the  lapse  of  time.  In  history,  we  hope,  they  will  be 
read  of,  and  recounted,  so  long  as  the  Bible  shall  be  read,-  but 
even  granting  that  they  will,  their  influence  cannot  be  what  it  here 
tofore  has  been.  Even  then  they  cannot  be  so  universally  known 
nor  so  vividly  felt  as  they  were  by  the  generation  just  gone  to  rest. 
At  the  close  of  that  struggle,  nearly  every  adult  male  had  been  a 
participator  in  some  of  its  scenes.  The  consequence  was  that  of 
those  scenes,  in  the  form  of  a  husband,  a  father,  a  son,  or  a  brother, 
a  living  history  was  to  be  found  in  every  family —  a  history  bearing 
the  indubitable  testimonies  of  its  own  authenticity,  in  the  limbs 
mangled,  in  the  scars  of  wounds  received,  in  the  midst  of  the 
very  scenes  related — a  history,  too,  that  could  be  read  and  un 
derstood  alike  by  all,  the  wise  and  the  ignorant,  the  learned  and  the 
unlearned.  But  those  histories  are  gone.  They  can  be  read  no 
more  forever.  They  were  a  fortress  of  strength ;  but  what  invad 
ing  foeman  could  never  do,  the  silent  artillery  of  time  has  done — 
the  leveling  of  its  walls.  They  are  gone.  They  were  a  forest  of 
giant  oaks ;  but  the  all-restless  hurricane  has  swept  over  them,  and 
left  only  here  and  there  a  lonely  trunk,  despoiled  of  its  verdure, 
shorn  of  its  foliage,  unshading  and  unshaded,  to  murmur  in  a  few 
more  gentle  breezes,  and  to  combat  with  its  mutilated  limbs  a  few 
more  ruder  storms,  then  to  sink  and  be  no  more. 

They  were  pillars  of  the  temple  of  liberty ;  and  now  that  they 
have  crumbled  away  that  temple  must  fall  unless  we,  their  descen- 
dants^  supply  their  places  with  other  pillars,  hewn  from  the  solid 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  15 

quarry  of  sober  reason.  Passion  has  helped  us,  but  can  do  so  no 
more.  It  will  in  future  be  our  enemy.  Reason — cold,  calculating, 
unimpassioned  reason — must  furnish  all  the  materials  for  our  future 
support  and  defense.  Let  those  materials  be  molded  into  general 
intelligence,  sound  morality,  and,  in  particular,  a  reverence  for  the 
Constitution  and  laws ;/  and  that  we  improved  to  the  last,  that  we 
remained  free  to  the  last,  that  we  revered  his  name  to  the  last,  that 
during  his  long  sleep  we  permitted  no  hostile  foot  to  pass  over  or 
desecrate  his  resting-place,  shall  be  that  which  to  learn  the  last 
trump  shall  awaken  our  Washington. 

Upon  these  let  the  proud  fabric  of  freedom  rest,  as  the  rock  of 
its  basis ;  and  as  truly  as  has  been  said  of  the  only  greater  institu 
tion,  "  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it." 


March  3,  1837. — PROTEST  IN  THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE  ON  THE 
SUBJECT  OF  SLAVERY. 

March  3,  1837. 

The  following  protest  was  presented  to  the  House,  which  was 
read  and  ordered  to  be  spread  on  the  journals,  to  wit: 

Resolutions  upon  the  subject  of  domestic  slavery  having  passed  both 
branches  of  the  General  Assembly  at  its  present  session,  the  undersigned 
hereby  protest  against  the  passage  of  the  same. 

They  believe  that  the  institution  of  slavery  is  founded  on  both  injustice 
and  bad  policy,  but  that  the  promulgation  of  abolition  doctrines  tends 
rather  to  increase  than  abate  its  evils. 

They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  has  no  power  under 
the  Constitution  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  different 
States. 

They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  has  the  power,  under 
the  Constitution,  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  but  that 
the  power  ought  not  to  be  exercised,  unless  at  the  request  of  the  people 
of  the  District. 

The  difference  between  these  opinions  and  those  contained  in  the  said 
resolutions  is  their  reason  for  entering  this  protest. 

DAN  STONE, 
A.  LINCOLN, 
Representatives  from  the  County  of  Sangamon. 


May  7,  1837. —  LETTER  TO  Miss  MARY  OWENS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  May  7,  1837. 
Miss  MARY  S.  OWENS. 

Friend  Mary  :  I  have  commenced  two  letters  to  send  you  before 
this,  both  of  which  displeased  me  before  I  got  half  done,  and  so  I 
tore  them  up.  The  first  I  thought  was  not  serious  enough,  and  the 
second  was  on  the  other  extreme.  I  shall  send  this,  turn  out  as  it 
may. 

This  thing  of  living  in  Springfield  is  rather  a  dull  business,  after 
all ;  at  least  it  is  so  to  me.  I  am  quite  as  lonesome  here  as  I  ever 
was  anywhere  in  my  life.  I  have  been  spoken  to  by  but  one  woman 


16  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

since  I  have  been  here,  and  should  not  have  been  by  her  if  she 
could  have  avoided  it.  I  've  never  been  to  church  yet,  and  probably 
shall  not  be  soon.  I  stay  away  because  I  am  conscious  I  should  not 
know  how  to  behave  myself. 

I  am  often  thinking  of  what  we  said  about  your  coming  to  live  at 
Springfield.  I  am  afraid  you  would  not  be  satisfied.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  nourishing  about  in  carriages  here,  which  it  would  be 
your  doom  to  see  without  sharing  it.  You  would  have  to  be  poor, 
without  the  means  of  hiding  your  poverty.  Do  you  believe  you 
could  bear  that  patiently  ?  Whatever  woman  may  cast  her  lot  with 
mine,  should  any  ever  do  so,  it  is  my  intention  to  do  all  in  my 
power  to  make  her  happy  and  contented ;  and  there  is  nothing  I 
can  imagine  that  would  make  me  more  unhappy  than  to  fail  in  the 
effort.  I  know  I  should  be  much  happier  with  you  than  the  way  I 
am,  provided  I  saw  no  signs  of  discontent  in  you.  What  you  have 
said  to  me  may  have  been  in  the  way  of  jest,  or  I  may  have  misun 
derstood  it.  If  so,  then  let  it  be  forgotten ;  if  otherwise,  I  much 
wish  you  would  think  seriously  before  you  decide.  What  I  have 
said  I  will  most  positively  abide  by,  provided  you  wish  it.  My 
opinion  is  that  you  had  better  not  do  it.  You  have  not  been  accus 
tomed  to  hardship,  and  it  may  be  more  severe  than  you  n.ow  imagine. 
I  know  you  are  capable  of  thinking  correctly  on  any  subject,  and  if 
you  deliberate  maturely  upon  this  before  you  decide,  then  I  am  will 
ing  to  abide  your  decision. 

You  must  write  me  a  good  long  letter  after  you  get  this.  You 
have  nothing  else  to  do,  and  though  it  might  not  seem  interesting 
to  you  after  you  had  written  it,  it  would  be  a  good  deal  of  com 
pany  to  me  in  this  "busy  wilderness."  Tell  your  sister  I  don't 
want  to  hear  any  more  about  selling  out  and  moving.  That  gives 
me  the  "  hypo  "  whenever  I  think  of  it.  Yours,  etc., 

LINCOLN. 


August  16,  1837. — LETTER  TO  Miss  MARY  OWENS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  August  16,  1837. 

Friend  Mary :  You  will  no  doubt  think  it  rather  strange  that  I 
should  write  you  a  letter  on  the  same  day  on  which  we  parted,  and 
I  can  only  account  for  it  by  supposing  that  seeing  you  lately  makes 
me  think  of  you  more  than  usual $  while  at  our  late  meeting  we 
had  but  few  expressions  of  thoughts.  You  must  know  that  I  can 
not  see  you  or  think  of  you  with  entire  indifference ;  and  yet  it  may 
be  that  you  are  mistaken  in  regard  to  what  my  real  feelings  toward 
you  are.  If  I  knew  you  were  not,  I  should  not  trouble  you  with 
this  letter.  Perhaps  any  other  man  would  know  enough  without 
further  information ;  but  I  consider  it  my  peculiar  right  to  plead 
ignorance,  and  your  bounden  duty  to  allow  the  plea.  I  want  in  all 
cases  to  do  right,  and  most  particularly  so  in  all  cases  with  women. 
I  want  at  this  particular  time,  more  than  anything  else,  to  do  right 
with  you;  and  if  I  knew  it  would  be  doing  right,  as  I  rather  suspect 
it  would,  to  let  you  alone,  I  would  do  it.  And  for  the  purpose  of 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  17 

making  the  matter  as  plain  as  possible,  I  now  say  that  you  can  now 
drop  the  subject,  dismiss  your  thoughts  (if  you  ever  had  any)  from 
me  forever,  and  leave  this  letter  unanswered,  without  calling  forth 
one  accusing  murmur  from  me.  And  I  will  even  go  further,  and 
say  that  if  it  will  add  anything  to  your  comfort  or  peace  of 
mind  to  do  so,  it  is  my  sincere  wish  that  you  should.  Do  not  under 
stand  by  this  that  I  wish  to  cut  your  acquaintance.  I  mean  no  such 
thing.  What  I  do  wish  is  that  our  further  acquaintance  shall 
depend  upon  yourself.  If  such  further  acquaintance  would  contri 
bute  nothing  to  your  happiness,  I  am  sure  it  would  not  to  mine.  If 
you  feel  yourself  in  any  degree  bound  to  me,  I  am  now  willing  to 
release  you,  provided  you  wish  it ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  I  am 
willing  and  even  anxious  to  bind  you  faster,  if  I  can  be  convinced 
that  it  will,  in  any  considerable  degree,  add  to  your  happiness. 
This,  indeed,  is  the  whole  question  with  me.  Nothing  would  make 
me  more  miserable  than  to  believe  you  miserable  —  nothing  more 
happy  than  to  know  you  were  so. 

In  what  I  have  now  said,  I  think  I  cannot  be  misunderstood,  and  to 
make  myself  understood  is  the  only  object  of  this  letter. 

If  it  suits  you  best  to  not  answer  this,  farewell.  A  long  life  and  a 
merry  one  attend  you.  But  if  you  conclude  to  write  back,  speak  as 
plainly  as  I  do.  There  can  be  neither  harm  nor  danger  in  saying  to 
me  anything  you  think,  just  in  the  manner  you  think  it. 

My  respects  to  your  sister.     Your  friend, 

LINCOLN. 


April  1,  1838. — LETTER  TO  MRS.  O.  H.  BROWNING. 

SPRINGFIELD,  April  1,  1838. 

Dear  Madam  :  Without  apologizing  for  being  egotistical,  I  shall 
make  the  history  of  so  much  of  my  life  as  has  elapsed  since  I  saw 
you  the  subject  of  this  letter.  And,  by  the  way,  I  now  discover 
that  in  order  to  give  a  full  and  intelligible  account  of  the  things  I 
have  done  and  suffered  since  I  saw  you,  I  shall  necessarily  have  to 
relate  some  that  happened  before. 

It  was,  then,  in  the  autumn  of  1836  that  a  married  lady  of  my 
acquaintance,  and  who  was  a  great  friend  of  mine,  being  about  to 
pay  a  visit  to  her  father  and  other  relatives  residing  in  Kentucky, 
proposed  to  me  that  on  her  return  she  would  bring  a  sister  of  hers 
with  her  on  condition  that  I  would  engage  to  become  her  brother- 
in-law  with  all  convenient  despatch.  I,  of  course,  accepted  the  pro 
posal,  for  you  know  I  could  not  have  done  otherwise  had  I  really 
been  averse  to  it ;  but  privately,  between  you  and  me,  I  was  most 
confoundedly  well  pleased  with  the  project.  I  had  seen  the  said 
sister  some  three  years  before,  thought  her  intelligent  and  agree 
able,  and  saw  no  good  objection  to  plodding  life  through  hand  in 
hand  with  her.  Time  passed  on,  the  lady  took  her  journey  and  in 
due  time  returned,  sister  in  company,  sure  enough.  This  astonished 
me  a  little,  for  it  appeared  to  me  that  her  coming  so  readily  showed 
that  she  was  a  trifle  too  willing,  but  on  reflection  it  occurred  to  me  that 
VOL.  I.— 2. 


18  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

she  might  have  been  prevailed  on  by  her  married  sister  to  come,  with 
out  anything  concerning  me  ever  having  been  mentioned  to  her,  and  so 
I  concluded  that  if  no  other  objection  presented  itself,  I  would  con 
sent  to  waive  this.  All  this  occurred  to  me  on  hearing  of  her  arrival 
in  the  neighborhood — for,  be  it  remembered,  I  had  not  yet  seen  her, 
except  about  three  years  previous,  as  above  mentioned.  In  a  few 
days  we  had  an  interview,  and,  although  I  had  seen  her  before,  she 
did  not  look  as  my  imagination  had  pictured  her.  I  knew  she  was 
over-size,  but  she  now  appeared  a  fair  match  for  Falstaff.  I  knew 
she  was  called  an  "  old  maid,"  and  I  felt  no  doubt  of  the  truth  of  at 
least  half  of  the  appellation,  but  now,  when  I  beheld  her,  I  could 
not  for  my  life  avoid  thinking  of  my  mother  ;  and  this,  not  from 
withered  features, — for  her  skin  was  too  full  of  fat  to  permit  of  its 
contracting  into  wrinkles, — but  from  her  want  of  teeth,  weather- 
beaten  appearance  in  general,  and  from  a  kind  of  notion  that  ran  in 
my  head  that  nothing  could  have  commenced  at  the  size  of  infancy 
and  reached  her  present  bulk  in  less  than  thirty-five  or  forty  years; 
and,  in  short,  I  was  not  at  all  pleased  with  her.  But  what  could  I 
do  ?  I  had  told  her  sister  that  I  would  take  her  for  better  or  for 
worse,  and  I  made  a  point  of  honor  and  conscience  in  all  things  to 
stick  to  my  word,  especially  if  others  had  been  induced  to  act  on  itr 
which  in  this  case  I  had  no  doubt  they  had,  for  I  was  now  fairly 
convinced  that  no  other  man  on  earth  would  have  her,  and  hence 
the  conclusion  that  they  were  bent  on  holding  me  to  my  bargain. 
u  Well/7  thought  I,  "I  have  said  it,  and,  be  the  consequences  what 
they  may,  it  shall  not  be  my  fault  if  I  fail  to  do  it."  At  once  I  de 
termined  to  consider  her  my  wife,  and  this  done,  all  my  powers  of 
discovery  were  put  to  work  in  search  of  perfections  in  her  which 
might  be  fairly  set  off  against  her  defects.  I  tried  to  imagine  her 
handsome,  which,  but  for  her  unfortunate  corpulency,  was  actually 
true.  Exclusive  of  this,  no  woman  that  I  have  ever  seen  has  a  finer 
face.  I  also  tried  to  convince  myself  that  the  mind  was  much  more 
to  be  valued  than  the  person,  and  in  this  she  was  not  inferior,  as  I 
could  discover,  to  any  with  whom  I  had  been  acquainted. 

Shortly  after  this,  without  attempting  to  come  to  any  positive 
understanding  with  her,  I  set  out  for  Vandalia,  when  and  where 
you  first  saw  me.  During  my  stay  there  I  had  letters  from  her 
which  did  not  change  my  opinion  of 'either  her  intellect  or  intention, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  confirmed  it  in  both. 

All  this  while,  although  I  was  fixed  "  firm  as  the  surge-repelling 
rock n  in  my  resolution,  I  found  I  was  continually  repenting  the 
rashness  which  had  led  me  to  make  it.  Through  life  I  have  been  in 
no  bondage,  either  real  or  imaginary,  from  the  thraldom  of  which  I 
so  much  desired  to  be  free.  After  my  return  home  I  saw  nothing 
to  change  my  opinion  of  her  in  any  particular.  She  was  the  same, 
and  so  was  I.  I  now  spent  my  time  in  planning  how  I  might  get 
along  in  life  after  my  contemplated  change  of  circumstances  should 
have  taken  place,  and  how  I  might  procrastinate  the  evil  day  for  a 
time,  which  I  really  dreaded  as  much,  perhaps  more,  than  an  Irish 
man  does  the  halter. 

After  all  my  sufferings  upon  this  deeply  interesting  subject,  here 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  19 

I  am,  wholly,  unexpectedly,  completely  out  of  the  "scrape,"  and  I 
now  want  to  know  if  you  can  guess  how  I  got  out  of  it — out,  clear, 
in  every  sense  of  the  term — no  violation  of  word,  honor,  or  con 
science.  I  don't  believe  you  can  guess,  and  so  I  might  as  well  tell 
you  at  once.  As  the  lawyer  says,  it  was  done  in  the  manner  follow 
ing,  to  wit:  After  I  had  delayed  the  matter  as  long  as  I  thought  I 
could  in  honor  do  (which,  by  the  way,  had  brought  me  round  into 
the  last  fall),  I  concluded  I  might  as  well  bring  it  to  a  consummation 
without  further  delay,  and  so  I  mustered  my  resolution  and  made 
the  proposal  to  her  direct ;  but,  shocking  to  relate,  she  answered,  No. 
At  first  I  supposed  she  did  it  through  an  affectation  of  modesty, 
which  I  thought  but  ill  became  her  under  the  peculiar  circumstances 
of  her  case,  but  on  my  renewal  of  the  charge  I  found  she  repelled 
it  with  greater  firmness  than  before.  I  tried  it  again  and  again,  but 
with  the  same  success,  or  rather  with  the  same  want  of  success. 

I  finally  was  forced  to  give  it  up,  at  which  I  very  unexpectedly 
found  myself  mortified  almost  beyond  endurance.  I  was  mortified, 
it  seemed  to  me,  in  a  hundred  different  ways.  My  vanity  was  deeply 
wounded  by  the  reflection  that  I  had  so  long  been  too  stupid  to  dis 
cover  her  intentions,  and  at  the  same  time  never  doubting  that  I 
understood  them  perfectly ;  and  also  that  she,  whom  I  had  taught 
myself  to  believe  nobody  else  would  have,  had  actually  rejected  me 
with  all  my  fancied  greatness.  And,  to  cap  the  whole,  I  then  for 
the  first  time  began  to  suspect  that  I  was  really  a  little  in  love  with 
her.  But  let  it  all  go !  1 711  try  and  outlive  it.  Others  have  been 
made  fools  of  by  the  girls,  but  this  can  never  with  truth  be  said  of 
me.  I  most  emphatically,  in  this  instance,  made  a  fool  of  myself. 
1  have  now  come  to  the  conclusion  never  again  to  think  of  marry 
ing,  and  for  this  reason  —  I  can  never  be  satisfied  with  any  one  who 
would  be  blockhead  enough  to  have  me. 

When  you  receive  this,  write  me  a  long  yarn  about  something  to 
amuse  me.  Give  my  respects  to  Mr.  Browning. 

Your  sincere  friend, 

MRS.  O.  H.  BROWNING.  A.  LINCOLN. 

January  17,  1839.—  REMARKS  IN  THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE. 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES;  January  17,  1839. 
Mr.  Lincoln,  from  Committee  on  Finance,  to  which  the  subject  was 
referred,  made  a  report  on  the  subject  of  purchasing  of  the  United 
States  all  the  unsold  lands  lying  within  the  limits  of  the  State  of 
Illinois,  accompanied  by  resolutions  that  this  State  propose  to  pur 
chase  all  unsold  lauds  at  twenty -five  cents  per  acre,  and  pledging  the 
faith  of  the  State  to  carry  the  proposal  into  effect  if  the  government 
accept  the  same  within  two  years. 

Mr.  Lincoln  thought  the  resolutions  ought  to  be  seriously  consid 
ered.  In  reply  to  the  gentleman  from  Adams,  he  said  that  it  was  not 
to  enrich  the  State.  The  price  of  the  lands  may  be  raised,  it  was 
thought  by  some ;  by  others,  that  it  would  be  reduced.  The  conclu- 


20  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sion  in  his  mind  was  that  the  representatives  in  this  legislature 
from  the  country  in  which  the  lands  lie  would  be  opposed  to  raising 
the  price,  because  it  would  operate  against  the  settlement  of  the 
lands.  He  referred  to  the  lands  in  the  military  tract.  They  had 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  large  speculators  in  consequence  of  the  low 
price.  He  was  opposed  to  a  low  price  of  land.  He  thought  it  was 
adverse  to  the  interests  of  the  poor  settler,  because  speculators  buy 
them  up.  He  was  opposed  to  a  reduction  of  the  price  of  public 
lands. 

Mr.  Lincoln  referred  to  some  official  documents  emanating  from 
Indiana,  and  compared  the  progressive  population  of  the  two  States. 
Illinois  had  gained  upon  that  State  under  the  public  land  system  as 
it  is.  His  conclusion  was  that  ten  years  from  this  time  Illinois 
would  have  no  more  public  land  unsold  than  Indiana  now  has.  He 
referred  also  to  Ohio.  That  State  had  sold  nearly  all  her  public 
lands.  She  was  but  twenty  years  ahead  of  us,  and  as  our  lands  were 
equally  salable  —  more  so,  as  he  maintained  —  we  should  have  no 
more  twenty  years  from  now  than  she  has  at  present. 

Mr.  Lincoln  referred  to  the  canal  lands,  and  supposed  that  the 
policy  of  the  State  would  be  different  in  regard  to  them,  if  the  rep 
resentatives  from  that  section  of  country  could  themselves  choose 
the  policy ;  but  the  representatives  from  other  parts  of  the  State  had 
a  veto  upon  it,  and  regulated  the  policy.  He  thought  that  if  the 
State  had  all  the  lands,  the  policy  of  the  legislature  would  be  more 
liberal  to  all  sections. 

He  referred  to  the  policy  of  the  General  Government.  He  thought 
that  if  the  national  debt  had  not  been  paid,  the  expenses  of  the  gov 
ernment  would  not  have  doubled,  as  they  had  done  since  that  debt 
was  paid. 

May  11,  1839. — LETTER  TO  A.  P.  FIELD. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  May  11, 1839. 
A.  P.  FIELD,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir :  At  the  late  session  an  act  passed  both  Houses  of  leg 
islature  for  the  benefit  of  the  clerks  of  the  Circuit  Courts  of  Sanga- 
mon,  Hamilton,  and  Fayette  counties.  I  can  see  nothing  of  this 
act  in  the  printed  laws,  one  copy  of  which  has  reached  us.  I  know 
it  passed  both  Houses,  but  I  am  a  little  suspicious  it  has  not  been 
duly  acted  on  by  the  Council  of  Revision.  Will  you  please  learn 
and  write  us  what  condition  it  is  in,  and  also  send  us  a  copy  of  the 
act  ?  Mr.  Butler  will  pay  the  charge  on  sight.  Your  friend, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


November  14, 1839. —  LETTER  TO  JOHN  T.  STUART. 

SPRINGFIELD,  November  14,  1839. 

Dear  Stuart :  I  have  been  to  the  secretary's  office  within  the  last 
hour,  and  find  things  precisely  as  you  left  them.  No  new  arrivals 
of  returns  on  either  side.  Douglas^has  not  been  here  since  you  left. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  21 

A  report  is  in  circulation  here  now  that  he  has  abandoned  the  idea 
of  going  to  Washington,  though  the  report  does  not  come  in  a  very 
authentic  form,  so  far  as  I  can  learn.  Though,  by  the  way,  speak 
ing  of  authenticity,  you  know  that  if  we  had  heard  Douglas*  say  that 
he  had  abandoned  the  contest,  it  would  not  be  very  authentic. 
There  is  no  news  here.  Noah,  I  still  think,  will  be  elected  very  eas 
ily.  I  am  afraid  of  our  race  for  representative.  Dr.  Knapp  has 
become  a  candidate,  and  I  fear  the  few  votes  he  will  get  will  be 
taken  from  us.  Also  some  one  has  been  tampering  with  old  Es 
quire  Wicoff,  and  induced  him  to  send  in  his  name  to  be  announced 
as  a  candidate.  Francis  refused  to  announce  him  without  seeing 
him,  and  now  I  suppose  there  is  to  be  a  fuss  about  it.  I  have  been 
so  busy  that  I  have  not  seen  Mrs.  Stuart  since  you  left,  though  I 
understand  she  wrote  you  by  to-day's  mail,  which  will  inform  you 
more  about  her  than  I  could.  The  very  moment  a  Speaker  is 
elected,  write  me  who  he  is.  Your  friend  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


December  [20?],  1839. —  SPEECH  AT  A  POLITICAL  DISCUSSION 

IN  THE  HALL  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES  AT 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS. 

(From  a  pamphlet  copy  in  possession  of  Hon.  T.  J.  Henderson,  Illinois.) 

Fellow-citizens:  It  is  peculiarly  embarrassing  to  me  to  attempt 
a  continuance  of  the  discussion,  on  this  evening,  which  has  been 
conducted  in  this  hall  on  several  preceding  ones.  It  is  so  because 
on  each  of  those  evenings  there  was  a  much  fuller  attendance  than 
now,  without  any  reason  for  its  being  so,  except  the  greater  interest 
the  community  feel  in  the  speakers  who  addressed  them  then  than 
they  do  in  him  who  is  to  do  so  now.  I  am,  indeed,  apprehensive 
that  the  few  who  have  attended  have  done  so  more  to  spare  me 
mortification  than  in  the  hope  of  being  interested  in  anything  I 
may  be  able  to  say.  This  circumstance  casts  a  damp  upon  my 
spirits,  which  I  am  sure  I  shall  be  unable  to  overcome  during  the 
evening.  But  enough  of  preface. 

The  subject  heretofore  and  now  to  be  discussed  is  the  subtrea- 
sury  scheme  of  the  present  administration,  as  a  means  of  collecting, 
safe-keeping,  transferring,  and  disbursing  the  revenues  of  the 
nation,  as  contrasted  with  a  national  bank  for  the  same  purposes. 
Mr.  Douglas  has  said  that  we  (the  Whigs)  have  not  dared  to  meet 
them  (the  Locos)  in  argument  on  this  question.  I  protest  against 
this  assertion.  I  assert  that  we  have  again  and  again,  during  this 
discussion,  urged  facts  and  arguments  against  the  subtreasury 
which  they  have  neither  dared  to  deny  nor  attempted  to  answer. 
But  lest  some  may  be  led  to  believe  that  we  really  wish  to  avoid 
the  question,  I  now  propose,  in  my  humble  way,  to  urge  those  argu 
ments  again ;  at  the  same  time  begging  the  audience  to  mark  well 
the  positions  I  shall  take  and  the  proof  I  shall  offer  to  sustain  them, 
and  that  they  will  not  again  permit  Mr.  Douglas  or  his  friends  to  es- 


22  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

cape  the  force  of  them  by  a  round  and  groundless  assertion  that  we 
"  dare  not  meet  them  in  argument.'7 

Of  the  subtreasury,  then,  as  contrasted  with  a  national  bank  for 
the  before  enumerated  purposes,  I  lay  down  the  following  proposi 
tions,  to  wit :  (1)  It  will  injuriously  affect  the  community  by  its 
operation  on  the  circulating  medium.  (2)  It  will  be  a  more  expen 
sive  fiscal  agent.  (3)  It  will  be  a  less  secure  depository  of  the  public 
money.  To  show  the  truth  of  the  first  proposition,  let  us  take  a 
short  review  of  our  condition  under  the  operation  of  a  national  bank. 
It  was  the  depository  of  the  public  revenues.  Between  the  collec 
tion  of  those  revenues  and  the  disbursement  of  them  by  the  govern 
ment,  the  bank  was  permitted  to  and  did  actually  loan  them  out  to 
individuals,  and  hence  the  large  amount  of  money  annually  collected 
for  revenue  purposes,  which  by  any  other  plan  would  have  been  idle 
a  great  portion  of  the  time,  was  kept  almost  constantly  in  circula 
tion.  Any  person  who  will  reflect  that  money  is  only  valuable  while 
in  circulation,  will  readily  perceive  that  any  device  which  will  keep 
the  government  revenues  in  constant  circulation,  instead  of  being- 
locked  up  in  idleness,  is  no  inconsiderable  advantage.  By  the  sub- 
treasury  the  revenue  is  to  be  collected  and  kept  in  iron  boxes  until 
the  government  wants  it  for  disbursement ;  thus  robbing  the  people 
of  the  use  of  it,  while  the  government  does  not  itself  need  it,  and 
while  the  money  is  performing  no  nobler  office  than  that  of  rusting 
in  iron  boxes.  The  natural  effect  of  this  change  of  policy,  every 
one  will  see,  is  to  reduce  the  quantity  of  money  in  circulation.  But, 
again,  by  the  subtreasury  scheme  the  revenue  is  to  be  collected  in 
specie.  I  anticipate  that  this  will  be  disputed.  I  expect  to  hear  it 
said  that  it  is  not  the  policy  of  the  administration  to  collect  the  rev 
enue  in  specie.  If  it  shall,  I  reply  that  Mr.  Van  Buren,  in  his  mes 
sage  recommending  the  subtreasury,  expended  nearly  a  column  of 
that  document  in  an  attempt  to  persuade  Congress  to  provide  for 
the  collection  of  the  revenue  in  specie  exclusively ;  and  he  concludes 
with  these  words:  "It  may  be  safely  assumed  that  no  motive  of 
convenience  to  the  citizen  requires  the  reception  of  bank  paper."  In 
addition  to  this,  Mr.  Silas  Wright,  senator  from  New- York,  and  the 
political,  personal,  and  confidential  friend  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  drafted 
and  introduced  into  the  Senate  the  first  subtreasury  bill,  and  that 
bill  provided  for  ultimately  collecting  the  revenue  in  specie.  It  is 
true,  I  know,  that  that  clause  was  stricken  from  the  bill,  but  it  was 
done  by  the  votes  of  the  Whigs,  aided  by  a  portion  only  of  the  Van 
Buren  senators.  No  subtreasury  bill  has  yet  become  a  law,  though 
two  or  three  have  been  considered  by  Congress,  some  with  and  some 
without  the  specie  clause ;  so  that  I  admit  there  is  room  for  quib 
bling  upon  the  question  of  whether  the  administration  favor  the 
exclusive  specie  doctrine  or  not ;  but  I  take  it  that  the  fact  that  the 
President  at  first  urged  the  specie  doctrine,  and  that  under  his 
recommendation  the  first  bill  introduced  embraced  it,  warrants  us  in 
charging  it  as  the  policy  of  the  party  until  their  head  as  publicly 
recants  it  as  he  at  first  espoused  it.  I  repeat,  then,  that  by  the  sub- 
treasury  the  revenue  is  to  be  collected  in  specie.  Now  mark  what 
the  effect  of  this  must  be.  By  all  estimates  ever  made  there  are  but 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


23 


between  sixty  and  eighty  millions  of  specie  in  the  United  States. 
The  expenditures  of  the  Government  for  the  year  1838 — the  last  for 
which  we  have  had  the  report — were  forty  millions.  Thns  it  is  seen 
that  if  the  whole  revenue  be  collected  in  specie,  it  will  take  more 
than  half  of  all  the  specie  in  the  nation  to  do  it.  By  this  means 
more  than  half  of  all  the  specie  belonging  to  the  fifteen  millions  of 
souls  who  compose  the  whole  population  of  the  country  is  thrown 
into  the  hands  of  the  public-office  holders,  and  other  public  creditors, 
composing  in  number  perhaps  not  more  than  one  quarter  of  a  mil 
lion,  leaving  the  other  fourteen  millions  and  three  quarters  to  get 
along  as  they  best  can,  with  less  than  one  half  of  the  specie  of  the 
country,  and  whatever  rags  and  shin  plasters  they  may  be  able  to 
put,  and  keep,  in  circulation.  By  this  means,  every  office-holder  and 
other  public  creditor  may,  and  most  likely  will,  set  up  shaver ;  and 
a  most  glorious  harvest  will  the  specie-men  have  of  it, — each  specie- 
man,  upon  a  fair  division,  having  to  his  share  the  fleecing  of  about 
fifty-nine  rag-men.1  In  all  candor  let  me  ask,  was  such  a  system 
for  benefiting  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many  ever  before  devised  ? 
And  was  the  sacred  name  of  Democracy  ever  before  made  to  indorse 
such  an  enormity  against  the  rights  of  the  people  f 

I  have  already  said  that  the  subtreasury  will  reduce  the  quantity 
of  money  in  circulation.  This  position  is  strengthened  by  the  rec 
ollection  that  the  revenue  is  to  be  collected  in  specie,  so  that  the 
mere  amount  of  revenue  is  not  all  that  is  withdrawn,  but  the 
amount  of  paper  circulation  that  the  forty  millions  would  serve  as 


l  On  January  4,  1839,  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States  passed  the  following  resolu 
tion,  to  wit : 

"Resolved,  That  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  be  directed  to  communicate  to  the 
Senate  any  information  he  may  recently 
have  received  in  respect  to  the  mode  of  col 
lecting,  keeping,  and  disbursing  public 
moneys  in  foreign  countries." 

Under  this  resolution,  the  Secretary  com 
municated  to  the  Senate  a  letter,  the  fol 
lowing  extract  from  which  clearly  shows 
that  the  collection  of  the  revenue  in  specie 
will  establish  a  sound  currency  for  the  of 
fice-holders,  and  a  depreciated  one  for  the 
people;  and  that  the  office-holders  and 
other  public  creditors  will  turn  shavers 
upon  all  the  rest  of  the  community.  Here 
is  the  extract  from  the  letter,  being  all  of 
it  that  relates  to  the  question: 

"  HAGUE,  October  12,  1838. 

"  The  financial  system  of  Hamburg  is,  as 
far  as  is  known,  very  simple,  as  may  be 
supposed  from  so  small  a  territory.  The 
whole  amount  of  Hamburg  coined  money 
is  about  four  and  a  half  millions  of  marks 
current,  or  one  million  two  hundred  and 
eighty-two  thousand  five  hundred  dollars  ; 
and,  except  under  very  extraordinary  cir 
cumstances,  not  more  than  one  half  that 
amount  is  in  circulation,  and  all  duties,  taxes, 
and  excise  must  be  paid  in  Hamburg  cur 
rency.  The  consequence  is  that  it  invaria 


bly  commands  a  premium  of  one  to  three 
per  centum.  Every  year  one  senator  and 
ten  citizens  are  appointed  to  transact  the 
whole  of  the  financial  concern,  both  as  to 
receipt  and  disbursement  of  the  funds, 
which  is  always  in  cash,  and  is  every  day 
deposited  in  the  bank,  to  the  credit  of  the 
chancery ;  and,  on  being  paid  out,  the  citi 
zen  to  whose  department  the  payment  be 
longs  must  appear  personally  with  the 
check  or  order,  stating  the  amount  and  to 
whom  to  be  paid.  The  person  receiving 
very  seldom  keeps  the  money,  preferring 
to  dispose  of  it  to  a  money-changer  at  a 
premium,  and  taking  other  coin  at  a  dis 
count,  of  which  there  is  a  great  variety  and 
a  large  amount  constantly  in  circulation, 
and  on  which  in  his  daily  payment  he  loses 
nothing ;  and  those  who  have  payments 
to  make  to  the  government  apply  to  the 
money-changers  again  for  Hamburg  cur 
rency,  which  keeps  it  in  constant  motion, 
and  I  believe  it  frequently  occurs  that  the 
bags,  which  are  sealed  and  labeled  with 
the  amount,  are  returned  again  to  the  bank 
without  being  opened. 

"With  great  respect,  your  obedient  ser 
vant,  JOHN  CUTHBERT. 
"  To  the  Hon.  LEVI  WOODBUBY, 

"Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
Washington,  D.  C." 

This  letter  is  found  in  Senate  document, 
p.  113  of  the  session  of  1838-9. 


24  ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

a  basis  to  is  withdrawn,  which  would  be  in  a  sound  state  at  least 
one  hundred  millions.  When  one  hundred  millions,  or  more,  of 
the  circulation  we  now  have  shall  be  withdrawn,  who  can  contem 
plate  without  terror  the  distress,  ruin,  bankruptcy,  and  beggary 
that  must  follow.  The  man  who  has  purchased  any  article  —  say  a 
horse  —  on  credit,  at  one  hundred  dollars,  when  there  are  two  hun 
dred  millions  circulating  in  the  country,  if  the  quantity  be  reduced 
to  one  hundred  millions  by  the  arrival  of  pay-day,  will  find  the 
horse  but  sufficient  to  pay  half  the  debt ;  and  the  other  half  must 
either  be  paid  out  of  his  other  means,  and  thereby  become  a  clear 
loss  to  him,  or  go  unpaid,  and  thereby  become  a  clear  loss  to  his 
creditor.  What  I  have  here  said  of  a  single  case  of  the  purchase 
of  a  horse  will  hold  good  in  every  case  of  a  debt  existing  at  the 
time  a  reduction  in  the  quantity  of  money  occurs,  by  whomsoever, 
and  for  whatsoever,  it  may  have  been  contracted.  It  may  be  said 
that  what  the  debtor  loses  the  creditor  gains  by  this  operation ;  but 
on  examination  this  will  be  found  true  only  to  a  very  limited  ex 
tent.  It  is  more  generally  true  that  all  lose  by  it  —  the  creditor  by 
losing  more  of  his  debts  than  he  gains  by  the  increased  value  of 
those  he  collects  ;  the  debtor  by  either  parting  with  more  of  his 
property  to  pay  his  debts  than  he  received  in  contracting  them,  or 
by  entirely  breaking  up  his  business,  and  thereby  being  thrown 
upon  the  world  in  idleness. 

The  general  distress  thus  created  will,  to  be  sure,  be  temporary, 
because  whatever  change  may  occur  in  the  quantity  of  money  in  any 
community,  time  will  adjust  the  derangement  produced ;  but  while 
that  adjustment  is  progressing,  all  suffer  more  or  less,  and  very 
many  lose  everything  that  renders  life  desirable.  Why,  then,  shall 
we  suffer  a  severe  difficulty,  even  though  it  be  but  temporary,  unless 
we  receive  some  equivalent  for  it  ? 

What  I  have  been  saying  as  to  the  effect  produced  by  a  reduction 
of  the  quantity  of  money  relates  to  the  whole  country.  I  now  pro 
pose  to  show  that  it  would  produce  a  peculiar  and  permanent  hard 
ship  upon  the  citizens  of  those  States  and  Territories  in  which  the 
public  lands  lie.  The  land-offices  in  those  States  and  Territories,  as 
all  know,  form  the  great  gulf  by  which  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  money 
in  them  is  swallowed  up.  When  the  quantity  of  money  shall  be  re 
duced,  and  consequently  everything  under  individual  control  brought 
down  in  proportion,  the  price  of  those  lands,  being  fixed  by  law,  will 
remain  as  now.  Of  necessity  it  will  follow  that  the  produce  or  labor 
that  now  raises  money  sufficient  to  purchase  eighty  acres  will  then 
raise  but  sufficient  to  purchase  forty,  or  perhaps  not  that  much ;  and 
this  difficulty  and  hardship  will  last  as  long,  in  some  degree,  as  any 
portion  of  these  lands  shall  remain  undisposed  of.  Knowing,  as  I 
well  do,  the  difficulty  that  poor  people  now  encounter  in  procuring 
homes,  I  hesitate  not  to  say  that  when  the  price  of  the  public  lands 
shall  be  doubled  or  trebled,  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  produce  and 
labor  cut  down  to  one  half  or  one  third  of  their  present  prices,  it  will 
be  little  less  than  impossible  for  them  to  procure  those  homes  at  all. 

In  answer  to  what  I  have  said  as  to  the  effect  the  subtreasury 
would  have  upon  the  currency,  it  is  often  urged  that  the  money  col- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  25 

lected  for  revenue  purposes  will  not  lie  idle  in  the  vaults  of  the 
treasury;  and,  farther,  that' a  national  bank  produces  greater  de 
rangement  in  the  currency,  by  a  system  of  contractions  and  expan 
sions,  than  the  subtreasury  would  produce  in  any  way.  In  reply,  1 
need  only  show  that  experience  proves  the  contrary  of  both  these 
propositions.  It  is  an  undisputed  fact  that  the  late  Bank  of  the 
United  States  paid  the  government  $75,000  annually  for  the  privi 
lege  of  using  the  public  money  between  the  times  of  its  collection 
and  disbursement.  Can  any  man  suppose  that  the  bank  would  have 
paid  this  sum  annually  for  twenty  years,  and  then  offered  to  renew 
its  obligations  to  do  so,  if  in  reality  there  was  no  time  intervening 
between  the  collection  and  disbursement  of  the  revenue,  and  con 
sequently  no  privilege  of  using  the  money  extended  to  it  ?  Again, 
as  to  the  contractions  and  expansions  of  a  national  bank,  I  need  only 
point  to  the  period  intervening  between  the  time  that  the  late 
bank  got  into  successful  operation  and  that  at  which  the  govern 
ment  commenced  war  upon  it,  to  show  that  during  that  period  no 
such  contractions  or  expansions  took  place.  If,  before  or  after  that 
period,  derangement  occurred  in  the  currency,  it  proves  nothing. 
The  bank  could  not  be  expected  to  regulate  the  currency,  either 
before  it  got  into  successful  operation,  or  after  it  was  crippled  and 
thrown  into  death  convulsions,  by  the  removal  of  the  deposits  from 
it,  and  other  hostile  measures  of  the  government  against  it.  We 
do  not  pretend  that  a  national  bank  can  establish  and  maintain  a 
sound  and  uniform  state  of  currency  in  the  country,  in  spite  of  the 
National  Government;  but  we  do  say  that  it  has  established  and 
maintained  such  a  currency,  and  can  do  so  again,  by  the  aid  of  that 
government ;  and  we  further  say  that  no  duty  is  more  imperative  on 
that  government  than  the  duty  it  owes  the  people  of  furnishing 
them  a  sound  and  uniform  currency. 

I  now  leave  the  proposition  as  to  the  effect  of  the  subtreasury 
upon  the  currency  of  the  country,  and  pass  to  that  relative  to  the 
additional  expense  which  must  be  incurred  by  it  over  that  incurred 
by  a  national  bank  as  a  fiscal  agent  of  the  government.  By  the  late 
national  bank  we  had  the  public  revenue  received,  safely  kept,  trans 
ferred,  and  disbursed,  not  only  without  expense,  but  we  actually 
received  of  the  bank  $75,000  annually  for  its  privileges  while  ren 
dering  us  those  services.  By  the  subtreasury,  according  to  the  esti 
mate  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who  is  the  warm  advocate  of 
the  system  (and  which  estimate  is  the  lowest  made  by  any  one),  the 
same  services  are  to  cost  $60,000.  Mr.  Rives,  who,  to  say  the  least, 
is  equally  talented  and  honest,  estimates  that  these  services,  under 
the  subtreasury  system,  cannot  cost  less  than  $600,000.  For  the  sake 
of  liberality,  let  us  suppose  that  the  estimates  of  the  secretary  and 
Mr.  Rives  are  the  two  extremes,  and  that  their  mean  is  about  the 
true  estimate,  and  we  shall  then  find  that  when  to  that  sum  is  added 
the  $75,000  which  the  bank  paid  us,  the  difference  between  the 
two  systems,  in  favor  of  the  bank  and  against  the  subtreasury,  is 
$405,000  a  year.  This  sum,  though  small  when  compared  to  the 
many  millions  annually  expended  by  the  General  Government,  is, 
when  viewed  by  itself,  very  large ;  and  much  too  large,  when  viewed 


26  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

in  any  light,  to  be  thrown  away  once  a  year  for  nothing.  It  is  suf 
ficient  to  pay  the  pensions  of  more  than  four  thousand  Revolution 
ary  soldiers,  or  to  purchase  a  forty-acre  tract  of  government  land 
for  each  one  of  more  than  eight  thousand  poor  families. 

To  the  argument  against  the  subtreasury,  on  the  score  of  addi 
tional  expense,  its  friends,  so  far  as  I  know,  attempt  no  answer. 
They  choose,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  to  treat  the  throwing  away  of 
$405,000  once  a  year  as  a  matter  entirely  too  small  to  merit  their 
Democratic  notice. 

I  now  come  to  the  proposition  that  it  would  be  less  secure  than  a 
national  bank  as  a  depository  of  the  public  money.  The  experience 
of  the  past,  I  think,  proves  the  truth  of  this.  And  here,  inasmuch 
as  I  rely  chiefly  upon  experience  to  establish  it,  let  me  ask  how  is  it 
that  we  know  anything — that  any  event  will  occur,  that  any  combi 
nation  of  circumstances  will  produce  a  certain  result —  except  by  the 
analogies  of  past  experience?  What  has  once  happened  will  invari 
ably  happen  again  when  the  same  circumstances  which  combined  to 
produce  it  shall  again  combine  in  the  same  way.  We  all  feel  that 
we  know  that  a  blast  of  wind  would  extinguish  the  flame  of  the 
candle  that  stands  by  me.  How  do  we  know  it?  We  have  never 
seen  this  flame  thus  extinguished.  We  know  it  because  we  have 
seen  through  all  our  lives  that  a  blast  of  wind  extinguishes  the 
flame  of  a  candle  whenever  it  is  thrown  fully  upon  it.  Again,  we  all 
feel  to  know  that  we  have  to  die.  How?  We  have  never  died  yet. 
We  know  it  because  we  know,  or  at  least  think  we  know,  that  of  all 
the  beings,  just  like  ourselves,  who  have  been  coming  into  the  world 
for  six  thousand  years,  not  one  is  now  living  who  was  here  two  hun 
dred  years  ago.  I  repeat,  then,  that  we  know  nothing  of  what  will 
happen  in  future,  but  by  the  analogy  of  experience,  and  that  the  fair 
analogy  of  past  experience  fully  proves  that  the  subtreasury  would 
be  a  less  safe  depository  of  the  public  money  than  a  national  bank. 
Examine  it.  By  the  subtreasury  scheme  the  public  money  is  to  be 
kept,  between  the  times  of  its  collection  and  disbursement,  by  trea 
surers  of  the  mint,  custom-house  officers,  land  officers,  and  some  new 
officers  to  be  appointed  in  the  same  way  that  those  first  enumerated 
are.  Has  a  year  passed,  since  the  organization  of  the  government, 
that  numerous  defalcations  have  not  occurred  among  this  class  of 
officers?  Look  at  Swartwout  with  his  $1,200,000,  Price  with  his 
$75,000,  Harris  with  his  $109,000,  Hawkins  with  his  $100,000,  Linn 
with  his  $55,000,  together  with  some  twenty-five  hundred  lesser 
lights.  Place  the  public  money  again  in  these  same  hands,  and  will 
it  not  again  go  the  same  way  ?  Most  assuredly  it  will.  But  turn  to 
the  history  of  the  national  banks  in  this  country,  and  we  shall  there 
see  that  those  banks  performed  the  fiscal  operations  of  the  govern 
ment  through  a  period  of  forty  years,  received,  safely  kept,  trans 
ferred,  disbursed  an  aggregate  of  nearly  five  hundred  millions  of 
dollars;  and  that,  in  all  this  time,  and  with  all  that  money,  not  one 
dollar,  nor  one  cent,  did  the  government  lose  by  them.  Place  the 
public  money  again  in  a  similar  depository,  and  will  it  not  again  be 
safe.  But,  conclusive  as  the  experience  of  fifty  years  is  that  indi 
viduals  are  unsafe  depositories  of  the  public  money,  and  of  forty 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  27 

years  that  national  banks  are  safe  depositories,  we  are  not  left  to 
rely  solely  upon  that  experience  for  the  truth  of  those  propositions. 
If  experience  were  silent  upon  the  subject,  conclusive  reasons  could 
be  shown  for  the  truth  of  them. 

It  is  often  urged  that  to  say  the  public  money  will  be  more  secure 
in  a  national  bank  than  in  the  hands  of  individuals,  as  proposed  in 
the  subtreasury,  is  to  say  that  bank  directors  and  bank  officers  are 
more  honest  than  sworn  officers  of  the  government.  Not  so.  We 
insist  on  no  such  thing.  We  say  that  public  officers,  selected  with 
reference  to  their  capacity  and  honesty  (which,  by  the  way,  we  deny 
is  the  practice  in  these  days),  stand  an  equal  chance,  precisely,  of 
being  capable  and  honest  with  bank  officers  selected  by  the  same 
rule.  We  further  say  that  with  however  much  care  selections  may 
be  made,  there  will  be  some  unfaithful  and  dishonest  in  both  classes. 
The  experience  of  the  whole  world,  in  all  bygone  times,  proves  this 
true.  The  Saviour  of  the  world  chose  twelve  disciples,  and  even  one 
of  that  small  number,  selected  by  superhuman  wisdom,  turned  out 
a  traitor  and  a  devil.  And  it  may  not  be  improper  here  to  add  that 
Judas  carried  the  bag — was  the  sub  treasurer  of  the  Saviour  and  his 
disciples.  We,  then,  do  not  say  —  nor  need  we  say  to  maintain  our 
proposition — that  bank  officers  are  more  honest  than  government 
officers  selected  by  the  same  rule.  What  we  do  say  is  that  the  inter 
est  of  the  subtreasurer  is  against  his  duty,  while  the  interest  of  the 
bank  is  on  the  side  of  its  duty.  Take  instances:  A  subtreasurer 
has  in  his  hands  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  of  public  money; 
his  duty  says,  "  You  ought  to  pay  this  money  over,"  but  his  interest 
says,  "  You  ought  to  run  away  with  this  sum,  and  be  a  nabob  the 
balance  of  your  life."  And  who  that  knows  anything  of  human 
nature  doubts  that  in  many  instances  interest  will  prevail  over  duty, 
and  that  the  subtreasurer  will  prefer  opulent  knavery  in  a  foreign 
land  to  honest  poverty  at  home  ?  But  how  different  is  it  with  a 
bank.  Besides  the  government  money  deposited  with  it,  it  is  doing 
business  upon  a  large  capital  of  its  own.  If  it  proves  faithful  to  the 
government,  it  continues  its  business ;  if  unfaithful,  it  forfeits  its 
charter,  breaks  up  its  business,  and  thereby  loses  more  than  all  it 
can  make  by  seizing  upon  the  government  funds  in  its  possession. 
Its  interest,  therefore,  is  on  the  side  of  its  duty — is  to  be  faithful  to 
the  government,  and  consequently  even  the  dishonest  amongst  its 
managers  have  no  temptation  to  be  faithless  to  it.  Even  if  robber 
ies  happen  in  the  bank,  the  losses  are  borne  by  the  bank,  and  the 
government  loses  nothing.  It  is  for  this  reason,  then,  that  we  say 
a  bank  is  the  more  secure.  It  is  because  of  that  admirable  feature 
in  the  bank  system  which  places  the  interest  and  the  duty  of  the 
depository  both  on  one  side  j  whereas  that  feature  can  never  enter 
into  the  subtreasury  system.  By  the  latter  the  interest  of  the  indi 
viduals  keeping  the  public  money  will  wage  an  eternal  war  with 
their  duty,  and  in  very  many  instances  must  be  victorious.  In  an 
swer  to  the  argument  drawn  from  the  fact  that  individual  depos 
itories  of  public  money  have  always  proved  unsafe,  it  is  urged  that, 
even  if  we  had  a  national  bank,  the  money  has  to  pass  through  the 
same  individual  hands  that  it  will  under  the  subtreasurv.  This  is 


28  ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

only  partially  true  in  fact,  and  wholly  fallacious  in  argument.  It  is 
only  partially  true  in  fact,  because  by  the  subtreasury  bill  four  re 
ceivers-general  are  to  be  appointed  by  the  President  and  Senate. 
These  are  new  officers,  and  consequently  it  cannot  be  true  that  the 
money,  or  any  portion  of  it,  has  heretofore  passed  through  their 
hands.  These  four  new  officers  are  to  be  located  at  New  York,  Bos 
ton,  Charleston,  and  St.  Louis,  and  consequently  are  to  be  deposi 
tories  of  all  the  money  collected  at  or  near  those  points;  so  that 
more  than  three  fourths  of  the  public  money  will  fall  into  the  keep 
ing  of  these  four  new  officers,  who  did  not  exist  as  officers  under 
the  national-bank  system.  It  is  only  partially  true,  then,  that  the 
money  passes  through  the  same  hands,  under  a  national  bank,  as  it 
would  do  under  the  subtreasury.  It  is  true  that  under  either  system 
individuals  must  be  employed  as  collectors  of  the  customs,  receivers 
at  the  land-offices,  etc.,  but  the  difference  is  that  under  the  bank 
system  the  receivers  of  all  sorts  receive  the  money  and  pay  it  over 
to  the  bank  once  a  week  when  the  collections  are  large,  and  once  a 
month  when  they  are  small;  whereas  by  the  subtreasury  system  in 
dividuals  are  not  only  to  collect  the  money,  but  they  are  to  keep  it 
also,  or  pay  it  over  to  other  individuals  equally  unsafe  as  them 
selves,  to  be  by  them  kept  until  it  is  wanted  for  disbursement.  It 
is  during  the  time  that  it  is  thus  lying  idle  in  their  hands  that  op 
portunity  is  afforded  and  temptation  held  out  to  them  to  embezzle 
and  escape  with  it.  By  the  bank  system  each  collector  or  receiver 
is  to  deposit  in  bank  all  the  money  in  his  hands  at  the  end  of  each 
month  at  most,  and  to  send  the  bank  certificates  of  deposit  to  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Whenever  that  certificate  of  deposit  fails 
to  arrive  at  the  proper  time,  the  secretary  knows  that  the  officer  thus 
failing  is  acting  the  knave ;  and,  if  he  is  himself  disposed  to  do  his 
duty,  he  has  him  immediately  removed  from  office,  and  thereby  cuts 
him  off  from  the  possibility  of  embezzling  but  little  more  than  the 
receipts  of  a  single  month.  But  by  the  subtreasury  system  the 
money  is  to  lie  month  after  month  in  the  hands  of  individuals ; 
larger  amounts  are  to  accumulate  in  the  hands  of  the  receivers-gen 
eral  and  some  others,  by  perhaps  ten  to  one,  than  ever  accumulated 
in  the  hands  of  individuals  before ;  yet  during  all  this  time,  in  rela 
tion  to  this  great  stake,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  can  compara 
tively  know  nothing.  Reports,  to  be  sure,  he  will  have;  but  reports 
are  often  false,  and  always  false  when  made  by  a  knave  to  cloak  his 
knavery.  Long  experience  has  shown  that  nothing  short  of  an  ac 
tual  demand  of  the  money  will  expose  an  adroit  peculator.  Ask  him 
for  reports,  and  he  will  give  them  to  your  heart's  content;  send 
agents  to  examine  and  count  the  money  in  his  hands,  and  he  will 
borrow  of  a  friend,  merely  to  be  counted  and  then  returned,  a  suffi 
cient  sum  to  make  the  sum  square.  Try  what  you  will,  it  will  all 
fail  till  you  demand  the  money ;  then,  and  not  till  then,  the  truth 
will  come. 

The  sum  of  the  whole  matter  I  take  to  be  this :  Under  the  bank 
system,  while  sums  of  money,  by  the  law,  were  permitted  to  lie  in 
the  hands  of  individuals  for  very  short  periods  only,  many  and  very 
large  defalcations  occurred  by  those  individuals.  Under  the  sub- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  29 

treasury  system  much  larger  sums  are  to  lie  in  the  hands  of  indi 
viduals  for  much  longer  periods,  thereby  multiplying  temptation  in 
proportion  as  the  sums  are  larger,  and  multiplying  opportunity  in 
proportion  as  the  periods  are  longer  to  and  for  those  individuals  to 
embezzle  and  escape  with  the  public  treasure ;  and  therefore,  just 
in  the  proportion  that  the  temptation  and  the  opportunity  are  greater 
under  the  subtreasury  than  the  bank  system,  will  the  peculations 
and  defalcations  be  greater  under  the  former  than  they  have  been 
under  the  latter.  The  truth  of  this,  independent  of  actual  experi 
ence,  is  but  little  less  than  self-evident.  I  therefore  leave  it. 

But  it  is  said,  and  truly  too,  that  there  is  to  be  a  penitentiary 
department  to  the  subtreasury.  This,  the  advocates  of  the  system 
will  have  it,  will  be  a  "  king  cure-all."  Before  I  go  farther,  may  I 
not  ask  if  the  penitentiary  department  is  not  itself  an  admission 
that  they  expect  the  public  money  to  be  stolen?  Why  build  the 
cage  if  they  expect  to  catch  no  birds?  But  as  to  the  question  how 
effectual  the  penitentiary  will  be  in  preventing  defalcations.  How 
effectual  have  penitentiaries  heretofore  been  in  preventing  the 
crimes  they  were  established  to  suppress  I  Has  not  confinement  in 
them  long  been  the  legal  penalty  of  larceny,  forgery,  robbery,  and 
many  other  crimes,  in  almost  all  the  States  ?  And  yet  are  not  those 
crimes  committed  weekly,  daily, — nay,  and  even  hourly, — in  every 
one  of  those  States?  Again,  the  gallows  has  long  been  the  penalty 
of  murder,  and  yet  we  scarcely  open  a  newspaper  that  does  not 
relate  a  new  case  of  that  crime.  If,  then,  the  penitentiary  has  ever  here 
tofore  failed  to  prevent  larceny,  forgery,  and  robbery,  and  the  gal 
lows  and  halter  have  likewise  failed  to  prevent  murder,  by  what 
process  of  reasoning,  I  ask,  is  it  that  we  are  to  conclude  the  peni 
tentiary  will  hereafter  prevent  the  stealing  of  the  public  money? 
But  our  opponents  seem  to  think  they  answer  the  charge  that  the 
money  will  be  stolen  fully  if  they  can  show  that  they  will  bring 
the  offenders  to  punishment.  Not  so.  Will  the  punishment  of  the 
thief  bring  back  the  stolen  money  ?  No  more  so  than  the  hanging 
of  a  murderer  restores  his  victim  to  life.  What  is  the  object  desired  ? 
Certainly  not  the  greatest  number  of  thieves  we  can  catch,  but  that 
the  money  may  not  be  stolen.  If,  then,  any  plan  can  be  devised  for 
depositing  the  public  treasure  where  it  will  never  be  stolen,  never 
embezzled,  is  not  that  the  plan  to  be  adopted?  Turn,  then,  to  a 
national  bank,  and  you  have  that  plan,  fully  and  completely  success 
ful,  as  tested  by  the  experience  of  forty  years. 

I  have  now  done  with  the  three  propositions  that  the  subtrea 
sury  would  injuriously  affect  the  currency,  and  would  be  more  ex 
pensive  and  less  secure  as  a  depository  of  the  public  money  than 
a  national  bank.  How  far  I  have  succeeded  in  establishing  their 
truth,  is  for  others  to  judge.  Omitting,  for  want  of  time,  what  I 
had  intended  to  say  as  to  the  effect  of  the  subtreasury  to  bring  the 
public  money  under  the  more  immediate  control  of  the  President 
than  it  has  ever  heretofore  been,  I  now  ask  the  audience,  when  Mr. 
Calhoun  shall  answer  me,  to  hold  him  to  the  questions.  Permit  him 
not  to  escape  them.  Require  him  either  to  show  that  the  subtreasury 
would  not  injuriously  affect  the  currency,  or  that  we  should  in  some 


30  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

way  receive  an  equivalent  for  that  injurious  effect.  Require  him 
either  to  show  that  the  subtreasury  would  not  be  more  expensive  as 
a  fiscal  agent  than  a  bank,  or  that  we  should  in  some  way  be  com 
pensated  for  that  additional  expense.  And  particularly  require  him 
to  show  that  the  public  money  would  be  as  secure  in  the  subtrea 
sury  as  in  a  national  bank,  or  that  the  additional  insecurity  would 
be  overbalanced  by  some  good  result  of  the  proposed  change. 

No  one  of  them,  in  my  humble  judgment,  will  he  be  able  to  do ;. 
and  I  venture  the  prediction,  and  ask  that  it  may  be  especially 
noted,  that  he  will  not  attempt  to  answer  the  proposition  that  the 
subtreasury  would  be  more  expensive  than  a  national  bank  as  a 
fiscal  agent  of  the  government. 

As  a  sweeping  objection  to  a  national  bank,  and  consequently  an 
argument  in  favor  of  the  subtreasury  as  a  substitute  for  it,  it  often 
has  been  urged,  and  doubtless  will  be  again,  that  such  a  bank  is  un 
constitutional.  We  have  often  heretofore  shown,  and  therefore 
need  not  in  detail  do  so  again,  that  a  majority  of  the  Revolutionary 
patriarchs,  who  ever  acted  officially  upon  the  question,  commencing 
with  General  Washington,  and  embracing  General  Jackson,  the 
larger  number  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration,  and  of  the  fram- 
ers  of  the  Constitution,  who  were  in  the  Congress  of  1791,  have 
decided  upon  their  oaths  that  such  a  bank  is  constitutional.  We 
have  also  shown  that  the  votes  of  Congress  have  more  often  been  in 
favor  of  than  against  its  constitutionality.  In  addition  to  all  this, 
we  have  shown  that  the  Supreme  Court — that  tribunal  which  the 
Constitution  has  itself  established  to  decide  constitutional  ques 
tions — has  solemnly  decided  that  such  a  bank  is  constitutional. 
Protesting  that  these  authorities  ought  to  settle  the  question, — 
ought  to  be  conclusive, —  I  will  not  urge  them  further  now.  I  now 
propose  to  take  a  view  of  the  question  which  I  have  not  known  to 
be  taken  by  any  one  before.  It  is  that  whatever  objection  ever  has 
or  ever  can  be  made  to  the  constitutionality  of  a  bank,  will  apply 
with  equal  force,  in  its  whole  length,  breadth,  and  proportions,  to  the 
subtreasury.  Our  opponents  say  there  is  no  express  authority  in 
the  Constitution  to  establish  a  bank,  and  therefore,  a  bank  is  uncon 
stitutional  ;  but  we  with  equal  truth  may  say  there  is  no  express 
authority  in  the  Constitution  to  establish  a  subtreasury,  and  there 
fore  a  subtreasury  is  unconstitutional.  Who,  then,  has  the  advan 
tage  of  this  "  express  authority  "  argument  ?  Does  it  not  cut  equally 
both  ways  ?  Does  it  not  wound  them  as  deeply  and  as  deadly  as  it 
does  us  ?  Our  position  is  that  both  are  constitutional.  The  Consti 
tution  enumerates  expressly  several  powers  which  Congress  may 
exercise,  superadded  to  which  is  a  general  authority  "  to  make  all 
laws  necessary  and  proper  "  for  carrying  into  effect  all  the  powers 
vested  by  the  Constitution  in  the  Government  of  the  United  States. 
One  of  the  express  powers  given  Congress  is  "  to  lay  and  collect 
taxes,  duties,  imports,  and  excises;  to  pay  the  debts  and  pro 
vide  for  the  common  defense  and  general  welfare  of  the  United 
States.'7  Now,  Congress  is  expressly  authorized  to  make  all  laws 
necessary  and  proper  for  carrying  this  power  into  execution.  To 
carry  it  into  execution,  it  is  indispensably  necessary  to  collect,  safely 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  31 

keep,  transfer,  and  disburse  a  revenue.  To  do  this,  a  bank  is  "  ne- 
cessar}7"  and  proper.77  But,  say  our  opponents,  to  authorize  the  mak 
ing  of  a  bank,  the  necessity  must  be  so  great  that  the  power  just 
recited  would  be  nugatory  without  it;  and  that  that  necessity  is 
expressly  negatived  by  the  fact  that  they  have  got  along  ten  whole 
years  without  such  a  bank.  Immediately  we  turn  on  them,  and  say 
that  that  sort  of  necessity  for  a  subtreasury  does  not  exist,  because 
we  have  got  along  forty  whole  years  without  one.  And  this  time, 
it  may  be  observed  that  we  are  not  merely  equal  with  them  in  the 
argument,  but  we  beat  them  forty  to  ten,  or,  which  is  the  same 
thing,  four  to  one.  On  examination,  it  will  be  found  that  the  ab 
surd  rule  which  prescribes  that  before  we  can  constitutionally  adopt  a 
national  bank  as  a  fiscal  agent,  we  must  show  an  indispensable  n  ecessity 
for  it,  will  exclude  every  sort  of  fiscal  agent  that  the  mind  of  man  can 
conceive.  A  bank  is  not  indispensable,  because  we  can  take  the  sub- 
treasury  ;  the  subtreasury  is  not  indispensable,  because  we  can  take  the 
bank.  The  rule  is  too  absurd  to  need  further  comment.  Upon  the 
phrase  "necessary  and  proper ?7  in  the  Constitution,  it  seems  to  me 
more  reasonable  to  say  that  some  fiscal  agent  is  indispensably  neces 
sary;  but  inasmuch  as  no  particular  sort  of  agent  is  thus  indis 
pensable,  because  some  other  sort  might  be  adopted,  we  are  left  to 
choose  that  sort  of  agent  which  may  be  most  "  proper  77  on  grounds 
of  expediency.  But  it  is  said  the  Constitution  gives  no  power  to 
Congress  to  pass  acts  of  incorporation.  Indeed !  What  is  the  pass 
ing  an  act  of  incorporation  but  the  making  of  a  law?  Is  any  one 
wise  enough  to  tell  ?  The  Constitution  expressly  gives  Congress 
power  "  to  pass  all  laws  necessary  and  proper,"  etc.  If,  then,  the 
passing  of  a  bank  charter  be  the  "  making  a  law  necessary  and 
proper/'  is  it  not  clearly  within  the  constitutional  power  of  Congress 
to  do  so  ? 

I  now  leave  the  bank  and  the  subtreasury  to  try  to  answer,  in  a 
brief  way,  some  of  the  arguments  which  on  previous  evenings  here 
have  been  urged  by  Messrs.  Lamborn  and  Douglas.  Mr.  Lamborn 
admits  that  u  errors/7  as  he  charitably  calls  them,  have  occurred 
under  the  present  and  late  administrations ;  but  he  insists  that  as 
great  "  errors  n  have  occurred  under  all  administrations.  This  we 
respectfully  deny.  We  admit  that  errors  may  have  occurred  under 
all  administrations ;  but  we  insist  that  there  is  no  parallel  between 
them  and  those  of  the  two  last.  If  they  can  show  that  their  errors 
are  no  greater  in  number  and  magnitude  than  those  of  former  times, 
we  call  off  the  dogs.  But  they  can  do  no  such  thing.  To  be  brief, 
I  will  now  attempt  a  contrast  of  the  "  errors 77  of  the  two  latter  with 
those  of  former  administrations,  in  relation  to  the  public  expendi 
tures  only.  What  I  am  now  about  to  say  as  to  the  expenditures  will 
be,  in  all  cases,  exclusive  of  payments  on  the  national  debt.  By  an 
examination  of  authentic  public  documents,  consisting  of  the  regu 
lar  series  of  annual  reports  made  by  all  the  secretaries  of  the  trea 
sury  from  the  establishment  of  the  government  down  to  the  close 
of  the  year  1838,  the  following  contrasts  will  be  presented : 

(1)  The  last  ten  years  under  General  Jackson  and  Mr.  Van  Buren 
cost  more  money  than  the  first  twenty-seven  did  (including  the  heavy 


32  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

expenses  of  the  late  British  war)  under  Washington,  Adams,  Jeffer 
son,  and  Madison. 

(2)  The  last  year  of  J.  Q.  Adams's  administration  cost,  in  round 
numbers,  thirteen  millions,  being  about  one  dollar  to  each  soul  in  the 
nation ;  the  last  (1838)  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  cost  forty  millions,  being 
about  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents  to  each  soul,  and  being  larger  than 
the  expenditure  of  Mr.  Adams  in  the  proportion  of  five  to  two. 

(3)  The  highest  annual  expenditure  during  the  late  British  war — 
being  in  1814,  and  while  we  had  in  actual  service  rising  188,000  militia, 
together  with  the  whole  regular  army,  swelling  the  number  to  greatly 
over  200,000,  and  they  to  be  clad,  fed,  and  transported  from  point  to 
point,  with  great  rapidity  and  corresponding  expense,  and  to  be  fur 
nished  with  arms  and  ammunition,  and  they  to  be  transported  in 
like  manner,  and  at  like  expense — was  no  more  in  round  numbers 
than  thirty  millions  j  whereas  the  annual  expenditure  of  1838,  under 
Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  while  we  were  at  peace  with  every  government 
in  the  world,  was  forty  millions ;  being  over  the  highest  year  of  the 
late  and  very  expensive  war  in  the  proportion  of  four  to  three. 

(4)  General  Washington  administered  the  government  eight  years 
for  sixteen  millions ;  Mr.  Van  Buren  administered  it  one  year  (1838) 
for  forty  millions ;  so  that  Mr.  Van  Buren  expended  twice  and  a  half 
as  much  in  one  year  as  General  Washington  did  in  eight,  and  being 
in  the  proportion  of  twenty  to  one;  or  in  other  words,  had  General 
Washington  administered  the  government  twenty  years  at  the  same 
average  expense  that  he  did  for  eight,  he  would  have  carried  us 
through  the  whole  twenty  for  no  more  money  than  Mr.  Van 
Buren  has  expended  in  getting  us  through  the  single  one  of  1838. 
Other  facts  equally  astounding  might  be  presented  from  the  same 
authentic  document ;  but  I  deem  the  foregoing  abundantly  sufficient 
to  establish  the  proposition  that  there  is  no  parallel  between  the 
"errors"  of  the  present  and  late  administrations  and  those  of 
former  times,  and  that  Mr.  Van  Buren  is  wholly  out  of  the  line  of 
all  precedents. 

But  Mr.  Douglas,  seeing  that  the  enormous  expenditure  of  1838 
has  no  parallel  in  the  olden  times,  comes  in  with  a  long  list  of 
excuses  for  it.  This  list  of  excuses  I  will  rapidly  examine,  and  show, 
as  I  think,  that  the  few  of  them  which  are  true  prove  nothing,  and 
that  the  majority  of  them  are  wholly  untrue  in  fact.  He  first  says 
that  the  expenditures  of  that  one  year  were  made  under  the  appro 
priations  of  Congress — one  branch  of  which  was  a  Whig  body.  It 
is  true  that  those  expenditures  were  made  under  the  appropriations 
of  Congress ;  but  it  is  untrue  that  either  branch  of  Congress  was  a 
Whig  body.  The  Senate  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  adminis 
tration  more  than  a  year  before,  as  proven  by  the  passage  of  the 
Expunging  Resolution ;  and  at  the  time  those  appropriations  were 
made  there  were  too  few  Whigs  in  that  body  to  make  a  respectable 
struggle,  in  point  of  numbers,  upon  any  question.  This  is  notorious 
to  all.  The  House  of  Representatives  that  voted  those  appropria 
tions  was  the  same  that  first  assembled  at  the  called  session  of  Sep 
tember,  1838.  Although  it  refused  to  pass  the  Subtreasury  Bill,  a 
majority  of  its  members  were  elected  as  friends  of  the  administra- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  33 

tion,  and  proved  their  adherence  to  it  by  the  election  of  a  Van 
Buren  speaker,  and  two  Van  Buren  clerks.  It  is  clear,  then,  that 
both  branches  of  the  Congress  that  passed  those  appropriations  were 
in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  friends,  so  that  the  Whigs  had  no 
power  to  arrest  them,  as  Mr.  Douglas  would  insist.  And  is  not  the 
charge  of  extravagant  expenditures  equally  well  sustained,  if  shown 
to  have  been  made  by  a  Van  Buren  Congress,  as  if  shown  to  have 
been  made  in  any  other  way  ?  A  Van  Buren  Congress  passed  the 
bills,  and  Mr.  Van  Buren  himself  approved  them,  and  consequently 
the  party  are  wholly  responsible  for  them.' 

Mr.  Douglas  next  says  that  a  portion  of  the  expenditures  of  that 
year  was  made  for  the  purchase  of  public  lands  from  the  Indians. 
Now  it  happens  that  no  such  purchase  was  made  during  that  year. 
It  is  true  that  some  money  was  paid  that  year  in  pursuance  of  In 
dian  treaties  ;  but  no  more,  or  rather  not  as  much  as  had  been  paid 
on  the  same  account  in  each  of  several  preceding  years. 

Next  he  says  that  the  Florida  war  created  many  millions  of  this 
year's  expenditure.  This  is  true,  and  it  is  also  true  that  during  that 
and  every  other  year  that  that  war  has  existed,  it  has  cost  three  or 
four  times  as  much  as  it  would  have  done  under  an  honest  and  ju 
dicious  administration  of  the  government.  The  large  sums  foolishly, 
not  to  say  corruptly,  thrown  away  in  that  war  constitute  one  of  the 
just  causes  of  complaint  against  the  administration.  Take  a  single 
instance.  The  agents  of  the  government  in  connection  with  that 
war  needed  a  certain  steamboat ;  the  owner  proposed  to  sell  it  for 
ten  thousand  dollars ;  the  agents  refused  to  give  that  sum,  but  hired 
the  boat  at  one  hundred  dollars  per  day,  and  kept  it  at  that  hire  till 
it  amounted  to  ninety-two  thousand  dollars.  This  fact  is  not  found 
in  the  public  reports,  but  depends  with  me,  on  the  verbal  statement 
of  an  officer  of  the  navy,  who  says  he  knows  it  to  be  true.  That  the 
administration  ought  to  be  credited  for  the  reasonable  expenses  of 
the  Florida  war,  we  have  never  denied.  Those  reasonable  charges, 
we  say,  could  not  exceed  one  or  two  millions  a  year.  Deduct  such 
a  sum^from  the  forty-million  expenditure  of  1838,  and  the  remainder 
will  still  be  without  a  parallel  as  an  annual  expenditure. 

Again,  Mr.  Douglas  says  that  the  removal  of  the  Indians  to  the 
country  west  of  the  Mississippi  created  much  of  the  expenditure  of 
1838.  I  have  examined  the  public  documents  in  relation  to  this 
matter,  and  find  that  less  was  paid  for  the  removal  of  Indians  in 
that  than  in  some  former  years.  The  whole  sum  expended  on  that  ac 
count  in  that  year  did  not  much  exceed  one  quarter  of  a  million.  For 
this  small  sum,  although  we  do  not  think  the  administration  entitled 
to  credit,  because  large  sums  have  been  expended  in  the  same  way  in 
former  years,  we  consent  it  may  take  one  and  make  the  most  of  it. 

Next,  Mr.  Douglas  says  that  five  millions  of  the  expenditures  of 
1838  consisted  of  the  payment  of  the  French  indemnity  money  to 
its  individual  claimants.  I  have  carefully  examined  the  public  doc 
uments,  and  thereby  find  this  statement  to  be  wholly  untrue.  Of 
the  forty  millions  of  dollars  expended  in  1838,  I  am  enabled  to  say 
positivelv  that  not  one  dollar  consisted  of  payments  on  the  French 
indemnities.  So  much  for  that  excuse. 
VOL.  1  —  3. 


34  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Next  comes  the  Post-office.  He  says  that  five  millions  were  ex 
pended  during  that  year  to  sustain  that  department.  By  a  like  ex 
amination  of  public  documents,  I  find  this  also  wholly  untrue.  Of 
the  so  often  mentioned  forty  millions,  not  one  dollar  went  to  the 
Post-office.  I  am  glad,  however,  that  the  Post-office  has  been  re 
ferred  to,  because  it  warrants  me  in  digressing  a  little  to  inquire 
how  it  is  that  that  department  of  the  government  has  become  a 
charge  upon  the  treasury,  whereas  under  Mr.  Adams  and  the  presi 
dents  before  him  it  not  only,  to  use  a  homely  phrase,  cut  its  own 
fodder,  but  actually  threw  a  surplus  into  the  treasury.  Although 
nothing  of  the  forty  millions  was  paid  on  that  account  in  1838,  it  is 
true  that  five  millions  are  appropriated  to  be  so  expended  in  1839  ,• 
showing  clearly  that  the  department  has  become  a  charge  upon  the 
treasury.  How  has  this  happened  ?  I  account  for  it  in  this  way. 
The  chief  expense  of  the  Post-office  Department  consists  of  the  pay 
ments  of  contractors  for  carrying  the  mail.  Contracts  for  carrying 
the  mails  are  by  law  let  to  the  lowest  bidders,  after  advertisement. 
This  plan  introduces  competition,  and  insures  the  transportation  of 
the  mails  at  fair  prices,  so  long  as  it  is  faithfully  adhered  to.  It 
has  ever  been  adhered  to  until  Mr.  Barry  was  made  postmaster-gen 
eral.  When  he  came  into  office,  he  formed  the  purpose  of  throwing 
the  mail  contracts  into  the  hands  of  his  friends,  to  the  exclusion  of 
his  opponents.  To  effect  this,  the  plan  of  letting  to  the  lowest  bid 
der  must  be  evaded,  and  it  must  be  done  in  this  way :  the  favorite 
bid  less  by  perhaps  three  or  four  hundred  per  cent,  than  the  con 
tract  could  be  performed  for,  and  consequently  shutting  out  all  hon 
est  competition,  became  the  contractor.  The  Postmaster-General 
would  immediately  add  some  slight  additional  duty  to  the  contract, 
and  under  the  pretense  of  extra  allowance  for  extra  services  run  the 
contract  to  double,  triple,  and  often  quadruple  what  honest  and  fair 
bidders  had  proposed  to  take  it  at.  In  1834  the  finances  of  the  de 
partment  had  become  so  deranged  that  total  concealment  was  no 
longer  possible,  and  consequently  a  committee  of  the  Senate  were 
directed  to  make  a  thorough  investigation  of  its  affairs.  Their  re 
port  is  found  in  the  Senate  Documents  of  1833-4,  Vol.  V,  Doc.  422 ; 
which  documents  may  be  seen  at  the  secretary's  office,  and  I  pre 
sume  elsewhere  in  the  State.  The  report  shows  numerous  cases  of 
similar  import,  of  one  of  which  I  give  the  substance.  The  contract 
for  carrying  the  mail  upon  a  certain  route  had  expired,  and  of 
course  was  to  be  let  again.  The  old  contractor  offered  to  take  it  for 
$300  a  year,  the  mail  to  be  transported  thereon  three  times  a  week, 
or  for  $600  transported  daily.  One  James  Reeside  bid  $40  for  three 
times  a  week,  or  $99  daily,  and  of  course  received  the  contract.  On 
the  examination  of  the  committee,  it  was  discovered  that  Reeside  had 
received  for  the  service  on  this  route,  which  he  had  contracted  to  ren 
der  for  less  than  $100,  the  enormous  sum  of  $1999 !  This  is  but  a  sin 
gle  case.  Many  similar  ones,  covering  some  ten  or  twenty  pages  of 
a  large  volume,  are  given  in  that  report.  The  department  was 
found  to  be  insolvent  to  the  amount  of  half  a  million,  and  to  have 
been  so  grossly  mismanaged,  or  rather  so  corruptly  managed,  in  al 
most  every  particular,  that  the  best  friends  of  the  Postmaster-Gen- 


ADDKESSES  AND  LETTERS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN     35 

eral  made  no  defense  of  his  administration  of  it.  They  admitted 
that  he  was  wholly  unqualified  for  that  office ;  but  still  he  was  re 
tained  in  it  by  the  President  until  he  resigned  it  voluntarily  about 
a  year  afterward.  And  when  he  resigned  it,  what  do  you  think  be 
came  of  him?  Why,  he  sunk  into  obscurity  and  di'sgrace,  to  be 
sure,  you  will  say.  No  such  thing.  Well,  then,  what  did  become 
of  him  ?  Why,  the  President  immediately  expressed  his  high  dis 
approbation  of  his  almost  unequaled  incapacity  and  corruption  by 
appointing  him  to  a  foreign  mission,  with  a  salary  and  outfit  of 
$18,000  a  year !  The  party  now  attempt  to  throw  Barry  off,  and 
to  avoid  the  responsibility  of  his  sins.  Did  not  the  President  in 
dorse  those  sins  when,  on  the  very  heel  of  their  commission,  he  ap 
pointed  their  author  to  the  very  highest  and  most  honorable  office 
in  his  gift,  and  which  is  but  a  single  step  behind  the  very  goal  of 
American  political  ambition  ? 

I  return  to  another  of  Mr.  Douglas's  excuses  for  the  expenditures 
of  1838,  at  the  same  time  announcing  the  pleasing  intelligence  that 
this  is  the  last  one.  He  says  that  ten  millions  of  that  year's  expen 
diture  was  a  contingent  appropriation,  to  prosecute  an  anticipated 
war  with  Great  Britain  on  the  Maine  boundary  question.  Few 
words  will  settle  this.  First,  that  the  ten  millions  appropriated  was 
not  made  till  1839,  and  consequently  could  not  have  been  expended 
in  1838 ;  second,  although  it  was  appropriated,  it  has  never  been  ex 
pended  at  all.  Those  who  heard  Mr.  Douglas  recollect  that  he  in 
dulged  himself  in  a  contemptuous  expression  of  pity  for  me.  "  Now 
he 's  got  me,"  thought  I.  But  when  he  went  on  to  say  that  five  mil 
lions  of  the  expenditure  of  1838  were  payments  of  the  French  indem 
nities,  which  I  knew  to  be  untrue  5  that  five  millions  had  been  for 
the  Post-office,  which  I  knew  to  be  untrue;  that  ten  millions  had 
been  for  the  Maine  boundary  war,  which  I  not  only  knew  to  be  un 
true,  but  supremely  ridiculous  also;  and  when  I  saw  that  he  was 
stupid  enough  to  hope  that  I  would  permit  such  groundless  and  au 
dacious  assertions  to  go  unexposed, —  I  readily  consented  that,  on 
the  score  both  of  veracity  and  sagacity,  the  audience  should  judge 
whether  he  or  I  were  the  more  deserving  of  the  world's  contempt. 

Mr.  Lamborn  insists  that  the  difference  between  the  Van  Buren 
party  and  the  Whigs  is  that  although  the  former  sometimes  err  in 
practice,  they  are  always  correct  in  principle,  whereas  the  latter  are 
wrong  in  principle ;  and,  better  to  impress  this  proposition,  he  uses 
a  figurative  expression  in  these  words :  "  The  Democrats  are  vulner 
able  in  the  heel,  but  they  are  sound  in  the  head  and  the  heart."  The 
first  branch  of  the  figure — that  is,  that  the  Democrats  are  vulnera 
ble  in  the  heel — I  admit  is  not  merely  figuratively,  but  literally  true. 
Who  that  looks  but  for  a  moment  at  their  Swartwouts,  their  Prices, 
their  Harringtons,  and  their  hundreds  of  others,  scampering  away 
with  the  public  money  to  Texas,  to  Europe,  and  to  every  spot  of  the 
earth  where  a  villain  may  hope  to  find  refuge  from  justice,  can  at 
all  doubt  that  they  are  most  distressingly  affected  in  their  heels  with 
a  species  of  "  running  itch."  It  seems  that  this  malady  of  their  heels 
operates  on  these  sound-headed  and  honest-hearted  creatures  very 
much  like  the  cork  leg  in  the  comic  song  did  on  its  owner :  which, 


36  ADDKESSES  AND  LETTEKS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

when  he  had  once  got  started  on  it,  the  more  he  tried  to  stop  it,  the 
more  it  would  run  away.  At  the  hazard  of  wearing  this  point  thread 
bare,  I  will  relate  an  anecdote  which  seems  too  strikingly  in  point  to 
be  omitted.  A  witty  Irish  soldier,  who  was  always  boasting  of  his 
bravery  when  no  danger  was  near,  but  who  invariably  retreated 
without  orders  at  the  first  charge  of  an  engagement,  being  asked  by 
his  captain  why  he  did  so,  replied :  "  Captain,  I  have  as  brave  a  heart 
as  Julius  Caesar  ever  had ;  but,  somehow  or  other,  whenever  danger 
approaches,  my  cowardly  legs  will  run  away  with  it."  So  with  Mr. 
Lamborn's  party.  They  take  the  public  money  into  their  hand  for 
the  most  laudable  purpose  that  wise  heads  and  honest  hearts  can 
dictate  ;  but  before  they  can  possibly  get  it  out  again,  their  rascally 
"  vulnerable  heels"  will  run  away  with  them. 

Seriously,  this  proposition  of  Mr.  Lamborn  is  nothing  more  or  less 
than  a  request  that  his  party  may  be  tried  by  their  professions  in 
stead  of  their  practices.  Perhaps  no  position  that  the  party  assumes 
is  more  liable  to  or  more  deserving  of  exposure  than  this  very  modest 
request ;  and  nothing  but  the  unwarrantable  length  to  which  I  have 
already  extended  these  remarks  forbids  me  now  attempting  to  expose 
it.  For  the  reason  given,  I  pass  it  by. 

I  shall  advert  to  but  one  more  point.  Mr.  Lamborn  refers  to  the 
late  elections  in  the  States,  and  from  their  results  confidently  pre 
dicts  that  every  State  in  the  Union  will  vote  for  Mr.  Van  Buren  at 
the  next  presidential  election.  Address  that  argument  to  cowards 
and  to  knaves  5  with  the  free  and  the  brave  it  will  eifect  nothing. 
It  may  be  true  ;  if  it  must,  let  it.  Many  free  countries  have  lost 
their  liberty,  and  ours  may  lose  hers  5  but  if  she  shall,  be  it  my 
proudest  plume,  not  that  I  was  the  last  to  desert,  but  that  I  never 
deserted  her.  I  know  that  the  great  volcano  at  Washington,  aroused 
and  directed  by  the  evil  spirit  that  reigns  there,  is  belching  forth  the 
lava  of  political  corruption  in  a  current  broad  and  deep,  which  is 
sweeping  with  frightful  velocity  over  the  whole  length  and  breadth 
of  the  land,  bidding  fair  to  leave  unscathed  no  green  spot  or  living 
thing;  while  on  its  bosom  are  riding,  like  demons  on  the  waves  of 
hell,  the  imps  of  that  evil  spirit,  and  fiendishly  taunting  all  those 
who  dare  resist  its  destroying  course  with  the  hopelessness  of  their 
effort ;  and,  knowing  this,  I  cannot  deny  that  all  maybe  swept  away. 
Broken  by  it  I,  too,  may  be ;  bow  to  it  I  never  will.  The  probability 
that  we  may  fall  in  the  struggle  ought  not  to  deter  us  from  the  sup 
port  of  a  cause  we  believe  to  be  just ;  it  shall  not  deter  me.  If  ever 
I  feel  the  soul  within  me  elevate  and  expand  to  those  dimensions  not 
wholly  unworthy  of  its  almighty  Architect,  it  is  when  I  contemplate 
the  cause  of  my  country,  deserted  by  all  the  world  beside,  and  I 
standing  up  boldly  and  alone,  and  hurling  defiance  at  her  victorious 
oppressors.  Here,  without  contemplating  consequences,  before  high 
heaven  and  in  the  face  of  the  world,  I  swear  eternal  fidelity  to  the 
just  cause,  as  I  deem  it,  of  the  land  of  my  life,  my  liberty,  and  my 
love.  And  who  that  thinks  with  me  will  not  fearlessly  adopt  the 
oath  that  I  take  ?  Let  none  falter  who  thinks  he  is  right,  and  we 
may  succeed.  But  if,  after  all,  we  shall  fail,  be  it  so.  We  still  shall 
have  the  proud  consolation  of  saying  to  our  consciences,  and  to  the 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  37 

departed  shade  of  our  country's  freedom,  that  the  cause  approved 
of  our  judgment,  and  adored  of  our  hearts,  in  disaster,  in  chains, 
in  torture,  in  death,  we  never  faltered  in  defending. 


December  23,  1839. —  LETTER  TO  JOHN  T.  STUART. 

SPRINGFIELD,  December  23,  1839. 

Dear  Stuart:  Dr.  Henry  will  write  you  all  the  political  news.  I 
write  this  about  some  little  matters  of  business.  You  recollect  you 
told  me  you  had  drawn  the  Chicago  Masack  money,  and  sent  it  to 

the  claimants.      A hawk-billed  Yankee  is  here  besetting  me  at 

every  turn  I  take,  saying  that  Robert  Kinzie  never  received  the 
eighty  dollars  to  which  he  was  entitled.  Can  you  tell  anything 
about  the  matter  ?  Again,  old  Mr.  Wright,  who  lives  up  South  Fork 
somewhere,  is  teasing  me  continually  about  some  deeds  which  he  says 
he  left  with  you,  but  which  I  can  find  nothing  of.  Can  you  tell 
where  they  are  ?  The  legislature  is  in  session,  and  has  suffered  the 
bank  to  forfeit  its  charter  without  benefit  of  clergy.  There  seems  to 
be  little  disposition  to  resuscitate  it. 

Whenever  a  letter  comes  from  you  to  Mrs. ,  I  carry  it  to  her, 

and  then  I  see  Betty;  she  is  a  tolerable  nice  "fellow"  now.  Maybe 
I  will  write  again  when  I  get  more  time.  Your  friend,  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

P.  S.  The  Democratic  giant  is  here,  but  he  is  not  now  worth 
talking  about.  A.  L. 

January  1,  1840. — LETTER  TO  JOHN  T.  STUART. 

SPRINGFIELD,  January  1, 1840. 

Dear  Stuart :  There  is  considerable  disposition,  on  the  part  of  both 
parties  in  the  legislature,  to  reinstate  the  law  bringing  on  the  con 
gressional  elections  next  summer.  What  motive  for  this  the  Locos 
have,  I  cannot  tell.  The  Whigs  say  that  the  canal  and  other  public 
works  will  stop,  and  consequently  we  shall  then  be  clear  of  the  for 
eign  votes,  whereas  by  another  year  they  may  be  brought  in  again. 
The  Whigs  of  our  district  say  that  everything  is  in  favor  of  holding 
the  election  next  summer,  except  the  fact  of  your  absence,  and  sev 
eral  of  them  have  requested  me  to  ask  your  opinion  on  the  matter. 
Write  me  immediately  what  you  think  of  it. 

On  the  other  side  of  this  sheet  I  send  you  a  copy  of  my  Land 
Resolutions,  which  passed  both  branches  of  our  legislature  last  win 
ter.  Will  you  show  them  to  Mr.  Calhoun,  informing  him  of  the 
fact  of  their  passage  through  our  legislature?  Mr.  Calhoun  sug 
gested  a  similar  proposition  last  winter;  and  perhaps  if  he  finds 
himself  backed  by  one  of  the  States,  he  may  be  induced  to  take  it 
up  again.  You  will  see  by  the  resolutions  that  you  and  the  others 
of  our  delegation  in  Congress  are  instructed  to  go  for  them. 

[Without  signature.] 


38  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

January  [1  ?],  1840. —  CIRCULAR  FROM  WHIG  COMMITTEE. 
Confidential. 


To  MESSRS. . 

Gentlemen :  In  obedience  to  a  resolution  of  the  Whig  State  Con 
vention,  we  have  appointed  you  the  Central  Whig  Committee  of 
your  county.  The  trust  confided  to  you  will  be  one  of  watchfulness 
and  labor;  but  we  hope  the  glory  of  having  contributed  to  the 
overthrow  of  the  corrupt  powers  that  now  control  our  beloved 
country  will  be  a  sufficient  reward  for  the  time  and  labor  you  will 
devote  to  it.  Our  Whig  brethren  throughout  the  Union  have  met 
in  convention,  and  after  due  deliberation  and  mutual  concessions 
have  elected  candidates  for  the  presidency  and  vice-presidency  not 
only  worthy  of  our  cause,  but  worthy  of  the  support  of  every  true 
patriot  who  would  have  our  country  redeemed,  and  her  institutions 
honestly  and  faithfully  administered.  To  overthrow  the  trained 
bands  that  are  opposed  to  us,  whose  salaried  officers  are  ever  on  the 
watch,  and  whose  misguided  followers  are  ever  ready  to  obey  their 
smallest  commands,  every  Whig  must  not  only  know  his  duty,  but 
must  firmly  resolve,  whatever  of  time  and  labor  it  may  cost,  boldly 
and  faithfully  to  do  it.  Our  intention  is  to  organize  the  whole 
State,  so  that  every  Whig  can  be  brought  to  the  polls  in  the  coming 
presidential  contest.  We  cannot  do  this,  however,  without  your  co 
operation  ;  and  as  we  do  our  duty,  so  we  shall  expect  you  to  dp 
yours.  After  due  deliberation,  the  following  is  the  plan  of  organi 
zation,  and  the  duties  required  of  each  county  committee : 

(1)  To  divide  their  county  into  small  districts,  and  to  appoint  in 
each  a  subcommittee,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  make  a  perfect  list 
of  all  the  voters  in  their  respective  districts,  and  to  ascertain  with 
certainty  for  whom  they  will  vote.     If  they  meet  with  men  who  are 
doubtful  as  to  the  man  they  will  support,  such  voters  should  be  de 
signated  in  separate  lines,  with  the  name  of  the  man  they  will  prob 
ably  support. 

(2)  It  will  be  the  duty  of  said  subcommittee  to  keep  a  constant 
watch  on  the  doubtful  voters,  and  from  time  to  time  have  them 
talked  to  by  those  in  whom  they  have  the  most  confidence,  and  also 
to  place  in  their  hands  such  documents  as  will  enlighten  and  in 
fluence  them. 

(3)  It  will  also  be  their  duty  to  report  to  you,  at  least  once  a 
month,  the  progress  they  are  making,  and  on  election  days  see  that 
every  Whig  is  brought  to  the  polls. 

(4)  The  subcommittees  should  be  appointed  immediately;  and  by 
the  last  of  April,  at  least,  they  should  make  their  first  report. 

(5)  On  the  first  of  each  month  hereafter  we  shall  expect  to 
hear  from  you.    After  the  first  report  of  your  subcommittees,  un 
less  there  should  be  found  a  great  many  doubtful  voters,  you  can 
tell  pretty  accurately  the  manner  in  which  your  county  will  vote. 
In  each  of  your  letters  to  us,  you  will  state  the  number  of  certain 
votes  both  for  and  against  us,  as  well  as  the  number  of  doubtful 
votes,  with  your  opinion  of  the  manner  in  which  they  will  be  cast. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN  39 

(6)  When  we  have  heard  from  all  the  counties,  we  shall  be  able 
to  tell  with  similar  accuracy  the  political  complexion  of  the  State. 
This  information  will  be  forwarded  to  you  as  soon  as  received. 

(7)  Inclosed  is  a  prospectus  for  a  newspaper  to  be  continued 
until  after  the  presidential  election.     It  will  be  superintended  by 
ourselves,  and  every  Whig  in  the  State  must  take  it.     It  will  be 
published  so  low  that  every  one  can  aif ord  it.     You  must  raise  a 
fund  and  forward  us  for  extra  copies, — every  county  ought  to  send 
fifty  or  one  hundred  dollars, — and  the  copies  will  be  forwarded  to 
you  for  distribution  among  our  political  opponents.    The  paper  will 
be  devoted  exclusively  to  the  great  cause  in  which  we  are  engaged. 
Procure  subscriptions,  and  forward  them  to  us  immediately. 

(8)  Immediately  after  any  election  in  your  county,  you  must  in 
form  us  of  its  results ;  and  as  early  as  possible  after  any  general 
election  we  will  give  you  the  like  information. 

(9)  A  senator  in  Congress  is  to  be  elected  by  our  next  legisla 
ture.     Let  no  local  interests  divide  you ;  but  select  candidates  that 
can  succeed. 

(10)  Our  plan  of  operations  will  of  course  be  concealed  from  every 
one  except  our  good  friends  who  of  right  ought  to  know  them. 

Trusting  much  in  our  good  cause,  the  strength  of  our  candidates, 
and  the  determination  of  the  Whigs  everywhere  to  do  their  duty, 
we  go  to  the  work  of  organization  in  this  State  confident  of  success. 
We  have  the  numbers,  and  if  properly  organized  and  exerted,  with 
the  gallant  Harrison  at  our  head,  we  shall  meet  our  foes  and  con 
quer  them  in  all  parts  of  the  Union. 

Address  your  letters  to  Dr.  A.  G-.  Henry,  R.  F.  Barrett,  A.  Lin 
coln,  E.  D.  Baker,  J.  F.  Speed. 


January  20,  1840.— LETTER  TO  JOHN  T.  STUART. 

SPRINGFIELD,  January  20,  1840. 

Dear  Stuart:  Yours  of  the  5th  instant  is  received.  It  is  the 
first  from  you  for  a  great  while.  You  wish  the  news  from  here. 
The  legislature  is  in  session  yet,  but  has  done  nothing  of  impor 
tance.  The  following  is  my  guess  as  to  what  will  be  done.  The 
internal  improvement  system  will  be  put  down  in  a  lump  without 
benefit  of  clergy.  The  bank  will  be  resuscitated  with  some  trifling 
modifications.  Whether  the  canal  will  go  ahead  or  stop  is  very 
doubtful.  Whether  the  State  House  win  go  ahead  depends  upon 
the  laws  already  in  force.  A  proposition  made  in  the  House  to-day, 
to  throw  off  to  the  Territory  of  Wisconsin  about  fourteen  of  our 
northern  counties,  decided :  ayes,  eleven ;  noes,  seventy.  Be  sure  to 
send  me  as  many  copies  of  the  "Life  of  Harrison"  as  you  can  spare 
from  other  uses.  Be  very  sure  to  procure  and  send  me  the  "  Senate 
Journal"  of  New  York  of  September,  1814.  I  have  a  newspaper 
article  which  says  that  that  document  proves  that  Van  Buren  voted 
against  raising  troops  in  the  last  war.  And,  in  general,  send  me 
everything  you  think  will  be  a  good  "  war-club." 

The  nomination  of  Harrison  takes  first-rate.    You  know  I  am 


40  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

never  sanguine ;  but  I  believe  we  will  carry  the  State.  The  chance 
for  doing  so  appears  to  me  twenty-five  per  cent,  better  than  it  did 
for  you  to  beat  Douglas.  A  great  many  of  the  grocery  sort  of  Van 
Buren  men,  as  formerly,  are  out  for  Harrison.  Our  Irish  black 
smith,  Gregory,  is  for  Harrison.  I  believe  I  may  say  that  all  our 
friends  think  the  chance  of  carrying  the  State  very  good.  You 
have  heard  that  the  Whigs  and  Locos  had  a  political  discussion 
shortly  after  the  meeting  of  the  legislature.  Well,  I  made  a  big 
speech  which  is  in  progress  of  printing  in  pamphlet  form.  To  en 
lighten  you  and  the  rest  of  the  world,  I  shall  send  you  a  copy  when 
it  is  finished.  I  can't  think  of  anything  else  now. 

Your  friend,  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 

January  21,  1840. —  LETTER  TO  JOHN  T.  STUART. 

SPRINGFIELD,  January  21,  1840. 

Dear  Stuart :  A  bill  bringing  on  the  congressional  elections  in 
this  State  next  summer  has  passed  the  House  of  Representatives 
this  minute.  As  I  think  it  will  also  pass  the  Senate,  I  take  the 
earliest  moment  to  advise  you  of  it.  I  do  not  think  any  one  of  our 
political  friends  wishes  to  push  you  off  the  track.  Anticipating  the 
introduction  of  this  bill,  I  wrote  you  for  your  feelings  on  the  subject 
several  weeks  since,  but  have  received  no  answer.  It  may  be  that 
my  letter  miscarried ;  if  so,  will  you,  on  the  receipt  of  this,  write 
me  what  you  think  and  feel  about  the  matter  ?  Nothing  new  except 
I  believe  I  have  got  pur  Truett  debt  secured.  I  have  Truetfs  note 
at  twelve  months,  with  his  brother  Myers  as  security. 

Your  friend,  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 

March  1,  1840. — LETTER  TO  JOHN  T.  STUART. 

SPRINGFIELD,  March  1,  1840. 

pear  Stuart :  I  have  never  seen  the  prospects  of  our  party  so 
bright  in  these  parts  as  they  are  now.  We  shall  carry  this  county 
by  a  larger  majority  than  we  did  in  1836,  when  you  ran  against 
May.  I  do  not  think  my  prospects  individually  are  very  flattering, 
for  I  think  it  probable  I  shall  not  be  permitted  to  be  a  candidate  j 
but  the  party  ticket  will  succeed  triumphantly.  Subscriptions  to 
the  "Old  Soldier"  pour  in  without  abatement.  This  morning  I 
took  from  the  post-office  a  letter  from  Dubois  inclosing  the  names 
of  sixty  subscribers;  and  on  carrying  it  to  Francis,  I  found  he 
had  received  one  hundred  and  forty  more  from  other  quarters  by 
the  same  day's  mail.  That  is  but  an  average  specimen  of  every 
day's  receipts.  Yesterday  Douglas,  having  chosen  to  consider  him 
self  insulted  by  something  in  the  "  Journal,"  undertook  to  cane 
Francis  in  the  street.  Francis  caught  him  by  the  hair  and  jammed 
him  back  against  a  market-cart,  where  the  matter  ended  by  Francis 
being  pulled  away  from  him.  The  whole  affair  was  so  ludicrous 
that  Francis  and  everybody  else  (Douglas  excepted)  have  been 
laughing  about  it  ever  since. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  41 

I  send  you  the  names  of  some  of  the  Van  Buren  men  who  have 
come  out  for  Harrison  about  town,  and  suggest  that  you  send  them 
some  documents :  Moses  Coffman  (he  let  us  appoint  him  a  delegate 
yesterday),  Aaron  Coffman,  George  Gregory,  H.  M.Briggs, John 
son  (at  BirchalPs  book-store),  Michael  Glynn, Armstrong  (not 

Hosea,  nor  Hugh,  but  a  carpenter),  Thomas  Hunter,  Moses  Pilcher 
(he  was  always  a  Whig,  and  deserves  attention),  Matthew  Crowder, 
Jr.,  Greenberry  Smith,  John  Fagan,  George  Fagan,  William  Fagan 
(these  three  fell  out  with  us  about  Early,  and  are  doubtful  now), 
John  Cartmel,  Noah  Rickard,  John  Rickard,  Walter  Marsh  (the  fore- 

§oing  should  be  addressed  at  Springfield).    Also   send  some   to 
olomon  Miller  and  John  Auth  at  Saulsbury ;  also   to   Charles 
Harper,  Samuel  Harper,  and  B.  C.  Harper;  and  T.  J.  Scroggins, 
John  Scroggins,  at  Pulaski,  Logan  County. 

Speed  says  he  wrote  you  what  Jo.  Smith  said  about  you  as  he 
passed  here.  We  will  procure  the  names  of  some  of  his  people 
here  and  send  them  to  you  before  long.  Speed  also  says  you  must 
not  fail  to  send  us  the  New  York  journal  he  wrote  for  some  time 
since.  Evan  Butler  is  jealous  that  you  never  send  your  compli 
ments  to  him.  You  must  not  neglect  him  next  time. 

Your  friend,  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 


March  26,  1840. — LETTER  TO  JOHN  T.  STUART. 

SPRINGFIELD,  March  26,  1840. 

Dear  Stuart :  In  relation  to  the  Kinzie  matter,  I  can  say  no 
more  than  this,  that  the  check  was  taken  from  the  bank  by  you, 
and  on  the  same  day  you  made  a  note  in  our  memorandum-book 
stating  you  had  sent  it  by  mail  to  Kinzie ;  but  there  is  no  memo 
randum  concerning  it  at  Irwin's.  Kinzie  has  ceased  writing  about 
it,  and  consequently  I  have  some  hope  that  he  has  received  it. 

We  have  had  a  convention  for  nominating  candidates  in  this 
county.  Baker  was  put  on  the  track  for  the  Senate,  and  Bradford, 
Brown  of  the  Island  Grove,  Josiah  Francis,  Darneille,  and  I  for  the 
House.  Ninian  was  very  much  hurt  at  not  being  nominated,  but 
he  has  become  tolerably  well  reconciled.  I  was  much,  very  much, 
wounded  myself  at  his  being  left  out.  The  fact  is,  the  country  dele 
gates  made  the  nominations  as  they  pleased ;  and  they  pleased  to 
make  them  all  from  the  country,  except  Baker  and  me,  whom  they 
supposed  necessary  to  make  stump  speeches.  Old  Colonel  Elkin  is 
nominated  for  sheriff.  That  ?s  right. 

The  Locos  have  no  candidates  on  the  track  yet  except  Dick  Tay 
lor  for  the  Senate.  Last  Saturday  he  made  a  speech,  and  May  an 
swered  him.  The  way  May  let  the  wind  out  of  him  was  a  perfect 
wonder.  The  court-room  was  very  full,  and  neither  you  nor  I  ever 
saw  a  crowd  in  this  county  so  near  all  on  one  side,  and  all  feeling 
so  good,  before.  You  will  see  a  short  account  of  it  in  the  "  Journal. " 

LINCOLN. 

Japh  Bell  has  come  out  for  Harrison.    Ain't  that  a  caution  ? 


42  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


October  31,  1840. — LETTER  TO  W.  G-.  ANDERSON. 

LAWRENCEVILLE,  October  31, 1840. 
W.  Gr.  ANDERSON. 

Dear  Sir:  Your  note  of  yesterday  is  received.  In  the  difficulty 
between  us  of  which  you  speak,  you  say  you  think  I  was  the  aggres 
sor.  I  do  not  think  I  was.  You  say  my  "  words  imported  insult.7' 
I  meant  them  as  a  fair  set-off  to  your  own  statements,  and  not  other 
wise  j  and  in  that  light  alone  I  now  wish  you  to  understand  them. 
You  ask  for  my  present  "  feelings  on  the  subject."  I  entertain  no 
unkind  feelings  to  you,  and  none  of  any  sort  upon  the  subject, 
except  a  sincere  regret  that  I  permitted  myself  to  get  into  such  an 
altercation.  Yours,  etc., 

A.  LINCOLN. 


November  28,  1840. — RESOLUTION  IN  THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE. 

In  the  Illinois  House  of  Representatives,  November  28,  1840,  Mr. 
Lincoln  offered  the  following  : 

Resolved,  That  so  much  of  the  governor's  message  as  relates  to  fraudu 
lent  voting,  and  other  fraudulent  practices  at  elections,  be  referred  to  the 
Committee  on  Elections,  with  instructions  to  said  committee  to  prepare  and 
report  to  the  House  a  bill  for  such  an  act  as  may  in  their  judgment  afford 
the  greatest  possible  protection  of  the  elective  franchise  against  all  frauds 
of  all  sorts  whatever. 


December  4,  1840. — REMARKS  IN  THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives,  Illinois,  December  4,  1840,  on 
presentation  of  a  report  respecting  petition  of  H.  N.  Purple,  claim 
ing  the  seat  of  Mr.  Phelps  from  Peoria,  Mr.  Lincoln  moved  that  the 
House  resolve  itself  into  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the  question, 
and  take  it  up  immediately.  Mr.  Lincoln  considered  the  question 
of  the  highest  importance,  whether  an  individual  had  a  right  to  sit 
in  this  House  or  not.  The  course  he  should  propose  would  be  to 
take  up  the  evidence  and  decide  upon  the  facts  seriatim. 

Mr.  Drummond  wanted  time ;  they  could  not  decide  in  the  heat 
of  debate,  etc. 

Mr.  Lincoln  thought  that  the  question  had  better  be  gone  into 
now.  In  courts  of  law  jurors  were  required  to  decide  on  evidence, 
without  previous  study  or  examination.  They  were  required  to  know 
nothing  of  the  subject  until  the  evidence  was  laid  before  them  for 
their  immediate  decision.  He  thought  that  the  heat  of  party  would 
be  augmented  by  delay. 

The  Speaker  called  Mr.  Lincoln  to  order  as  being  irrelevant  ;  no 
mention  had  been  made  of  party  heat. 

Mr.  Drummond  said  he  had  only  spoken  of  debate. 

Mr.  Lincoln  asked  what  caused  the  heat,  if  it  was  not  party?  Mr. 
Lincoln  concluded  by  urging  that  the  question  would  be  decided 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN  43 

now  better  than  hereafter,  and  he  thought  with  less  heat  and  ex 
citement. 

(Further  debate,  in  which  Lincoln  participated.) 


December  4,  1840. — REMARKS  IN  THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE. 

In  the  Illinois  House  of  Representatives,  December  4,  1840, — 
House  in  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the  bill  providing  for  pay 
ment  of  interest  on  the  State  debt, —  Mr.  Lincoln  moved  to  strike 
out  the  body  and  amendments  of  the  bill,  and  insert  in  lieu  thereof 
an  amendment  which  in  substance  was  that  the  governor  be  autho 
rized  to  issue  bonds  for  the  payment  of  the  interest  ;  that  these  be 
called  "  interest  bonds  " ;  that  the  taxes  accruing  on  Congress  lands 
as  they  become  taxable  be  irrevocably  set  aside  and  devoted  as  a 
fund  to  the  payment  of  the  interest  bonds.  Mr.  Lincoln  went  into 
the  reasons  which  appeared  to  him  to  render  this  plan  preferable  to 
that  of  hypothecating  the  State  bonds.  By  this  course  we  could  get 
along  till  the  next  meeting  of  the  legislature,  which  was  of  great 
importance.  To  the  objection  which  might  be  urged  that  these  in 
terest  bonds  could  not  be  cashed,  he  replied  that  if  our  other  bonds 
could,  much  more  could  these,  which  offered  a  perfect  security,  a 
fund  being  irrevocably  set  aside  to  provide  for  their  redemption.  To 
another  objection  that  we  should  be  paying  compound  interest,  he 
would  reply  that  the  rapid  growth  and  increase  of  our  resources  was 
in  so  great  a  ratio  as  to  outstrip  the  difficulty;  that  his  object  was 
to  do  the  best  that  could  be  done  in  the  present  emergency.  All 
agreed  that  the  faith  of  the  State  must  be  preserved ;  this  plan  ap 
peared  to  him  preferable  to  a  hypothecation  of  bonds,  which  would 
have  to  be  redeemed  and  the  interest  paid.  How  this  was  to  be  done, 
he  could  not  see ;  therefore  he  had,  after  turning  the  matter  over  in 
every  way,  devised  this  measure,  which  would  carry  us  on  till  the 
next  legislature. 

(Mr.  Lincoln  spoke  at  some  length,  advocating  his  measure.) 

Lincoln  advocated  his  measure,  December  11,  1840. 

December  12,  1840,  he  had  thought  some  permanent  provision 
ought  to  be  made  for  the  bonds  to  be  hypothecated,  but  was  satisfied 
taxation  and  revenue  could  not  be  connected  with  it  now. 


December  17,  1840. —  LETTER  TO  JOHN  T.  STUART. 

SPRINGFIELD,  December  17, 1840. 

Dear  Stuart:  McRoberts  was  elected  senator  yesterday.  The 
vote  stood:  McRoberts,  seventy-seven ;  Cyrus  Edwards, fifty;  E.  D. 
Baker,  one ;  absent,  three.  This  affair  of  appointment  to  office  is 
very  annoying — more  so  to  you  than  to  me,  doubtless.  I  am,  as  you 
know,  opposed  to  removals  to  make  places  for  our  friends.  Bearing 
this  in  mind,  I  express  my  preference  in  a  few  cases,  as  follows :  For 
marshal,  first,  John  Dawson ;  second,  Dr.  B.  F.  Edwards.  For  post 
master  here,  Dr.  Henry;  Carlinville,  Joseph  C.  Howell.  There  is  no 


44  ADDRESSES  AND  LETTERS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

question  of  the  propriety  of  removing  the  postmaster  at  Carlinville. 
I  have  been  told  by  so  many  different  persons  as  to  preclude  all  doubt 
of  its  truth,  that  he  boldly  refused  to  deliver  from  his  office  during 
the  canvass  all  documents  franked  by  Whig  members  of  Congress. 

Yours,  LINCOLN. 


January  23,  1841. — REMARKS  IN  THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE. 

In  the  Illinois  House  of  Representatives,  January  23,  1841,  while 
discussing  the  continuation  of  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal,  Mr. 
Moore  was  afraid  the  holders  of  the  "  scrip  n  would  lose. 
Mr.  Napier  thought  there  was  no  danger  of  that;  and 
Mr.  Lincoln  said  he  had  not  examined  to  see  what  amount  of  scrip 
would  probably  be  needed.  The  principal  point  in  his  mind  was 
this,  that  nobody  was  obliged  to  take  these  certificates.  It  is  alto 
gether  voluntary  on  their  part,  and  if  they  apprehend  it  will  fall  on 
their  hands,  they  will  not  take  it.  Further,  the  loss,  if  any  there  be, 
will  fall  on  the  citizens  of  that  section  of  the  country.  This  scrip  is 
not  going  to  circulate  over  an  extensive  range  of  country,  but  will 
be  confined  chiefly  to  the  vicinity  of  the  canal.  Now,  we  find  the 
representatives  of  that  section  of  the  country  are  all  in  favor  of  the 
bill.  When  we  propose  to  protect  their  interests,  they  say  to  us : 
Leave  us  to  take  care  of  ourselves ;  we  are  willing  to  run  the  risk. 
And  this  is  reasonable ;  we  must  suppose  they  are  competent  to  pro 
tect  their  own  interests,  and  it  is  only  fair  to  let  them  do  it. 


January  23,  1841. — LETTER  TO  JOHN  T.  STUART. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  January  23,  1841. 

Dear  Stuart :  Yours  of  the  3d  instant  is  received,  and  I  proceed 
to  answer  it  as  well  as  I  can,  though  from  the  deplorable  state  of 
my  mind  at  this  time,  I  fear  I  shall  give  you  but  little  satisfaction. 
About  the  matter  of  the  congressional  election,  I  can  only  tell  you 
that  there  is  a  bill  now  before  the  Senate  adopting  the  general  ticket 
system ;  but  whether  the  party  have  fully  determined  on  its  adoption 
is  yet  uncertain.  There  is  no  sign  of  opposition  to  you  among  our 
friends,  and  none  that  I  can  learn  among  our  enemies ;  though  of 
course  there  will  be  if  the  general  ticket  be  adopted.  The  "  Chicago 
American,7'  "  Peoria  Register,"  and  "  Sangamon  Journal "  have  al 
ready  hoisted  your  flag  upon  their  own  responsibility,  and  the  other 
Whig  papers  of  the  district  are  expected  to  follow  immediately.  On 
last  evening  there  was  a  meeting  of  our  friends  at  Butler's,  and  I 
submitted  the  question  to  them,  and  found  them  unanimously  in 
favor  of  having  you  announced  as  a  candidate.  A  few  of  us  this 
morning,  however,  concluded  that  as  you  were  already  being  an 
nounced  in  the  papers,  we  would  delay  announcing  you,  as  by  your 
own  authority,  for  a  week  or  two.  We  thought  that  to  appear  too 
keen  about  it  might  spur  our  opponents  on  about  their  general  ticket 
project.  Upon  the  whole,  I  think  I  may  say  with  certainty  that 


ADDRESSES   AND  LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  45 

your  reelection  is  sure,  if  it  be  in  the  power  of  the  Whigs  to  make 
it  so. 

For  not  giving  you  a  general  summary  of  news,  you  must  pardon 
me ;  it  is  not  in  my  power  to  do  so.  I  am  now  the  most  miserable 
man  living.  If  what  I  feel  were  equally  distributed  to  the  whole 
human  family,  there  would  not  be  one  cheerful  face  on  the  earth. 
Whether  I  shall  ever  be  better,  I  cannot  tell ;  I  awfully  forebode  I 
shall  not.  To  remain  as  I  am  is  impossible ;  I  must  die  or  be  better, 
it  appears  to  me.  The  matter  you  speak  of  on  my  account  you  may 
attend  to  as  you  say,  unless  you  shall  hear  of  my  condition  forbid 
ding  it.  I  say  this  because  I  fear  I  shall  be  unable  to  attend  to  any 
business  here,  and  a  change  of  scene  might  help  me.  If  I  could  be 
myself,  I  would  rather  remain  at  home  with  Judge  Logan.  I  can 
write  no  more.  Your  friend,  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


February  [8?,]  1841. —  CIRCULAR  FROM  WHIG  COMMITTEE. 
Appeal  to  the  People  of  the  State  of  Illinois. 

Fellow-citizens :  When  the  General  Assembly,  now  about  adjourn 
ing,  assembled  in  November  last,  from  the  bankrupt  state  of  the 
public  treasury,  the  pecuniary  embarrassments  prevailing  in  every 
department  of  society,  the  dilapidated  state  of  the  public  works,  and 
the  impending  danger  of  the  degradation  of  the  State,  you  had  a 
right  to  expect  that  your  representatives  would  lose  no  time  in  de 
vising  and  adopting  measures  to  avert  threatened  calamities,  allevi 
ate  the  distresses  of  the  people,  and  allay  the  fearful  apprehensions 
in  regard  to  the  future  prosperity  of  the  State.  It  was  not  expected 
by  you  that  the  spirit  of  party  would  take  the  lead  in  the  councils  of 
the  State,  and  make  every  interest  bend  to  its  demands.  Nor  was  it 
expected  that  any  party  would  assume  to  itself  the  entire  control  of 
legislation,  and  convert  the  means  and  offices  of  the  State,  and  the 
substance  of  the  people,  into  aliment  for  party  subsistence.  Neither 
could  it  have  been  expected  by  you  that  party  spirit,  however  strong 
its  desires  and  unreasonable  its  demands,  would  have  passed  the 
sanctuary  of  the  Constitution,  and  entered  with  its  unhallowed  and 
hideous  form  into  the  formation  of  the  judiciary  system. 

At  the  early  period  of  the  session,  measures  were  adopted  by  the 
dominant  party  to  take  possession  of  the  State,  to  fill  all  public 
offices  with  party  men,  and  make  every  measure  affecting  the  inter 
ests  of  the  people  and  the  credit  of  the  State  operate  in  furtherance 
of  their  party  views.  The  merits  of  men  and  measures  therefore  be 
came  the  subject  of  discussion  in  caucus,  instead  of  the  halls  of  leg 
islation,  and  decisions  there  made  by  a  minority  of  the  legislature 
have  been  executed  and  carried  into  effect  by  the  force  of  party  dis 
cipline,  without  any  regard  whatever  to  the  rights  of  the  people  or 
the  interests  of  the  State.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  was  or 
ganized,  and  judges  appointed,  according  to  the  provisions  of  the 
Constitution,  in  1824.  The  people  have  never  complained  of  the  or- 


46  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ganization  of  that  court;  no  attempt  has  ever  before  been  made  to 
change  that  department.  Respect  for  public  opinion,  and  regard  for 
the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  people,  have  hitherto  restrained  the 
spirit  of  party  from  attacks  upon  the  independence  and  integrity  of 
the  judiciary.  The  same  judges  have  continued  in  office  since  1824; 
their  decisions  have  not  been  the  subject  of  complaint  among  the 
people ;  the  integrity  and  honesty  of  the  court  have  not  been  ques 
tioned,  and  it  has  never  been  supposed  that  the  court  has  ever  per 
mitted  party  prejudice  or  party  considerations  to  operate  upon  their 
decisions.  The  court  was  made  to  consist  of  four  judges,  and  by  the 
Constitution  two  form  a  quorum  for  the  transaction  of  business. 
With  this  tribunal,  thus  constituted,  the  people  have  been  satisfied 
for  near  sixteen  years.  The  same  law  which  organized  the  Supreme 
Court  in  1824  also  established  and  organized  circuit  courts  to  be  held 
in  each  county  in  the  State,  and  five  circuit  judges  were  appointed 
to  hold  those  courts.  In  1826  the  legislature  abolished  these  circuit 
courts,  repealed  the  judges  out  of  office,  and  required  the  judges  of 
the  Supreme  Court  to  hold  the  circuit  courts.  The  reasons  assigned 
for  this  change  were,  first,  that  the  business  of  the  country  could  be 
better  attended  to  by  the  four  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  than  by 
the  two  sets  of  judges ;  and,  second,  the  state  of  the  public  treasury 
forbade  the  employment  of  unnecessary  officers.  In  1828  a  circuit 
was  established  north  of  the  Illinois  River,  in  order  to  meet  the 
wants  of  the  people,  and  a  circuit  judge  was  appointed  to  hold  the 
courts  in  that  circuit. 

In  1834  the  circuit-court  system  was  again  established  throughout 
the  State,  circuit  judges  appointed  to  hold  the  courts,  and  the  judges 
of  the  Supreme  Court  were  relieved  from  the  performance  of  circuit- 
court  duties.  The  change  was  recommended  by  the  then  acting 
governor  of  the  State,  General  W.  L.  D.  Ewing,  in  the  following 
terms: 

The  augmented  population  of  the  State,  the  multiplied  number  of  or 
ganized  counties,  as  well  as  the  increase  of  business  in  all,  has  long  since 
convinced  every  one  conversant  with  this  department  of  our  government  of 
the  indispensable  necessity  of  an  alteration  in  our  judiciary  system,  and  the 
subject  is  therefore  recommended  to  the  earnest  patriotic  consideration  of 
the  legislature.  The  present  system  has  never  been  exempt  from  serious 
and  weighty  objections.  The  idea  of  appealing  from  the  circuit  court  to  the 
same  judges  in  the  Supreme  Court  is  recommended  by  little  hopes  of  redress 
to  the  injured  party  below.  The  duties  of  the  circuit,  too,  it  may  be  added, 
consume  one  half  of  the  year,  leaving  a  small  and  inadequate  portion  of  time 
(when  that  required  for  domestic  purposes  is  deducted)  to  erect,  in  the  de 
cisions  of  the  Supreme  Court,  a  judicial  monument  of  legal  learning  and  re 
search,  which  the  talent  and  ability  of  the  court  might  otherwise  be  entirely 
competent  to. 

With  this  organization  of  circuit  courts  the  people  have  never 
complained.  The  only  complaints  which  we  have  heard  have  come 
from  circuits  which  were  so  large  that  the  judges  could  not  dispose 
of  the  business,  and  the  circuits  in  which  Judges  Pearson  and  Ral 
ston  lately  presided. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  47 

Whilst  the  honor  and  credit  of  the  State  demanded  legislation 
upon  the  subject  of  the  public  debt,  the  canal,  the  unfinished  public 
works,  and  the  embarrassments  of  the  people,  the  judiciary  stood 
upon  a  basis  which  required  no  change  —  no  legislative  action.  Yet 
the  party  in  power,  neglecting  every  interest  requiring  legislative 
action,  and  wholly  disregarding  the  rights,  wishes,  and  interests  of 
the  people,  has,  for  the  unholy  purpose  of  providing  places  for  its 
partizans  and  supplying  them  with  large  salaries,  disorganized  that 
department  of  the  government.  Provision  is  made  for  the  election 
of  five  party  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  proscription  of  four 
circuit  judges,  and  the  appointment  of  party  clerks  in  more  than 
half  the  counties  of  the  State.  Men  professing  respect  for  public 
opinion,  and  acknowledged  to  be  leaders  of  the  party,  have  avowed 
in  the  halls  of  legislation  that  the  change  in  the  judiciary  was  in 
tended  to  produce  political  results  favorable  to  their  party  and  party 
friends.  The  immutable  principles  of  justice  are  to  make  way  for 
party  interests,  and  the  bonds  of  social  order  are  to  be  rent  in  twain, 
in  order  that  a  desperate  faction  may  be  sustained  at  the  expense  of 
the  people.  The  change  proposed  in  the  judiciary  was  supported 
upon  grounds  so  destructive  to  the  institutions  of  the  country,  and 
so  entirely  at  war  with  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  people,  that  the 
party  could  not  secure  entire  unanimity  in  its  support, — three  Demo 
crats  of  the  Senate  and  five  of  the  House  voting  against  the  measure. 
They  were  unwilling  to  see  the  temples  of  justice  and  the  seats  of 
independent  judges  occupied  by  the  tools  of  faction.  The  declara 
tions  of  the  party  leaders,  the  selection  of  party  men  for  judges,  and 
the  total  disregard  for  the  public  will  in  the  adoption  of  the  measure, 
prove  conclusively  that  the  object  has  been  not  reform,  but  destruc 
tion  ;  not  the  advancement  of  the  highest  interests  of  the  State,  but 
the  predominance  of  party. 

"We  cannot  in  this  manner  undertake  to  point  out  all  the  objec 
tions  to  this  party  measure ;  we  present  you  with  those  stated  by 
the  Council  of  Revision  upon  returning  the  bill,  and  we  ask  for 
them  a  candid  consideration. 

Believing  that  the  independence  of  the  judiciary  has  been  de 
stroyed,  that  hereafter  our  courts  will  be  independent  of  the  people, 
and  entirely  dependent  upon  the  legislature ;  that  our  rights  of 
property  and  liberty  of  conscience  can  no  longer  be  regarded  as  safe 
from  the  encroachments  of  unconstitutional  legislation  ;  and  know 
ing  of  no  other  remedy  which  can  be  adopted  consistently  with  the 
peace  and  good  order  of  society,  we  call  upon  you  to  avail  your 
selves  of  the  opportunity  afforded,  and,  at  the  next  general  election, 
vote  for  a  convention  of  the  people. 


S.  H.  LITTLE, 
E.  D.  BAKER. 
J.  J.  HARDIN, 
E.  B.  WEBB, 
A.  LINCOLN, 

J.    GlLLESPIE, 


Committee  on  behalf  of  the 
Wliig  members  of  the  Legislature 


48  ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF  ABEAHAM  LINCOLN 

February  26,  1841. — EXTRACT  FROM  A  PROTEST  IN  THE  ILLINOIS 
LEGISLATURE  AGAINST  THE  REORGANIZATION  OF  THE  JUDICIARY. 

For  the  reason  thus  presented,  and  for  others  no  less  apparent, 
the  undersigned  cannot  assent  to  the  passage  of  the  bill,  or  permit 
it  to  become  a  law,  without  this  evidence  of  their  disapprobation ; 
and  they  now  protest  against  the  reorganization  of  the  judiciary, 
because — (1)  It  violates  the  great  principles  of  free  government  by 
subjecting  the  judiciary  to  the  legislature.  (2)  It  is  a  fatal  blow  at 
the  independence  of  the  judges  and  the  constitutional  term  of  their 
office.  (3)  It  is  a  measure  not  asked  for,  or  wished  for,  by  the  peo 
ple.  (4)  It  will  greatly  increase  the  expense  of  our  courts,  or  else 
greatly  diminish  their  utility.  (5)  It  will  give  our  courts  a  politi 
cal  and  partizan  character,  thereby  impairing  public  confidence  in 
their  decisions.  (6)  It  will  impair  our  standing  with  other  States 
and  the  world.  (7)  It  is  a  party  measure  for  party  purposes,  from 
which  no  practical  good  to  the  people  can  possibly  arise,  but  which 
may  be  the  source  of  immeasurable  evils. 

The  undersigned  are  well  aware  that  this  protest  will  be  alto 
gether  unavailing  with  the  majority  of  this  body.  The  blow  has 
already  fallen,  and  we  are  compelled  to  stand  by,  the  mournful  spec 
tators  of  the  ruin  it  will  cause. 

Signed  by  35  members,  among  whom  was  Abraham  Lincoln. 


June  19,  1841. — LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  June  19,  1841. 

Dear  Speed :  We  have  had  the  highest  state  of  excitement  here 
for  a  week  past  that  our  community  has  ever  witnessed ;  and  al 
though  the  public  feeling  is  somewhat  allayed,  the  curious  affair 
which  aroused  it  is  very  far  from  being  even  yet  cleared  of  mystery. 
It  would  take  a  quire  of  paper  to  give  you  anything  like  a  full  ac 
count  of  it,  and  I  therefore  only  propose  a  brief  outline.  The  chief  per 
sonages  in  the  drama  are  Archibald  Fisher,  supposed  to  be  murdered, 
and  Archibald  Trailor,  Henry  Trailer,  and  William  Trailor,  sup 
posed  to  have  murdered  him.  The  three  Trailers  are  brothers : 
the  first,  Arch.,  as  you  know,  lives  in  town ;  the  second,  Henry,  in 
Clary's  Grove ;  and  the  third,  William,  in  Warren  County;  and  Fisher, 
the  supposed  murdered,  being  without  a  family,  had  made  his  home 
with  William.  On  Saturday  evening,  being  the  29th  of  May,  Fisher 
and  William  came  to  Henry's  in  a  one-horse  dearborn,  and  there 
stayed  over  Sunday;  and  on  Monday  all  three  came  to  Spring 
field  (Henry  on  horseback),  and  joined  Archibald  at  Myers's,  the 
Dutch  carpenter.  That  evening  at  supper  Fisher  was  missing,  and 
so  next  morning  some  ineffectual  search  was  made  for  him ;  and  on 
Tuesday,  at  one  o'clock  p.  M.,  William  and  Henry  started  home 
without  him.  In  a  day  or  two  Henry  and  one  or  two  of  his  Clary- 
Grove  neighbors  came  back  for  him  again,  and  advertised  his  dis 
appearance  in  the  papers.  The  knowledge  of  the  matter  thus  far 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  49 

had  not  been  general,  and  here  it  dropped  entirely,  till  about  the 
10th  instant,  when  Keys  received  a  letter  from  the  postmaster  in 
Warren  County,  that  William  had  arrived  at  home,  and  was  telling 
a  very  mysterious  and  improbable  story  about  the  disappearance  of 
Fisher,  which  induced  the  community  there  to  suppose  he  had  been 
disposed  of  unfairly.  Keys  made  this  letter  public,  which  imme 
diately  set  the  whole  town  and  adjoining  county  agog.  And  so  it 
has  continued  until  yesterday.  The  mass  of  the  people  commenced  a 
systematic  search  for  the  dead  body,  while  Wickersham  was  de 
spatched  to  arrest  Henry  Trailor  at  the  Grove,  and  Jim  Maxcy  to 
Warren  to  arrest  William.  On  Monday  last,  Henry  was  brought  in, 
and  showed  an  evident  inclination  to  insinuate  that  he  knew  Fisher 
to  be  dead,  and  that  Arch,  and  William  had  killed  him.  He  said  he 
guessed  the  body  could  be  found  in  Spring  Creek,  between  the 
Beardstown  road  and  Hickox's  mill.  Away  the  people  swept  like  a 
herd  of  buffalo,  and  cut  down  Hickox's  mill-dam  nolens  volens,  to 
draw  the  water  out  of  the  pond,  and  then  went  up  and  down  and 
down  and  up  the  creek,  fishing  and  raking,  and  raking  and  ducking, 
and  diving  for  two  days,  and,  after  all,  no  dead  body  found. 

In  the  mean  time  a  sort  of  scuffling-ground  had  been  found  in  the 
brush  in  the  angle,  or  point,  where  the  road  leading  into  the  woods 
past  the  brewery  and  the  one  leading  in  past  the  brick-yard  meet. 
From  the  scuffle-ground  was  the  sign  of  something  about  the  size 
of  a  man  having  been  dragged  to  the  edge  of  the  thicket,  where  it 
joined  the  track  of  some  small- wheeled  carriage  drawn  by  one  horse, 
as  shown  by  the  road-tracks.  The  carriage-track  led  oif  toward 
Spring  Creek.  Near  this  drag-trail  Dr.  Merryman  found  two  hairs, 
which,  after  a  long  scientific  examination,  he  pronounced  to  be  tri 
angular  human  hair,  which  term,  he  says,  includes  within  it  the 
whiskers,  the  hair  growing  under  the  arms  and  on  other  parts  of  the 
body;  and  he  judged  that  these  two  were  of  the  whiskers,  because 
the  ends  were  cut,  showing  that  they  had  flourished  in  the  neigh 
borhood  of  the  razor's  operations.  On  Thursday  last  Jim  Maxcy 
brought  in  William  Trailor  from  Warren.  On  the  same  day  Arch, 
was  arrested  and  put  in  jail.  Yesterday  (Friday)  William  was  put 
upon  his  examining  trial  before  May  and  Lovely.  Archibald  and 
Henry  were  both 'present.  Lamborn  prosecuted,  and  Logan,  Baker, 
and  your  humble  servant  defended.  A  great  many  witnesses  were 
introduced  and  examined,  but  I  shall  only  mention  those  whose 
testimony  seemed  most  important.  The  first  of  these  was  Captain 
Ransdell.  He  swore  that  when  William  and  Henry  left  Springfield 
for  home  on  Tuesday  before  mentioned,  they  did  not  take  the  direct 
route, — which,  you  know,  leads  by  the  butcher  shop, — but  that  they 
followed  the  street  north  until  they  got  opposite,  or  nearly  opposite, 
May's  new  house,  after  which  he  could  not  see  them  from  where  he 
stood  ;  and  it  was  afterward  proved  that  in  about  an  hour  after  they 
started,  they  came  into  the  street  by  the  butcher  shop  from  toward 
the  brick-yard.  Dr.  Merryman  and  others  swore  to  what  is  stated  about 
the  scuffle-ground,  drag-trail,  whiskers,  and  carriage-tracks.  Henry 
was  then  introduced  by  the  prosecution.  He  swore  that  when  they 
started  for  home,  they  went  out  north,  as  Ransdell  stated,  and  turned 
VOL.  I.— 4. 


50  ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

down  west  by  the  brick-yard  into  the  woods,  and  there  met  Archi 
bald;  that  they  proceeded  a  small  distance  farther,  when  he  was 
placed  as  a  sentinel  to  watch  for  and  announce  the  approach  of  any 
one  that  might  happen  that  way ;  that  William  and  Arch,  took  the 
dearborn  out  of  the  road  a  small  distance  to  the  edge  of  the  thicket, 
where  they  stopped,  and  he  saw  them  lift  the  body  of  a  man  into  it; 
that  they  then  moved  off  with  the  carriage  in  the  direction  of  Hickox's 
mill,  and  he  loitered  about  for  something  like  an  hour,  when  Wil 
liam  returned  with  the  carriage,  but  without  Arch.,  and  said  they 
had  put  him  in  a  safe  place;  that  they  went  somehow — he  did  not 
know  exactly  how — into  the  road  close  to  the  brewery,  and  pro 
ceeded  on  to  Clary's  Grove.  He  also  stated  that  some  time  during 
the  day  William  told  him  that  he  and  Arch,  had  killed  Fisher  the 
evening  before;  that  the  way  they  did  it  was  by  him  (William) 
knocking  him  down  with  a  club,  and  Arch,  then  choking  him  to 
death. 

An  old  man  from  Warren,  called  Dr.  Gilmore,  was  then  intro 
duced  on  the  part  of  the  defense.  He  swore  that  he  had  known 
Fisher  for  several  years;  that  Fisher  had  resided  at  his  house  a 
long  time  at  each  of  two  different  spells — once  while  he  built  a 
barn  for  him,  and  once  while  he  was  doctored  for  some  chronic 
disease ;  that  two  or  three  years  ago  Fisher  had  a  serious  hurt  in 
his  head  by  the  bursting  of  a  gun,  since  which  he  had  been  subject 
to  continued  bad  health  and  occasional  aberration  of  mind.  He  also 
stated  that  on  last  Tuesday,  being  the  same  day  that  Maxcy  arrested 
William  Trailor,  he  (the  doctor)  was  from  home  in  the  early  part  of 


also  told  of  several  other  places  he  had  been  at  more  in  the  direction 
of  Peoria,  which  showed  that  he  at  the  time  of  speaking  did  not  know 
where  he  had  been  wandering  about  in  a  state  of  derangement.  He 
further  stated  that  in  about  two  hours  he  received  a  note  from  one 
of  Trailer's  friends,  advising  him  of  his  arrest,  and  requesting  him 
to  go  on  to  Springfield  as  -a  witness,  to  testify  as  to  the  state  of 
Fisher's  health  in  former  times ;  that  he  immediately  set  off,  calling 
up  two  of  his  neighbors  as  company,  and,  riding  all  evening  and  all 
night,  overtook  Maxcy  and  William  at  Lewiston  in  Fulton  County; 
that  Maxcy  refusing  to  discharge  Trailor  upon  his  statement,  his 
two  neighbors  returned  and  he  came  on  to  Springfield.  Some  ques 
tion  being  made  as  to  whether  the  doctor's  story  was  not  a  fabrica 
tion,  several  acquaintances  of  his  (among  whom  was  the  same 
postmaster  who  wrote  Keys,  as  before  mentioned)  were  introduced 
as  sort  of  compurgators,  who  swore  that  they  knew  the  doctor 
to  be  of  good  character  for  truth  and  veracity,  and  generally 
of  good  character  in  every  way.  Here  the  testimony  ended, 
and  the  Trailers  were  discharged,  Arch,  and  William  express 
ing  both  in  word  and  manner  their  entire  confidence  that  Fisher 
would  be  found  alive  at  the  doctor's  by  Galloway,  Mallory,  and 
Myers,  who  a  day  before  had  been  despatched  for  that  purpose; 
while  Henry  still  protested  that  no  power  on  earth  could  ever  show 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  51 

Fisher  alive.  Thus  stands  this  curious  affair.  When  the  doctor's 
story  was  first  made  public,  it  was  amusing  to  scan  and  contemplate 
the  countenances  and  hear  the  remarks  of  those  who  had  been 
actively  in  search  for  the  dead  body :  some  looked  quizzical,  some 
melancholy,  and' some  furiously  angry.  Porter,  who  had  been  very 
active,  swore  he  always  knew  the  man  was  not  dead,  and  that  he 
had  not  stirred  an  inch  to  hunt  for  him ;  Langford,  who  had  taken 
the  lead  in  cutting  down  Hickox's  mill-dam,  and  wanted  to  hang 
Hickox  for  objecting,  looked  most  awfully  woebegone :  he  seemed 
the  "victim  of  unrequited  affection/'  as  represented  in  the  comic 
almanacs  we  used  to  laugh  over;  and  Hart,  the  little  drayman 
that  hauled  Molly  home  once,  said  it  was  too  damned  bad  to  have 
so  much  trouble,  and  no  hanging  after  all. 

I  commenced  this  letter  on  yesterday,  since  which  I  received  yours 
of  the  13th.    I  stick  to  my  promise  to  come  to  Louisville.    Nothing 

new  here  except  what  I  have  written.     I  have  not  seen since  my 

last  trip,  and  I  am  going  out  there  as  soon  as  I  mail  this  letter. 
Yours  forever,  LINCOLN. 


June  25,  1841. —  STATEMENT  ABOUT  HARRY  WILTON. 

It  having  been  charged  in  some  of  the  public  prints  that  Harry 
Wilton,  late  United  States  marshal  for  the  district  of  Illinois,  had 
used  his  office  for  political  effect,  in  the  appointment  of  deputies  for 
the  taking  of  the  census  for  the  year  1840,  we,  the  undersigned,  were 
called  upon  by  Mr.  Wilton  to  examine  the  papers  in  his  possession 
relative  to  these  appointments,  and  to  ascertain  therefrom  the  cor 
rectness  or  incorrectness  of  such  charge.  We  accompanied  Mr.  Wil 
ton  to  a  room,  and  examined  the  matter  as  fully  as  we  could  with 
the  means  afforded  us.  The  only  sources  of  information  bearing 
on  the  subject  which  were  submitted  to  us,  were  the  letters,  etc., 
recommending  and  opposing  the  various  appointments  made,  and 
Mr.  Wilton's  verbal  statements  concerning  the  same.  From  these 
letters,  etc.,  it  appears  that  in  some  instances  appointments  were 
made  in  accordance  with  the  recommendations  of  leading  Whigs, 
and  in  opposition  to  those  of  leading  Democrats ;  among  which  in 
stances  the  appointments  at  Scott,  Wayne,  Madison,  and  Lawrence 
are  the  strongest.  According  to  Mr.  Wilton's  statement,  of  the 
seventy-six  appointments  we  examined,  fifty-four  were  of  Demo 
crats,  eleven  of  Whigs,  and  eleven  of  unknown  politics. 

The  chief  ground  of  complaint  against  Mr.  Wilton,  as  we  had 
understood  it,  was  because  of  his  appointment  of  so  many  Demo 
cratic  candidates  for  the  legislature,  thus  giving  them  a  decided  ad 
vantage  over  their  Whig  opponents ;  and  consequently  our  attention 
was  directed  rather  particularly  to  that  point.  We  found  that  there 
were  many  such  appointments,  among  which  were  those  in  Taze- 
well,  McLean,  Iroquois,  Coles,  Menard,  Wayne,  Washington,  Fayette, 
etc.  j  and  we  did  not  learn  that  there  was  one  instance  in  which  a 
Whig  candidate  for  the  legislature  had  been  appointed.  There  was 
no  written  evidence  before  us  showing  us  at  what  time  those  ap- 


52  ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN 

pointments  were  made ;  but  Mr.  Wilton  stated  that  they  all,  with 
one  exception,  were  made  before  those  appointed  became  candidates 
for  the  legislature,  and  the  letters,  etc.,  recommending  them  all  bear 
date  before,  and  most  of  them  long  before,  those  appointed  were 
publicly  announced  candidates. 

We  give  the  foregoing  naked  facts,  and  draw  no  conclusions  from 
them. 

BENJ.  S.  EDWARDS, 

June  25,  1841.  A.  LINCOLN. 

September  27,  1841. — LETTER  TO  Miss  MARY  SPEED. 

BLOOMINGTON,  ILL.,  September  27,  1841. 
Miss  MARY  SPEED,  Louisville,  Ky. 

My  Friend :  Having  resolved  to  write  to  some  of  your  mother's 
family,  and  not  having  the  express  permission  of  any  one  of  them 
to  do  so,  I  have  had  some  little  difficulty  in  determining  on  which  to 
inflict  the  task  of  reading  what  I  now  feel  must  be  a  most  dull  and 
silly  letter ;  but  when  I  remembered  that  you  and  I  were  something 
of  cronies  while  I  was  at  Farmington,  and  that  while  there  I  was 
under  the  necessity  of  shutting  you  up  in  a  room  to  prevent  your 
committing  an  assault  and  battery  upon  me,  I  instantly  decided 
that  you  should  be  the  devoted  one.  I  assume  that  you  have  not 
heard  from  Joshua  and  myself  since  we  left,  because  I  think  it  doubt 
ful  whether  he  has  written.  You  remember  there  was  some  uneasi 
ness  about  Joshua's  health  when  we  left.  That  little  indisposition 
of  his  turned  out  to  be  nothing  serious,  and  it  was  pretty  nearly 
forgotten  when  we  reached  Springfield.  We  got  on  board  the  steam 
boat  Lebanon  in  the  locks  of  the  canal,  about  twelve  o'clock  M.  of 
the  day  we  left,  and  reached  St.  Louis  the  next  Monday  at  8  P.  M. 
Nothing  of  interest  happened  during  the  passage,  except  the  vexa 
tious  delays  occasioned  by  the  sand-bars  be  thought  interesting. 
By  the  way,  a  fine  example  was  presented  on  board  the  boat  for 
contemplating  the  effect  of  condition  upon  human  happiness.  A 
gentleman  had  purchased  twelve  negroes  in  different  parts  of  Ken 
tucky,  and  was  taking  them  to  a  farm  in  the  South.  They  were 
chained  six  and  six  together.  A  small  iron  clevis  was  around  the 
left  wrist  of  each,  and  this  fastened  to  the  main  chain  by  a  shorter 
one,  at  a  convenient  distance  from  the  others,  so  that  the  negroes 
were  strung  together  precisely  like  so  many  fish  upon  a  trot-line. 
In  this  condition  they  were  being  separated  forever  from  the  scenes 
of  their  childhood,  their  friends,  their  fathers  and  mothers,  and 
brothers  and  sisters,  and  many  of  them  from  their  wives  and 
children,  and  going  into  perpetual  slavery,  where  the  lash  of  the 
master  is  proverbially  more  ruthless  and  unrelenting  than  any  other 
where  5  and  yet  amid  all  these  distressing  circumstances,  as  we 
would  think  them,  they  were  the  most  cheerful  and  apparently 
happy  creatures  on  board.  One  whose  offense  for  which  he  had 
been  sold  was  an  over-fondness  for  his  wife,  played  the  fiddle  almost 
continually,  and  the  others  danced,  sang,  cracked  jokes,  and  played 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  53 

various  games  with  cards  from  day  to  day.  How  true  it  is  that 
"  God  tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb,"  or  in  other  words,  that 
he  renders  the  worst  of  human  conditions  tolerable,  while  he  permits 
the  best  to  be  nothing  better  than  tolerable.  To  return  to  the  nar 
rative.  When  we  reached  Springfield,  I  stayed  but  one  day,  when 
I  started  on  this  tedious  circuit  where  I  now  am.  Do  you  remem 
ber  my  going  to  the  city,  while  I  was  in  Kentucky,  to  have  a  tooth 
extracted,  and  making  a  failure  of  it  ?  Well,  that  same  old  tooth 
got  to  paining  me  so  much  that  about  a  week  since  I  had  it  torn  out, 
bringing  with  it  a  bit  of  the  jaw-bone,  the  consequence  of  which 
is  that  my  mouth  is  now  so  sore  that  I  can  neither  talk  nor  eat. 

I  am  literally  "subsisting  on  savory  remembrances" — that  is, 
being  unable  to  eat,  I  am  living  upon  the  remembrance  of  the  deli 
cious  dishes  of  peaches  and  cream  we  used  to  have  at  your  house. 
When  we  left,  Miss  Fanny  Henning  was  owing  you  a  visit,  as  I  under 
stood.  Has  she  paid  it  yet?  If  she  has,  are  you  not  convinced  that 
she  is  one  of  the  sweetest  girls  in  the  world?  There  is  but  one 
thing  about  her,  so  far  as  I  could  perceive,  that  I  would  have  other 
wise  than  as  it  is — that  is,  something  of  a  tendency  to  melancholy. 
This,  let  it  be  observed,  is  a  misfortune,  not  a  fault. 

Give  her  an  assurance  of  my  very  highest  regard  when  you  see 
her.  Is  little  Siss  Eliza  Davis  at  your  house  yet  ?  If  she  is,  kiss 
her  "  o'er  and  o'er  again  "  for  me. 

Tell  your  mother  that  I  have  not  got  her  "present"  [an  "Oxford" 
Bible]  with  me,  but  I  intend  to  read  it  regularly  when  I  return 
home.  I  doubt  not  that  it  is  really,  as  she  says,  the  best  cure  for 
the  blues,  could  one  but  take  it  according  to  the  truth.  Give  my 
respects  to  all  your  sisters  (including  Aunt  Emma)  and  brothers. 
Tell  Mrs.  Peay,  of  whose  happy  face  I  shall  long  retain  a  pleasant 
remembrance,  that  I  have  been  trying  to  think  of  a  name  for  her 
homestead,  but  as  yet  cannot  satisfy  myself  with  one.  I  shall  be 
very  happy  to  receive  a  line  from  you  soon  after  you  receive  this, 
and  in  case  you  choose  to  favor  me  with  one,  address  it  to  Charles 
ton,  Coles  County,  111.,  as  I  shall  be  there  about  the  time  to  receive 
it.  Your  sincere  friend, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


October  20,  1841. — CALL  FOB  WHIG  STATE  CONVENTION. 

The  undersigned,  acting,  as  is  believed,  in  accordance  with  the 
wishes  of  the  Whig  party,  and  in  compliance  with  their  duties  as 
the  Whig  Central  Committee  of  this  State,  appoint  the  third  Mon 
day  of  December  next  for  the  meeting  of  a  Whig  State  Convention, 
at  Springfield,  for  the  purpose  of  nominating  candidates  for  the  of 
fices  of  Governor  and  Lieutenant-Governor  of  this  State  for  the 
coming  election. 

It  is  recommended  that  the  number  of  delegates  to  the  conven 
tion  shall  conform  to  the  number  of  representatives  entitled  under 
the  new  apportionment ;  but  that  in  all  cases  every  county  shall  be 
entitled  to  one  delegate. 


54  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

We  would  urge  upon  our  political  friends  in  the  different  coun 
ties  to  call  meetings  immediately  for  the  election  of  delegates. 

It  is  ardently  hoped  that  the  counties  will  be  fully  represented,  in 
order  that  the  will  of  the  people  may  be  expressed  in  the  selection  of 
candidates. 

A.  Gr.  HENRY,      J.  F.  SPEED,         A.  LINCOLN, 
E.  D.  BAKER,      WM.  L.  MAY, 

Whig  State  Central  Committee. 
SPRINGFIELD,  Oct.  20,  1841. 


January  [3  ?],  1842. — LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

My  dear  Speed :  Feeling,  as  you  know  I  do,  the  deepest  solicitude 
for  the  success  of  the  enterprise  you  are  engaged  in,  I  adopt  this  as 
the  last  method  I  can  adopt  to  aid  you,  in  case  (which  God  forbid!) 
you  shall  need  any  aid.  I  do  not  place  what  I  am  going  to  say  on 
paper  because  I  can  say  it  better  that  way  than  I  could  by  word  of 
mouth,  but,  were  I  to  say  it  orally  before  we  part,  most  likely  you 
would  forget  it  at  the  very  time  when  it  might  do  you  some  good. 
As  I  think  it  reasonable  that  you  will  feel  very  badly  some  time  be 
tween  this  and  the  final  consummation  of  your  purpose,  it  is  in 
tended  that  you  shall  read  this  just  at  such  a  time.  Why  I  say  it  is 
reasonable  that  you  will  feel  very  badly  yet,  is  because  of  three 
special  causes  added  to  the  general  one  which  I  shall  mention. 

The  general  cause  is,  that  you  are  naturally  of  a  nervous  temper 
ament  ;  and  this  I  say  from  what  I  have  seen  of  you  personally,  and 
what  you  have  told  me  concerning  your  mother  at  various  times, 
and  concerning  your  brother  William  at  the  time  his  wife  died. 
The  first  special  cause  is  your  exposure  to  bad  weather  on  your 
journey,  which  my  experience  clearly  proves  to  be  very  severe  on 
defective  nerves.  The  second  is  the  absence  of  all  business  and 
conversation  of  friends,  which  might  divert  your  mind,  give  it  occa 
sional  rest  from  the  intensity  of  thought  which  will  sometimes  wear 
the  sweetest  idea  threadbare  and  turn  it  to  the  bitterness  of  death. 
The  third  is  the  rapid  and  near  approach  of  that  crisis  on  which  all 
your  thoughts  and  feelings  concentrate. 

If  from  all  these  causes  you  shall  escape  and  go  through  trium 
phantly,  without  another  "  twinge  of  the  soul/'  I  shall  be  most  hap 
pily  but  most  egregiously  deceived.  If,  on  the  contrary,  you  shall, 
as  I  expect  you  will  at  some  time,  be  agonized  and  distressed,  let 
me,  who  have  some  reason  to  speak  with  judgment  on  such  a  sub 
ject,  beseech  you  to  ascribe  it  to  the  causes  I  have  mentioned,  and 
not  to  some  false  and  ruinous  suggestion  of  the  Devil. 

"  But/7  you  will  say,  "  do  not  your  causes  apply  to  every  one  en 
gaged  in  a  like  undertaking?"  By  no  means.  The  particular 
causes,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  perhaps,  do  apply  in  all  cases;  but 
the  general  one, —  nervous  debility,  which  is  the  key  and  conductor 
of  all  the  particular  ones,  and  without  which  they  would  be  utterly 
harmless, — though  it  does  pertain  to  you,  does  not  pertain  to  one  in 


ADDKESSES    AND   LETTEES    OF   ABKAHAM    LINCOLN  55 

a  thousand.     It  is  out  of  this  that  the  painful  difference  between 
you  and  the  mass  of  the  world  springs. 

I  know  what  the  painful  point  with  you  is  at  all  times  when  you 
are  unhappy ;  it  is  an  apprehension  that  you  do  not  love  her  as  you 
should.  What  nonsense!  How  came  you  to  court  her?  Was  it 
because  you  thought  she  deserved  it,  and  that  you  had  given  her 
reason  to  expect  it!  If  it  was  for  that,  why  did  not  the  same  reason 
make  you  court  Ann  Todd,  and  at  least  twenty  others  of  whom  you 
can  think,  and  to  whom  it  would  apply  with  greater  force  than  to 
her?  Did  you  court  her  for  her  wealth  ?  Why,  you  know  she  had 
none.  But  you  say  you  reasoned  yourself  into  it.  What  do  you 
mean  by  that  ?  Was  it  not  that  you  found  yourself  unable  to  reason 
yourself  out  of  it  1  Did  you  not  think,  and  partly  form  the  purpose, 
of  courting  her  the  first  time  you  ever  saw  her  or  heard  of  her  ? 
What  had  reason  to  do  with  it  at  that  early  stage?  There  was 
nothing  at  that  time  for  reason  to  work  upon.  Whether  she  was 
moral,  amiable,  sensible,  or  even  of  good  character,  you  did  not,  nor 
could  then  know,  except,  perhaps,  you  might  infer  the  last  from  the 
company  you  found  her  in. 

All  you  then  did  or  could  know  of  her  was  her  personal  appear 
ance  and  deportment ;  and  these,  if  they  impress  at  all,  impress  the 
heart,  and  not  the  head. 

Say  candidly,  were  not  those  heavenly  black  eyes  the  whole  basis 
of  all  your  early  reasoning  on  the  subject  ?  After  you  and  I  had 
once  been  at  the  residence,  did  you  not  go  and  take  me  all  the  way 
to  Lexington  and  back,  for  no  other  purpose  but  to  get  to  see  her 
again,  on  our  return  on  that  evening  to  take  a  trip  for  that  express 
object?  What  earthly  consideration  would  you  take  to  find  her 
scouting  and  despising  you,  and  giving  herself  up  to  another?  But 
of  this  you  have  no  apprehension ;  and  therefore  you  cannot  bring 
it  home  to  your  feelings. 

I  shall  be  so  anxious  about  you  that  I  shall  want  you  to  write  by 
every  mail.  Your  friend, 

LINCOLN. 


Februarys,  1842. —  LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  February  3,  1842. 

Dear  Speed :  Your  letter  of  the  25th  January  came  to  hand  to-day. 
You  well  know  that  I  do  not  feel  my  own  sorrows  much  more  keenly 
than  I  do  yours,  when  I  know  of  them ;  and  yet  I  assure  you  I  was 
not  much  hurt  by  what  you  wrote  me  of  your  excessively  bad  feel 
ing  at  the  time  you  wrote.  Not  that  I  am  less  capable  of  sympa 
thizing  with  you  now  than  ever,  not  that  I  am  less  your  friend  than 
ever,  but  because  I  hope  and  believe  that  your  present  anxiety  and 
distress  about  her  health  and  her  life  must  and  will  forever  banish 
those  horrid  doubts  which  I  know  you  sometimes  felt  as  to  the 
truth  of  your  affection  for  her.  If  they  can  once  and  forever  be  re 
moved  (and  I  almost  feel  a  presentiment  that  the  Almighty  has  sent 
your  present  affliction  expressly  for  that  object),  surety  nothing  can 


56  ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

come  in  their  stead  to  fill  their  immeasurable  measure  of  misery. 
The  death-scenes  of  those  we  love  are  surely  painful  enough  ;  but 
these  we  are  prepared  for  and  expect  to  see :  they  happen  to  all,  and 
all  know  they  must  happen.  Painful  as  they  are,  they  are  not  an 
unlooked-for  sorrow.  Should  she,  as  you  fear,  be  destined  to  an 
early  grave,  it  is  indeed  a  great  consolation  to  know  that  she  is  so 
well  prepared  to  meet  it.  Her  religion,  which  you  once  disliked  so 
much,  I  will  venture  you  now  prize  most  highly.  But  I  hope  your 
melancholy  bodings  as  to  her  early  death  are  not  well  founded.  I 
even  hope  that  ere  this  reaches  you  she  will  have  returned  with  im 
proved  and  still  improving  health,  and  that  you  will  have  met  herr 
and  forgotten  the  sorrows  of  the  past  in  the  enjoyments  of  the  pres 
ent.  I  would  say  more  if  I  could,  but  it  seems  that  I  have  said 
enough.  It  really  appears  to  me  that  you  yourself  ought  to  rejoice, 
and  not  sorrow,  at  this  indubitable  evidence  of  your  undying  affec 
tion  for  her.  Why,  Speed,  if  you  did  not  love  her,  although  you 
might  not  wish  her  death,  you  would  most  certainly  be  resigned  to 
it.  Perhaps  this  point  is  no  longer  a  question  witli  you,  and  my 
pertinacious  dwelling  upon  it  is  a  rude  intrusion  upon  your  feel 
ings.  If  so,  you  must  pardon  me.  You  know  the  hell  I  have  suf 
fered  on  that  point,  and  how  tender  I  am  upon  it.  You  know  I  do 
not  mean  wrong.  I  have  been  quite  clear  of  "hypo"  since  you  left ; 

even  better  than  I  was  along  in  the  fall.     I  have  seen  but 

once.  She  seemed  very  cheerful,  and  so  I  said  nothing  to  her  about 
what  we  spoke  of. 

Old  Uncle  Billy  Herndon  is  dead,  and  it  is  said  this  evening  that 
Uncle  Ben  Ferguson  will  not  live.  This,  I  believe,  is  all  the  news, 
and  enough  at  that  unless  it  were  better.  Write  me  immediately  on 
the  receipt  of  this.  Your  friend,  as  ever, 

LINCOLN. 


February  13,  1842. —  LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  February  13,  1842. 

Dear  Speed:  Yours  of  the  1st  instant  came  to  hand  three  or  four 
days  ago.  When  this  shall  reach  you,  you  will  have  been  Fanny's 
husband  several  days.  You  know  my  de*sire  to  befriend  you  is  ever 
lasting;  that  I  will  never  cease  while  I  know  how  to  do  anything. 
But  you  will  always  hereafter  be  on  ground  that  I  have  never  occu 
pied,"  and  consequently,  if  advice  were  needed,  I  might  advise  wrong. 
I  do  fondly  hope,  however,  that  you  will  never  again  need  any  com 
fort  from  abroad.  But  should  I  be  mistaken  in  this,  should  exces 
sive  pleasure  still  be  accompanied  with  a  painful  counterpart  at 
times,  still  let  me  urge  you,  as  I  have  ever  done,  to  remember,  in  the 
depth  and  even  agony  of  despondency,  that  very  shortly  you  are  to 
feel  well  again.  I  am  now  fully  convinced  that  you  love  her  as  ar 
dently  as  you  are  capable  of  loving.  Your  ever  being  happy  in  her 
presence,  and  your  intense  anxiety  about  her  health,  if  there  were 
nothing  else,  would  place  this  beyond  all  dispute  in  my  mind.  I 
incline  to  think:  it  probable  that  your  nerves  will  fail  you  occasion- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN  O? 

ally  for  a  while;  but  once  you  get  them  firmly  guarded  now,  that 
trouble  is  over  forever.  I  think,  if  I  were  you,  in  case  my  mind  were 
not  exactly  right,  I  would  avoid  being  idle.  I  would  immediately 
engage  in  some  business,  or  go  to  making  preparations  for  it,  which 
would  be  the  same  thing.  If  you  went  through  the  ceremony  calmly, 
or  even  with  sufficient  composure  not  to  excite  alarm  in  any  present, 
you  are  safe  beyond  question,  and  in  two  or  three  months,  to  say  the 
most,  will  be  the  happiest  of  men. 

I  would  desire  you  to  give  my  particular  respects  to  Fanny;  but 
perhaps  you  will  not  wish  her  to  know  you  have  received  this,  lest 
she  should  desire  to  see  it.  Make  her  write  me  an  answer  to  my  last 
letter  to  her;  at  any  rate,  I  would  set  great  value  upon  a  note  or  let 
ter  from  her.  Write  me  whenever  you  have  leisure. 

Yours  forever,  A.  LINCOLN. 

P.  S.     I  have  been  quite  a  man  since  you  left. 


February  22,  1842. — ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  SPRINGFIELD 
WASHINGTONIAN  TEMPERANCE  SOCIETY. 

Although  the  temperance  cause  has  been  in  progress  for  near 
twenty  years,  it  is  apparent  to  all  that  it  is  just  now  being  crowned 
with  a  degree  of  success  hitherto  unparalleled. 

The  list  of  its  friends  is  daily  swelled  by  the  additions  of  fifties, 
of  hundreds,  and  of  thousands.  The  cause  itself  seems  suddenly 
transformed  from  a  cold  abstract  theory  to  a  living,  breathing,  active, 
and  powerful  chieftain,  going  forth  "  conquering  and  to  conquer.77 
The  citadels  of  his  great  adversary  are  daily  being  stormed  and  dis 
mantled  ;  his  temple  and  his  altars,  where  the  rites  of  his  idolatrous 
worship  have  long  been  performed,  and  where  human  sacrifices  have 
long  been  wont  to  be  made,  are  daily  desecrated  and  deserted.  The 
triumph  of  the  conqueror's  fame  is  sounding  from  hill  to  hill,  from 
sea  to  sea,  and  from  land  to  land,  and  calling  millions  to  his  stan 
dard  at  a  blast. 

For  this  new  and  splendid  success  we  heartily  rejoice.  That  that 
success  is  so  much  greater  now  than  heretofore  is  doubtless  owing 
to  rational  causes ;  and  if  we  would  have  it  continue,  we  shall  do 
well  to  inquire  what  those  causes  are. 

The  warfare  heretofore  waged  against  the  demon  intemperance 
has  somehow  or  other  been  erroneous.  Either  the  champions  en 
gaged  or  the  tactics  they  adopted  have  not  been  the  most  proper. 
These  champions  for  the  most  part  have  been  preachers,  lawyers, 
and  hired  agents.  Between  these  and  the  mass  of  mankind  there  is 
a  want  of  approachability,  if  the  term  be  admissible,  partially,  at 
least,  fatal  to  their  success.  They  are  supposed  to  have  no  sympathy 
of  feeling  or  interest  with  those  very  persons  whom  it  is  their  object 
to  convince  and  persuade. 

And  again,  it  is  so  common  and  so  easy  to  ascribe  motives  to  men 
of  these  classes  other  than  those  they  profess  to  act  upon.  The 
preacher,  it  is  said,  advocates  temperance  because  he  is  a  fanatic,  and 
desires  a  union  of  the  church  and  state ;  the  lawyer  from  his  pride 


58  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

and  vanity  of  hearing  himself  speak ;  and  the  hired  agent  for  his 
salary.  But  when  one  who  has  long  been  known  as  a  victim  of  in 
temperance  bursts  the  fetters  that  have  bound  him,  and  appears 
before  his  neighbors  "  clothed  and  in  his  right  mind,"  a  redeemed 
specimen  of  long-lost  humanity,  and  stands  up,  with  tears  of  joy 
trembling  in  his  eyes,  to  tell  of  the  miseries  once  endured,  now  to  be 
endured  no  more  forever;  of  his  once  naked  and  starving  children, 
now  clad  and  fed  comfortably;  of  a  wife  long  weighed  down  with 
woe,  weeping,  and  a  broken  heart,  now  restored  to  health,  happiness, 
and  a  renewed  affection;  and  how  easily  it  is  all  done,  once  it  is  re 
solved  to  be  done;  how  simple  his  language! — there  is  a  logic  and 
an  eloquence  in  it  that  few  with  human  feelings  can  resist.  They 
cannot  say  that  he  desires  a  union  of  church  and  state,  for  he  is  not 
a  church  member;  they  cannot  say  he  is  vain  of  hearing  himself 
speak,  for  his  whole  demeanor  shows  he  would  gladly  avoid  speak 
ing  at  all;  they  cannot  say  he  speaks  for  pay,  for  he  receives 
none,  and  asks  for  none.  Nor  can  his  sincerity  in  any  way  be 
doubted,  or  his  sympathy  for  those  he  would  persuade  to  imitate  his 
example  be  denied. 

In  my  judgment,  it  is  to  the  battles  of  this  new  class  of  cham 
pions  that  our  late  success  is  greatly,  perhaps  chiefly,  owing.  But, 
had  the  old-school  champions  themselves  been  of  the  most  wise  se 
lecting,  was  their  system  of  tactics  the  most  judicious?  It  seems 
to  me  it  was  not.  Too  much  denunciation  against  dram-sellers  and 
dram-drinkers  was  indulged  in.  This  I  think  was  both  impolitic 
and  unjust.  It  was  impolitic,  because  it  is  not  much  in  the  nature 
of  man  to  be  driven  to  anything ;  still  less  to  be  driven  about  that 
which  is  exclusively  his  own  business ;  and  least  of  all  where  such 
driving  is  to  be  submitted  to  at  the  expense  of  pecuniary  interest 
or  burning  appetite.  When  the  dram-seller  and  drinker  were  inces 
santly  told — not  in  accents  of  entreaty  and  persuasion,  diffidently 
addressed  by  erring  man  to  an  erring  brother,  but  in  the  thun 
dering  tones  of  anathema  and  denunciation  with  which  the  lordly 
judge  often  groups  together  all  the  crimes  of  the  felon's  life,  and 
thrusts  them  in  his  face  just  ere  he  passes  sentence  of  death  upon 
him — that  they  were  the  authors  of  all  the  vice  and  misery  and 
crime  in  the  land ;  that  they  were  the  manufacturers  and  material 
of  all  the  thieves  and  robbers  and  murderers  that  infest  the  earth  ; 
that  their  houses  were  the  workshops  of  the  devil ;  and  that  their 
persons  should  be  shunned  by  all  the  good  and  virtuous,  as  moral  pesti 
lences — I  say,  when  they  were  told  all  this,  and  in  this  way,  it  is 
not  wonderful  that  they  were  slow,  very  slow,  to  acknowledge  the 
truth  of  such  denunciations,  and  to  join  the  ranks  of  their  denoun 
cers  in  a  hue  and  cry  against  themselves. 

To  have  expected  them  to  do  otherwise  than  they  did — to  have 
expected  them  not  to  meet  denunciation  with  denunciation,  crimi 
nation  with  crimination,  and  anathema  with  anathema — was  to  ex 
pect  a  reversal  of  human  nature,  which  is  God's  decree  and  can 
never  be  reversed. 

When  the  conduct  of  men  is  designed  to  be  influenced,  persua 
sion,  kind,  unassuming  persuasion,  should  ever  be  adopted.  It  is  an 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  59 

old  and  a  true  maxim  "  that  a  drop  of  honey  catches  more  flies  than 
a  gallon  of  gall."  So  with  men.  If  you  would  win  a  man  to  your 
cause,  first  convince  him  that  you  are  his  sincere  friend.  Therein 
is  a  drop  of  honey  that  catches  his  heart,  which,  say  what  he  will,  is 
the  great  highroad  to  his  reason,  and  which,  when  once  gained,  you 
will  find  but  little  trouble  in  convincing  his  judgment  of  the  justice 
of  your  cause,  if  indeed  that  cause  really  be  a  just  one.  On  the  con 
trary,  assume  to  dictate  to  his  judgment,  or  to  command  his  action, 
or  to  mark  him  as  one  to  be  shunned  and  despised,  and  he  will  re 
treat  within  himself,  close  all  the  avenues  to  his  head  and  his  heart; 
and  though  your  cause  be  naked  truth  itself,  transformed  to  the 
heaviest  lance,  harder  than  steel,  and  sharper  than  steel  can  be 
made,  and  though  you  throw  it  with  more  than  herculean  force  and 
precision,  you  shall  be  no  more  able  to  pierce  him  than  to  penetrate 
the  hard  shell  of  a  tortoise  with  a  rye  straw.  Such  is  man,  and  so 
must  he  be  understood  by  those  who  would  lead  him,  even  to  his 
own  best  interests. 

On  this  point  the  Washingtonians  greatly  excel  the  temperance 
advocates  of  former  times.  Those  whom  they  desire  to  convince 
and  persuade  are  their  old  friends  and  companions.  They  know 
they  are  not  demons,  nor  even  the  worst  of  men ;  they  know  that 
generally  they  are  kind,  generous,  and  charitable,  even  beyond  the 
example  of  their  more  staid  and  sober  neighbors.  They  are  practi 
cal  philanthropists ;  and  they  glow  with  a  generous  and  brotherly 
zeal  that  mere  theorizers  are  incapable  of  feeling.  Benevolence  and 
charity  possess  their  hearts  entirely ;  and  out  of  the  abundance  of  their 
hearts  their  tongues  give  utterance;  "  Love  through  all  their  actions 
runs,  and  all  their  words  are  mild."  In  this  spirit  they  speak  and 
act,  and  in  the  same  they  are  heard  and  regarded.  And  when  such 
is  the  temper  of  the  advocate,  and  such  of  the  audience,  no  good 
cause  can  be  unsuccessful.  But  I  have  said  that  denunciations 
against  dram -sellers  and  dram-drinkers  are  unjust,  as  well  as  impol 
itic.  Let  us  see.  I  have  not  inquired  at  what  period  of  time  the  use 
of  intoxicating  liquors  commenced;  nor  is  it  important  to  know. 
It  is  sufficient  that  to  all  of  us  who  now  inhabit  the  world,  the  prac 
tice  of  drinking  them  is  just  as  old  as  the  world  itself — that  is,  we 
have  seen  the  one  just  as  long  as  we  have  seen  the  other.  When  all 
such  of  us  as  have  now  reached  the  years  of  maturity  first  opened 
our  eyes  upon  the  stage  of  existence,  we  found  intoxicating  liquor 
recognized  by  everybody,  used  by  everybody,  repudiated  by  no 
body.  It  commonly  entered  into  the  first  draught  of  the  infant  and 
the  last  draught  of  the  dying  man.  From  the  sideboard  of  the  par 
son  down  to  the  ragged  pocket  of  the  houseless  loafer,  it  was  con 
stantly  found.  Physicians  prescribed  it  in  this,  that,  and  the  other 
disease;  government  provided  it  for  soldiers  and  sailors;  and  to 
have  a  rolling  or  raising,  a  husking  or  "hoedown,"  anywhere  about 
without  it  was  positively  insufferable.  So,  too,  it  was  everywhere 
a  respectable  article  of  manufacture  and  merchandise.  The  making 
of  it  was  regarded  as  an  honorable  livelihood,  and  he  who  could  make 
most  was  the  most  enterprising  and  respectable.  Large  and  small 
manufactories  of  it  were  everywhere  erected,  in  which  all  the  earthly 


60  ADDEESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

goods  of  their  owners  were  invested.  Wagons  drew  it  from  town 
to  town  ;  boats  bore  it  from  clime  to  clime,  and  the  winds  wafted  it 
from  nation  to  nation ;  and  merchants  bought  and  sold  it,  by  whole 
sale  and  retail,  with  precisely  the  same  feelings  on  the  part  of  the 
seller,  buyer,  and  bystander  as  are  felt  at  the  selling  and  buying  of 
plows,  beef,  bacon,  or  any  other  of  the  real  necessaries  of  life.  Uni 
versal  public  opinion  not  only  tolerated  but  recognized  and  adopted 
its  use. 

It  is  true  that  even  then  it  was  known  and  acknowledged  that 
many  were  greatly  injured  by  it;  but  none  seemed  to  think  the 
injury  arose  from  the  use  of  a  bad  thing,  but  from  the  abuse  of  a 
very  good  thing.  The  victims  of  it  were  to  be  pitied  and  compas 
sionated,  just  as  are  the  heirs  of  consumption  and  other  hereditary 
diseases.  Their  failing  was  treated  as  a  misfortune,  and  not  as  a 
crime,  or  even  as  a  disgrace.  If,  then,  what  I  have  been  saying  is  true, 
is  it  wonderful  that  some  should  think  and  act  now  as  all  thought 
and  acted  twenty  years  ago  ?  and  is  it  just  to  assail,  condemn,  or 
despise  them  for  doing  so  ?  The  universal  sense  of  mankind  on  any 
subject  is  an  argument,  or  at  least  an  influence,  not  easily  overcome. 
The  success  of  the  argument  in  favor  of  the  existence  of  an  over 
ruling  Providence  mainly  depends  upon  that  sense ;  and  men  ought 
not  in  justice  to  be  denounced  for  yielding  to  it  in  any  case,  or  giving 
it  up  slowly,  especially  when  they  are  backed  by  interest,  fixed  habits,, 
or  burning  appetites. 

Another  error,  as  it  seems  to  me,  into  which  the  old  reformers  fell, 
was  the  position  that  all  habitual  drunkards  were  utterly  incorri 
gible,  and  therefore  must  be  turned  adrift  and  damned  without 
remedy  in  order  that  the  grace  of  temperance  might  abound,  to  the 
temperate  then,  and  to  all  mankind  some  hundreds  of  years  there 
after.  There  is  in  this  something  so  repugnant  to  humanity,  so  un 
charitable,  so  cold-blooded  and  feelingless,  that  it  never  did  nor 
ever  can  enlist  the  enthusiasm  of  a  popular  cause.  We  could  not 
love  the  man  who  taught  it — we  could  not  hear  him  with  patience. 
The  heart  could  not  throw  open  its  portals  to  it,  the  generous  man 
could  not  adopt  it — it  could  not  mix  with  his  blood.  It  looked  so 
fiendishly  selfish,  so  like  throwing  fathers  and  brothers  overboard  to 
lighten  the  boat  for  our  security,  that  the  noble-minded  shrank  from 
the  manifest  meanness  of  the  thing.  And  besides  this,  the  benefits 
of  a  reformation  to  be  effected  by  such  a  system  were  too  remote  in 
point  of  time  to  warmly  engage  many  in  its  behalf.  Few  can  be  in 
duced  to  labor  exclusively  for  posterity  ;  and  none  will  do  it  enthu 
siastically.  Posterity  has  done  nothing  for  us ;  and  theorize  on  it 
as  we  may,  practically  we  shall  do  very  little  for  it,  unless  we  are 
made  to  think  we  are  at  the  same  time  doing  something  for  ourselves. 

What  an  ignorance  of  human  nature  does  it  exhibit,  to  ask  or  ex 
pect  a  whole  community  to  rise  up  and  labor  for  the  temporal  hap 
piness  of  others,  after  themselves  shall  be  consigned  to  the  dust,  a 
majority  of  which  community  take  no  pains  whatever  to  secure  their 
own  eternal  welfare  at  no  more  distant  day?  Great  distance  in 
either  time  or  space  *has  wonderful  power  to"  lull  and  render  quies 
cent  the  human  mind.  Pleasures  to  be  enjoyed,  or  pains  to  be  en- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  61 

dured,  after  we  shall  be  dead  and  gone  are  but  little  regarded  even 
in  our  own  cases,  and  much  less  in  the  cases  of  others.  Still,  in  ad 
dition  to  this  there  is  something  so  ludicrous  in  promises  of  good  or 
threats  of  evil  a  great  way  off  as  to  render  the  whole  subject  with 
which  they  are  connected  easily  turned  into  ridicule.  "  Better  lay 
down  that  spade  you  are  stealing,  Paddy ;  if  you  don't  you  '11  pay 
for  it  at  the  day  of  judgment."  "Be  the  powers,  if  ye '11  credit  me 
so  long  I  '11  take  another  jist." 

By  the  Washingtonians  this  system  of  consigning  the  habitual 
drunkard  to  hopeless  ruin  is  repudiated.  They  adopt  a  more  en 
larged  philanthropy  5  they  go  for  present  as  well  as  future  good. 
They  labor  for  all  now  living,  as  well  as  hereafter  to  live.  They 
teach  hope  to  all — despair  to  none.  As  applying  to  their  cause, 
they  deny  the  doctrine  of  unpardonable  sin ;  as  in  Christianity  it  is 
taught,  so  in  this  they  teach — "  While  the  lamp  holds  out  to  burn, 
The  vilest  sinner  may  return."  And,  what  is  a  matter  of  more 
profound  congratulation,  they,  by  experiment  upon  experiment  and 
example  upon  example,  prove  the  maxim  to  be  no  less  true  in  the 
one  case  than  in  the  other.  On  every  hand  we  behold  those  who 
but  yesterday  were  the  chief  of  sinners,  now  the  chief  apostles  of 
the  cause.  Drunken  devils  are  cast  out  by  ones,  by  sevens,  by  legions ; 
and  their  unfortunate  victims,  like  the  poor  possessed  who  were 
redeemed  from  their  long  and  lonely  wanderings  in  the  tombs,  are 
publishing  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  how  great  things  have  been  done 
for  them. 

To  these  new  champions  and  this  new  system  of  tactics  our  late 
success  is  mainly  owing,  and  to  them  we  must  mainly  look  for  the 
final  consummation.  The  ball  is  now  rolling  gloriously  on,  and 
none  are  so  able  as  they  to  increase  its  speed  and  its  bulk,  to  add  to 
its  momentum  and  its  magnitude  —  even  though  unlearned  in  let 
ters,  for  this  task  none  are  so  well  educated.  To  fit  them  for  this 
work  they  have  been  taught  in  the  true  school.  They  have  been  in 
that  gulf  from  which  they  would  teach  others  the  means  of  escape. 
They  have  passed  that  prison  wall,  which  others  have  long  declared 
impassable;  and  who  that  has  not  shall  dare  to  weigh  opinions  with 
them  as  to  the  mode  of  passing? 

But  if  it  be  true,  as  I  have  insisted,  that  those  who  have  suffered 
by  intemperance  personally,  and  have  reformed,  are  the  most  pow 
erful  and  efficient  instruments  to  push  the  reformation  to  ultimate 
success,  it  does  not  follow  that  those  who  have  not  suffered  have  no 
part  left  them  to  perform.  Whether  or  not  the  world  would  be 
vastly  benefited  by  a  total  and  final  banishment  from  it  of  all  intox 
icating  drinks  seems  to  me  not  now  an  open  question.  Three 
fourths  of  mankind  confess  the  affirmative  with  their  tongues,  and, 
I  believe,  all  the  rest  acknowledge  it  in  their  hearts. 

Ought  any,  then,  to  refuse  their  aid  in  doing  what  good  the  good 
of  the  whole  demands  ?  Shall  he  who  cannot  do  much  be  for  that 
reason  excused  if  he  do  nothing?  "But,"  says  one,  "what  good 
can  I  do  by  signing  the  pledge  ?  I  never  drink,  even  without  sign 
ing."  This  question  has  already  been  asked  and  answered  more 
than  a  million  of  times.  Let  it  be  answered  once  more.  For  the 


62  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

man  suddenly  or  in  any  other  way  to  break  off  from  the  use  of 
drams,  who  has  indulged  in  them  for  a  long  course  of  years,  and 
until  his  appetite  for  them  has  grown  ten-  or  a  hundred-fold 
stronger,  and  more  craving  than  any  natural  appetite  can  be,  re 
quires  a  most  powerful  moral  effort.  In  such  an  undertaking  he 
needs  every  moral  support  and  influence  that  can  possibly  be 
brought  to  his  aid  and  thrown  around  him.  And  not  only  so,  but 
every  moral  prop  should  be  taken  from  whatever  argument  might 
rise  in  his  mind  to  lure  him  to  his  backsliding.  When  he  casts  his 
eyes  around  him,  he  should  be  able  to  see  all  that  he  respects,  all 
that  he  admires,  all  that  he  loves,  kindly  and  anxiously  pointing 
him  onward,  and  none  beckoning  him  back  to  his  former  miserable 
"wallowing  in  the  mire." 

But  it  is  said  by  some  that  men  will  think  and  act  for  themselves; 
that  none  will  disuse  spirits  or  anything  else  because  his  neighbors 
do  ;  and  that  moral  influence  is  not  that  powerful  engine  contended 
for.  Let  us  examine  this.  Let  me  ask  the  man  who  could  maintain 
this  position  most  stiffly,  what  compensation  he  will  accept  to  go  to 
church  some  Sunday  and  sit  during  the  sermon  with  his  wife's  bon 
net  upon  his  head?  Not  a  trifle,  I  ?11  venture.  And  why  not? 
There  would  be  nothing  irreligious  in  it,  nothing  immoral,  nothing 
uncomfortable — then  why  not !  Is  it  not  because  there  would  be 
something  egregiously  unfashionable  in  it  ?  Then  it  is  the  influ 
ence  of  fashion ;  and  what  is  the  influence  of  fashion  but  the  in 
fluence  that  other  people's  actions  have  on  our  actions — the  strong 
inclination  each  of  us  feels  to  do  as  we  see  all  our  neighbors  do  J? 
Nor  is  the  influence  of  fashion  confined  to  any  particular  thing  or 
class  of  things ;  it  is  just  as  strong  on  one  subject  as  another.  Let  us 
make  it  as  unfashionable  to  withhold  our  names  from  the  temper 
ance  cause  as  for  husbands  to  wear  their  wives'  bonnets  to  church, 
and  instances  will  be  just  as  rare  in  the  one  case  as  the  other. 

"But,"  say  some,  awe  are  no  drunkards,  and  we  shall  not  ac 
knowledge  ourselves  such  by  joining  a  reformed  drunkards'  society, 
whatever  our  influence  might  be."  Surely  no  Christian  will  adhere 
to  this  objection.  If  they  believe  as  they  profess,  that  Omnipotence 
condescended  to  take  on  himself  the  form  of  sinful  man,  and  as  such 
to  die  an  ignominious  death  for  their  sakes,  surely  they  will  not 
refuse  submission  to  the  infinitely  lesser  condescension,  for  the  tem 
poral,  and  perhaps  eternal,  salvation  of  a  large,  erring,  and  unfor 
tunate  class  of  their  fellow-creatures.  Nor  is  the  condescension  very 
great.  In  my  judgment  such  of  us  as  have  never  fallen  victims  have 
been  spared  more  by  the  absence  of  appetite  than  from  any  mental 
or  moral  superiority  over  those  who  have.  Indeed,  I  believe  if  we 
take  habitual  drunkards  as  a  class,  their  heads  and  their  hearts  will 
bear  an  advantageous  comparison  with  those  of  any  other  class. 
There  seems  ever  to  have  been  a  proneness  in  the  brilliant  and  warm 
blooded  to  fall  into  this  vice  —  the  demon  of  intemperance  ever 
seems  to  have  delighted  in  sucking  the  blood  of  genius  and  of  gen 
erosity.  What  one  of  us  but  can  call  to  mind  some  relative,  more 
promising  in  youth  than  all  his  fellows,  who  has  fallen  a  sacrifice  to 
his  rapacity?  He  ever  seems  to  have  gone  forth  like  the  Egyptian 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  63 

angel  of  death,  commissioned  to  slay,  if  not  the  first,  the  fairest  born 
of  every  family.  Shall  he  now  be  arrested  in  his  desolating  career? 
In  that  arrest  all  can  give  aid  that  will ;  and  who  shall  be  excused 
that  can  and  will  not?  Far  around  as  human  breath  has  ever  blown 
he  keeps  our  fathers,  our  brothers,  our  sons,  and  our  friends  pros 
trate  in  the  chains  of  moral  death.  To  all  the  living  everywhere 
we  cry,  "Come  sound  the  moral  trump,  that  these  may  rise  and 
stand  up  an  exceeding  great  army.'7  "  Come  from  the  four  winds, 
O  breath !  and  breathe  upon  these  slain  that  they  may  live.'7  If  the 
relative  grandeur  of  revolutions  shall  be  estimated  by  the  great 
amount  of  human  misery  they  alleviate,  and  the  small  amount 
they  inflict,  then  indeed  will  this  be  the  grandest  the  world  shall 
ever  have  seen. 

Of  our  political  revolution  of  '76  we  are  all  justly  proud.  It  has 
given  us  a  degree  of  political  freedom  far  exceeding  that  of  any  other 
nation  of  the  earth.  In  it  the  world  has  found  a  solution  of  the 
long-mooted  problem  as  to  the  capability  of  man  to  govern  himself. 
In  it  was  the  germ  which  has  vegetated,  and  still  is  to  grow  and  ex 
pand  into  the  universal  liberty  of  mankind.  But,  with  all  these 
glorious  results,  past,  present,  and  to  come,  it  had  its  evils  too.  It 
breathed  forth  famine,  swam  in  blood,  and  rode  in  fire  ;  and  long, 
long  after,  the  orphan's  cry  and  the  widow's  wail  continued  to  break 
the  sad  silence  that  ensued.  These  were  the  price,  the  inevitable 
price,  paid  for  the  blessings  it  bought. 

Turn  now  to  the  temperance  revolution.  In  it  we  shall  find  a 
stronger  bondage  broken,  a  viler  slavery  manumitted,  a  greater 
tyrant  deposed;  in  it,  more  of  want  supplied,  more  disease  healed, 
more  sorrow  assuaged.  By  it  no  orphans  starving,  no  widows 
weeping.  By  it,  none  wounded  in  feeling,  none  injured  in  interest; 
even  the  dram-maker  and  dram-seller  will  have  glided  into  other 
occupations  so  gradually  as  never  to  have  felt  the  change,  and  will 
stand  ready  to  join  all  others  in  the  universal  song  of  gladness. 
And  what  a  noble  ally  this  to  the  cause  of  political  freedom;  with 
such  an  aid  its  march  cannot  fail  to  be  on  and  on,  till  every  son  of 
earth  shall  drink  in  rich  fruition  the  sorrow-quenching  draughts 
of  perfect  liberty.  Happy  day  when  —  all  appetites  controlled,  all 
poisons  subdued,  all  matter  subjected — mind,  all  conquering  mind, 
shall  live  and  move,  the  monarch  of  the  world.  Glorious  consum 
mation  !  Hail,  fall  of  fury !  Reign  of  reason,  all  hail ! 
\~2fnd  when  the  victory  shall  be  complete, —  when  there  shall  be 
neither  a  slave  nor  a  drunkard  on  the  earth, —  how  proud  the  title 
of  that  land  which  may  truly  claim  to  be  the  birthplace  and  the 
cradle  of  both  those  revolutions  that  shall  have  ended  in  that  vic 
tory.  How  nobly  distinguished  that  people  who  shall  have  planted 
and  nurtured  to  "maturity  both  the  political  and  moral  freedom  of 
their  species?^ 

This  is  the^one  hundred  and  tenth  anniversary  of  the  birthday  of 
Washington  ;  we  are  met  to  celebrate  this  day.  Washington  is  the 
mightiest  name  of  earth — long  since  mightiest  in  the  cause  of  civil 
liberty,  still  mightiest  in  moral  reformation.  On  that  name  no  eu 
logy  is  expected.  It  cannot  be.  To  add  brightness  to  the  sun  or 


64  ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

glory  to  the  name  of  Washington  is  alike  impossible.  Let  none  at 
tempt  it.  In  solemn  awe  pronounce  the  name,  and  in  its  naked  death 
less  splendor  leave  it  shining  on. 

February  25,  1842. — LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  February  25,  1842. 

Dear  Speed:  Yours  of  the  16th  instant,  announcing  that  Miss 
Fanny  and  you  are  "  no  more  twain,  but  one  flesh/7  reached  me  this 
morning.  I  have  no  way  of  telling  you  how  much  happiness  I  wish 
you  both,  though  I  believe  you  both  can  conceive  it.  I  feel  some 
what  jealous  of  both  of  you  now :  you  will  be  so  exclusively  con 
cerned  for  one  another,  that  I  shall  be  forgotten  entirely.  My 
acquaintance  with  Miss  Fanny  (I  call  her  this,  lest  you  should  think 
I  am  speaking  of  your  mother)  was  too  short  for  me  to  reasonably 
hope  to  long  be  remembered  by  her;  and  still  I  am  sure  I  shall  not 
forget  her  soon.  Try  if  you  cannot  remind  her  of  that  debt  she 
owes  me  — and  be  sure  you  do  not  interfere  to  prevent  her  paying  it. 

I  regret  to  learn  that  you  have  resolved  to  not  return  to  Illinois. 
I  shall  be  very  lonesome  without  you.  How  miserably  things 
seem  to  be  arranged  in  this  world!  If  we  have  no  friends,  we  have 
no  pleasure;  and  if  we  have  them,  we  are  sure  to  lose  them,  and 
be  doubly  pained  by  the  loss.  I  did  hope  she  and  you  would  make 
your  home  here;  but  I  own  I  have  no  right  to  insist.  You  owe 
obligations  to  her  ten  thousand  times  more  sacred  than  you  can  owe 
to  others,  and  in  that  light  let  them  be  respected  and  observed.  It 
is  natural  that  she  should  desire  to  remain  with  her  relatives  and 
friends.  As  to  friends,  however,  she  could  not  need  them  anywhere : 
she  would  have  them  in  abundance  here. 

Give  my  kind  remembrance  to  Mr.  Williamson  and  his  family, 
particularly  Miss  Elizabeth  j  also  to  your  mother,  brother,  and  sis 
ters.  Ask  little  Eliza  Davis  if  she  will  ride  to  town  with  me  if  I 
come  there  again.  And  finally,  give  Fanny  a  double  reciprocation 
of  all  the  love  she  sent  me.  Write  me  often,  and  believe  me 

Yours  forever,  LINCOLN. 

P.  S.  Poor  Easthouse  is  gone  at  last.  He  died  awhile  before 
day  this  morning.  They  say  he  was  very  loath  to  die.  .  .  . 

L. 

February  25,  1842. — LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  February  25,  1842. 

Dear  Speed:  I  received  yours  of  the  12th  written  the  day  you 
went  down  to  William's  place,  some  days  since,  but  delayed  answer 
ing  it  till  I  should  receive  the  promised  one  of  the  16th,  which  came 
last  night.  I  opened  the  letter  with  intense  anxiety  and  trepidation ; 
so  much  so,  that,  although  it  turned  out  better  than  I  expected,  I  have 
hardly  yet,  at  a  distance  of  ten  hours,  become  calm. 

I  tell  you,  Speed,  our  forebodings  (for  which  you  and  I  are  pecu 
liar)  are  all  the  worst  sort  of  nonsense.  I  fancied,  from  the  time  I 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  65 

received  your  letter  of  Saturday,  that  the  one  of  Wednesday  was 
never  to  come,  and  yet  it  did  come,  and  what  is  more,  it  is  perfectly 
clear,  both  from  its  tone  and  handwriting,  that  you  were  much  hap 
pier,  or,  if  you  think  the  term  preferable,  less  miserable,  when  you 
wrote  it  than  when  you  wrote  the  last  one  before.  You  had  so  ob 
viously  improved  at  the  very  time  I  so  much  fancied  you  would 
have  grown  worse.  You  say  that  something  indescribably  horrible 
and  alarming  still  haunts  you.  You  will  not  say  that  three  months 
from  now,  I  will  venture.  When  your  nerves  once  get  steady  now, 
the  whole  trouble  will  be  over  forever.  Nor  should  you  become  impa 
tient  at  their  being  even  very  slow  in  becoming  steady.  Again  you 
say,  you  much  fear  that  that  Elysium  of  which  you  have  dreamed 
so  much  is  never  to  be  realized.  Well,  if  it  shall  not,  I  dare  swear 
it  will  not  be  the  fault  of  her  who  is  now  your  wife.  I  now  have  no 
doubt  that  it  is  the  peculiar  misfortune  of  both  you  and  me  to 
dream  dreams  of  Elysium  far  exceeding  all  that  anything  earthly 
can  realize.  Far  short  of  your  dreams  as  you  may  be,  no  woman 
could  do  more  to  realize  them  than  that  same  black-eyed  Fanny.  If 
you  could  but  contemplate  her  through  my  imagination,  it  would  ap 
pear  ridiculous  to  you  that  any  one  should  for  a  moment  think  of 
being  unhappy  with  her.  My  old  father  used  to  have  a  saying  that 
"  If  you  make  a  bad  bargain,  hug  it  all  the  tighter  " ;  and  it  occurs 
to  me  that  if  the  bargain  you  have  just  closed  can  possibly  be 
called  a  bad  one,  it  is  certainly  the  most  pleasant  one  for  applying 
that  maxim  to  which  my  fancy  can  by  any  effort  picture. 

I  write  another  letter,  inclosing  this,  which  you  can  show  her,  if 
she  desires  it.  I  do  this  because  she  would  think  strangely,  perhaps, 
should  you  tell  her  that  you  received  no  letters  from  me,  or,  telling 
her  you  do,  refuse  to  let  her  see  them.  I  close  this,  entertaining  the 
confident  hope  that  every  successive  letter  I  shall  have  from  you 
(which  I  here  pray  may  not  be  few,  nor  far  between)  may  show  you 
possessing  a  more  steady  hand  and  cheerful  heart  than  the  last 
preceding  it.  As  ever,  your  friend, 

LINCOLN. 


March  27, 1842. — LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  March  27,  1842. 

Dear  Speed:  Yours  of  the  10th  instant  was  received  three  or  four 
days  since.  You  know  I  am  sincere  when  I  tell  you  the  pleasure  its 
contents  gave  me  was,  and  is,  inexpressible.  As  to  your  farm  matter, 
I  have  no  sympathy  with  you.  I  have  no  farm,  nor  ever  expect  to 
have,  and  consequently  have  not  studied  the  subject  enough  to  be 
much  interested  with  it.  I  can  only  say  that  I  am  glad  you  are 
satisfied  and  pleased  with  it.  But  on  that  other  subject,  to  me  of 
the  most  intense  interest  whether  in  joy  or  sorrow,  I  never  had  the 
power  to  withhold  my  sympathy  from  you.  It  cannot  be  told  how 
it  now  thrills  me  with  joy  to  hear  you  say  you  are  "far  happier  than 
you  ever  expected  to  be."  That  much  I  know  is  enough.  I  know 
you  too  well  to  suppose  your  expectations  were  not,  at  least,  some- 
VoL.L— 5. 


66  ADDRESSES  AND  LETTERS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

times  extravagant,  and  if  the  reality  exceeds  them  all,  I  say,  Enough, 
dear  Lord.  I  am  not  going  beyond  the  truth  when  I  tell  you  that 
the  short  space  it  took  me  to  read  your  last  letter  gave  me  more  plea 
sure  than  the  total  sum  of  all  I  have  enjoyed  since  the  fatal  1st  of 
January,  1841.  Since  then  it  seems  to  me  I  should  have  been  en 
tirely  happy,  but  for  the  never-absent  idea  that  there  is  one  still  un 
happy  whom  I  have  contributed  to  make  so.  That  still  kills  my  soul. 
I  cannot  but  reproach  myself  for  even  wishing  to  be  happy  while 
she  is  otherwise.  She  accompanied  a  large  party  on  the  rail 
road  cars  to  Jacksonville  last  Monday,  and  on  her  return  spoke,  so 
that  I  heard  of  it,  of  having  enjoyed  the  trip  exceedingly.  God  be 
praised  for  that. 

You  know  with  what  sleepless  vigilance  I  have  watched  you  ever 
since  the  commencement  of  your  affair  $  and  although  I  am  almost 
confident  it  is  useless,  I  cannot  forbear  once  more  to  say  that  I  think 
it  is  even  yet  possible  for  your  spirits  to  flag  down  and  leave  you 
miserable.  If  they  should,  don't  fail  to  remember  that  they  cannot 
long  remain  so.  One  thing  I  can  tell  you  which  I  know  you  will  be 

glad  to  hear,  and  that  is  that  I  have  seen and  scrutinized  her 

feelings  as  well  as  I  could,  and  am  fully  convinced  she  is  far  happier 
now  than  she  has  been  for  the  last  fifteen  months  past. 

You  will  see  by  the  last  "  Sangamon  Journal"  that  I  made  a 
temperance  speech  on  the  22d  of  February,  which  I  claim  that  Fanny 
and  you  shall  read  as  an  act  of  charity  to  me ;  for  I  cannot  learn 
that  anybody  else  has  read  it,  or  is  likely  to.  Fortunately  it  is  not 
very  long,  and  I  shall  deem  it  a  sufficient  compliance  with  my  re 
quest  if  one  of  you  listens  while  the  other  reads  it. 

As  to  your  Lockridge  matter,  it  is  only  necessary  to  say  that  there 
has  been  no  court  since  you  left,  and  that  the  next  commences  to 
morrow  morning,  during  which  I  suppose  we  cannot  fail  to  get  a 
judgment. 

I  wish  you  would  learn  of  Everett  what  he  would  take,  over  and 
above  a  discharge  for  all  the  trouble  we  have  been  at,  to  take  his  busi 
ness  out  of  our  hands  and  give  it  to  somebody  else.  It  is  impos 
sible  to  collect  money  on  that  or  any  other  claim  here  now;  and 
although  you  know  I  am  not  a  very  petulant  man,  I  declare  I  am 
almost  out  of  patience  with  Mr.  Everett's  importunity.  It  seems  like 
he  not  only  writes  all  the  letters  he  can  himself,  but  gets  everybody 
else  in  Louisville  and  vicinity  to  be  constantly  writing  to  us  about 
his  claim.  I  have  always  said  that  Mr.  Everett  is  a  very  clever  fel 
low,  and  I  am  very  sorry  he  cannot  be  obliged ;  but  it  does  seem  to 
me  he  ought  to  know  we  are  interested  to  collect  his  claim,  and  there 
fore  would  do  it  if  we  could. 

I  am  neither  joking  nor  in  a  pet  when  I  say  we  would  thank  him 
to  transfer  his  business  to  some  other,  without  any  compensation  for 
what  we  have  done,  provided  he  will  see  the  court  cost  paid,  for 
which  we  are  security. 

The  sweet  violet  you  inclosed  came  safely  to  hand,  but  it  was  so 
dry,  and  mashed  so  flat,  that  it  crumbled  to  dust  at  the  first  attempt 
to  handle  it.  The  juice  that  mashed  out  of  it  stained  a  place  in  the 
letter,  which  I  mean  to  preserve  and  cherish  for  the  sake  of  her  who 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN  67 

procured  it  to  be  sent.     My  renewed  good  wishes  to  her  in  particu 
lar,  and  generally  to  all  such  of  your  relations  who  know  me. 

As  ever,  LINCOLN. 

July  4,  1842. — LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  July  4,  1842. 

Dear  Speed:  Yours  of  the  16th  June  was  received  only  a  day  or 
two  since.  It  was  not  mailed  at  Louisville  till  the  25th.  You  speak 
of  the  great  time  that  has  elapsed  since  I  wrote  you.  Let  me  ex 
plain  that.  Your  letter  reached  here  a  day  or  two  after  I  had  started 
on  the  circuit.  I  was  gone  five  or  six  weeks,  so  that  I  got  the  letters 
only  a  few  weeks  before  Butler  started  to  your  country.  I  thought 
it  scarcely  worth  while  to  write  you  the  news  which  he  could  and 
would  tell  you  more  in  detail.  On  his  return  he  told  me  you  would 
write  me  soon,  and  so  I  waited  for  your  letter.  As  to  my  having 
been  displeased  with  your  advice,  surely  you  know  better  than  that. 
I  know  you  do,  and  therefore  will  not  labor  to  convince  you.  True, 
that  subject  is  painful  to  me  j  but  it  is  not  your  silence,  or  the  silence 
of  all  the  world,  that  can  make  me  forget  it.  I  acknowledge  the 
correctness  of  your  advice  too ;  but  before  I  resolve  to  do  the  one 
thing  or  the  other,  I  must  gain  my  confidence  in  my  own  ability  to 
keep  my  resolves  when  they  are  made.  In  that  ability  you  know  I 
once  prided  myself  as  the  only  or  chief  gem  of  my  character ;  that 
gem  I  lost — how  and  where  you  know  too  well.  I  have  not  yet  re 
gained  it ;  and  until  I  do,  I  cannot  trust  myself  in  any  matter  of 
much  importance.  I  believe  now  that  had  you  understood  my  case 
at  the  time  as  well  as  I  understood  yours  afterward,  by  the  aid  you 
would  have  given  me  I  should  have  sailed  through  clear,  but  that 
does  not  now  aiford  me  sufficient  confidence  to  begin  that  or  the 
like  of  that  again. 

You  make  a  kind  acknowledgment  of  your  obligations  to  me  for 
your  present  happiness.  I  am  pleased  with  that  acknowledgment. 
But  a  thousand  times  more  am  I  pleased  to  know  that  you  enjoy  a 
degree  of  happiness  worthy  of  an  acknowledgment.  The  truth  is,  I 
am  not  sure  that  there  was  any  merit  with  me  in  the  part  I  took  in 
your  difficulty;  I  was  drawn  to  it  by  a  fate.  If  I  would  I  could  not 
have  done  less  than  I  did.  I  always  was  superstitious;  I  believe 
God  made  me  one  of  the  instruments  of  bringing  your  Fanny  and 
you  together,  which  union  I  have  no  doubt  he  had  fore-ordained. 
Whatever  he  designs  he  will  do  for  me  yet.  "  Stand  still,  and  see 
the  salvation  of  the  Lord"  is  my  text  just  now.  If,  as  you  say,  you 
have  told  Fanny  all,  I  should  have  no  objection  to  her  seeing  this 
letter,  but  for  its  reference  to  our  friend  here :  let  her  seeing  it  de 
pend  upon  whether  she  has  ever  known  anything  of  my  affairs  j  and 
if  she  has  not,  do  not  let  her. 

I  do  not  think  I  can  come  to  Kentucky  this  season.  I  am  so  poor 
and  make  so  little  headway  in  the  world,  that  I  drop  back  in  a  month 
of  idleness  as  much  as  I  gain  in  a  year's  sowing.  I  should  like  to 
visit  you  again.  I  should  like  to  see  that  "sis"  of  yours  that  was 


68  ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

absent  when  I  was  there,  though  I  suppose  she  would  run  away 
again  if  she  were  to  hear  I  was  coming. 

My  respects  and  esteem  to  all  your  friends  there,  and,  by  your 
permission,  my  love  to  your  Fanny.    Ever  yours, 

LINCOLN. 


August  29,  1842. — INVITATION  TO  HENRY  CLAY. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  August  29,  1842. 
HON.  HENRY  CLAY,  Lexington,  Kentucky. 

Dear  Sir:  We  hear  you  are  to  visit  Indianapolis,  Indiana,  on  the 
5th  of  October  next.  If  our  information  in  this  is  correct,  we  hope 
you  will  not  deny  us  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  in  our  State.  We 
are  aware  of  the  toil  necessarily  incident  to  a  journey  by  one  cir 
cumstanced  as  you  are ;  but  once  you  have  embarked,  as  you  have 
already  determined  to  do,  the  toil  would  not  be  greatly  augmented 
by  extending  the  journey  to  our  capital.  The  season  of  the  year 
will  be  most  favorable  for  good  roads  and  pleasant  weather;  and 
although  we  cannot  but  believe  you  would  be  highly  gratified  with 
such  a  visit  to  the  prairie-land,  the  pleasure  it  would  give  us,  and 
thousands  such  as  we,  is  beyond  all  question.  You  have  never  vis 
ited  Illinois,  or  at  least  this  portion  of  it ;  and  should  you  now  yield 
to  our  request,  we  promise  you  such  a  reception  as  shall  be  worthy 
of  the  man  on  whom  are  now  turned  the  fondest  hopes  of  a  great 
and  suffering  nation. 

Please  inform  us  at  the  earliest  convenience  whether  we  may  ex 
pect  you.     Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servants, 
A.  Gr.  HENRY,  A.  T.  BLEDSOE, 

C.  BIRCHALL,  A.  LINCOLN, 

J.  M.  CABANISS,  ROBT.  IRWIN, 

P.  A.  SAUNDERS,  J.  M.  ALLEN, 

J.  N.  FRANCIS,        Executive  Committee,  "Clay  Club." 
(Clay's  answer,  September  6,  1842,  declines  with  thanks.) 


September  17,  1842. — CORRESPONDENCE  ABOUT  THE 
LINCOLN-SHIELDS  DUEL. 

TREMONT,  September  17,  1842. 

A.  Lincoln j  Esq. :  I  regret  that  my  absence  on  public  business 
compelled  me  to  postpone  a  matter  of  private  consideration  a  little 
longer  than  I  could  have  desired.  It  will  only  be  necessary,  however, 
to  account  for  it  by  informing  you  that  I  have  been  to  Quincy  on 
business  that  would  not  admit  of  delay.  I  will  now  state  briefly  the 
reasons  of  my  troubling  you  with  this  communication,  the  disagree 
able  nature  of  which  I  regret,  as  I  had  hoped  to  avoid  any  difficulty 
with  any  one  in  Springfield  while  residing  there,  by  endeavoring  to 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  69 

conduct  myself  in  such  a  way  amongst  both  my  political  friends  and 
opponents  as  to  escape  the  necessity  of  any.  Whilst  thus  abstaining 
from  giving  provocation,  I  have  become  the  object  of  slander,  vitu 
peration,  and  personal  abuse,  which,  were  I  capable  of  submitting 
to,  I  would  prove  myself  worthy  of  the  whole  of  it. 

In  two  or  three  of  the  last  numbers  of  "  The  Sangamon  Journal," 
articles  of  the  most  personal  nature  and  calculated  to  degrade  me 
have  made  their  appearance.  On  inquiring,  I  was  informed  by  the 
editor  of  that  paper,  through  the  medium  of  my  friend  General 
Whitesides,  that  you  are  the  author  of  those  articles.  This  informa 
tion  satisfies  me  that  I  have  become  by  some  means  or  other  the  ob 
ject  of  your  secret  hostility.  I  will  not  take  the  trouble  of  inquiring 
into  the  reason  of  all  this ;  but  I  will  take  the  liberty  of  requiring  a 
full,  positive,  and  absolute  retraction  of  all  offensive  allusions  used 
by  you  in  these  communications,  in  relation  to  my  private  character 
and  standing  as  a  man,  as  an  apology  for  the  insults  conveyed  in 
them. 

This  may  prevent  consequences  which  no  one  will  regret  more 
than  myself.  Your  obedient  servant, 

JAS.  SHIELDS. 


TREMONT,  September  17,  1842. 

Jas.  Shields j  Esq. :  Your  note  of  to-day  was  handed  me  by  Gen 
eral  Whitesides.  In  that  note  you  say  you  have  been  informed, 
through  the  medium  of  the  editor  of  "  The  Journal/'  that  I  am  the 
author  of  certain  articles  in  that  paper  which  you  deem  personally 
abusive  of  you ;  and  without  stopping  to  inquire  whether  I  really 
am  the  author,  or  to  point  out  what  is  offensive  in  them,  you 
demand  an  unqualified  retraction  of  all  that  is  offensive,  and  then 
proceed  to  hint  at  consequences. 

Now,  sir,  there  is  in  this  so  much  assumption  of  facts  and  so  much 
of  menace  as  to  consequences,  that  I  cannot  submit  to  answer  that 
note  any  further  than  I  have,  and  to  add  that  the  consequences  to 
which  I  suppose  you  allude  would  be  matter  of  as  great  regret  to 
me  as  it  possibly  could  to  you.  Respectfully, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


TREMONT,  September  17,  1842. 

A.  Lincoln,  Esq. :  In  reply  to  my  note  of  this  date,  you  intimate 
that  I  assume  facts  and  menace  consequences,  and  that  you  cannot 
submit  to  answer  it  further.  As  now,  sir,  you  desire  it,  I  will  be  a 
little  more  particular.  The  editor  of  "The  Sangamon  Journal" 
gave  me  to  understand  that  you  are  the  author  of  an  article  which 
appeared,  I  think,  in  that  paper  of  the  2d  September  instant,  headed 
"  The  Lost  Townships,"  and  signed  Rebecca  or  'Becca.  I  would  there 
fore  take  the  liberty  of  asking  whether  you  are  the  author  of  said 
article,  or  any  other  over  the  same  signature  which  has  appeared  in 
any  of  the  late  numbers  of  that  paper.  If  so,  I  repeat  my  request 


70  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

of  an  absolute  retraction  of  all  offensive  allusion  contained  therein 
in  relation  to  my  private  character  and  standing.  If  you  are  not 
the  author  of  any  of  these  articles,  your  denial  will  be  sufficient.  I 
will  say  further,  it  is  not  my  intention  to  menace,  but  to  do  myself 
justice.  Your  obedient  servant, 

JAS.  SHIELDS. 


September  19,  1842. — MEMORANDUM  OF  INSTRUCTIONS  TO  E.  H. 
MERRYMAN,  LINCOLN'S  SECOND. 

In  case  Whitesides  shall  signify  a  wish  to  adjust  this  affair  with 
out  further  difficulty,  let  him  know  that  if  the  present  papers  be 
withdrawn,  and  a  note  from  Mr.  Shields  asking  to  know  if  I  am  the 
author  of  the  articles  of  which  he  complains,  and  asking  that  I  shall 
make  him  gentlemanly  satisfaction  if  I  am  the  author,  and  this 
without  menace,  or  dictation  as  to  what  that  satisfaction  shall  be, 
a  pledge  is  made  that  the  following  answer  shall  be  given : 

"I  did  write  the  'Lost  Townships7  letter  which  appeared  in  the 
'  Journal '  of  the  2d  instant,  but  had  no  participation  in  any  form  in 
any  other  article  alluding  to  you.  I  wrote  that  wholly  for  political 
effect — I  had  no  intention  of  injuring  your  personal  or  private 
character  or  standing  as  a  man  or  a  gentleman ;  and  I  did  not  then 
think,  and  do  not  now  think,  that  that  article  could  produce  or  has 
produced  that  effect  against  you;  and  had  I  anticipated  such  an 
effect  I  would  have  forborne  to  write  it.  And  I  will  add  that  your 
conduct  toward  me,  so  far  as  I  know,  had  always  been  gentlemanly; 
and  that  I  had  no  personal  pique  against  you,  and  no  cause  for  any.'7 

If  this  should  be  done,  I  leave  it  with  you  to  arrange  what  shall 
and  what  shall  not  be  published.  If  nothing  like  this  is  done,  the 
preliminaries  of  the  fight  are  to  be — 

First.  Weapons :  Cavalry  broadswords  of  the  largest  size,  pre 
cisely  equal  in  all  respects,  and  such  as  now  used  by  the  cavalry 
company  at  Jacksonville. 

Second.  Position :  A  plank  ten  feet  long,  and  from  nine  to  twelve 
inches  broad,  to  be  firmly  fixed  on  edge,  on  the  ground,  as  the  line 
between  us,  which  neither  is  to  pass  his  foot  over  upon  forfeit  of  his 
life.  Next  a  line  drawn  on  the  ground  on  either  side  of  said  plank 
and  parallel  with  it,  each  at  the  distance  of  the  whole  length  of  the 
sword  and  three  feet  additional  from  the  plank ;  and  the  passing  of 
his  own  such  line  by  either  party  during  the  fight  shall  be  deemed 
a  surrender  of  the  contest. 

Third.  Time :  On  Thursday  evening  at  five  o'clock,  if  you  can  get 
it  so  ;  but  in  no  case  to  be  at  a  greater  distance  of  time  than  Friday 
evening  at  five  o'clock. 

Fourth.  Place :  Within  three  miles  of  Alton,  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  river,  the  particular  spot  to  be  agreed  on  by  you. 

Any  preliminary  details  coming  within  the  above  rules  you  are 
at  liberty  to  make  at  your  discretion ;  but  you  are  in  no  case  to 
swerve  from  these  rules,  or  to  pass  beyond  their  limits. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  71 


October  [4?],  1842. — LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  October  [4?],  1842. 

Dear  Speed :  You  have  heard  of  my  duel  with  Shields,  and  I  have 
now  to  inform  you  that  the  dueling  business  still  rages  in  this  city. 
Day  before  yesterday  Shields  challenged  Butler,  who  accepted,  and 
proposed  fighting  next  morning  at  sunrise  in  Bob  Allen's  meadow, 
one  hundred  yards'  distance,  with  rifles.  To  this  Whitesides,  Shields's 
second,  said  "No,"  because  of  the  law.  Thus  ended  duel  No.  2. 
Yesterday  Whitesides  chose  to  consider  himself  insulted  by  Dr. 
Merryman,  so  sent  him  a  kind  of  quasi-challenge,  inviting  him  to 
meet  him  at  the  Planter's  House  in  St.  Louis  on  the  next  Friday, 
to  settle  their  difficulty.  Merryman  made  me  his  friend,  and  sent 
Whitesides  a  note,  inquiring  to  know  if  he  meant  his  note  as  a  chal 
lenge,  and  if  so,  that  he  would,  according  to  the  law  in  such  case 
made  and  provided,  prescribe  the  terms  of  the  meeting.  Whitesides 
returned  for  answer  that  if  Merryman  would  meet  him  at  the  Plan 
ter's  House  as  desired,  he  would  challenge  him.  Merryman  replied 
in  a  note  that  he  denied  Whitesides's  right  to  dictate  time  and 
place,  but  that  he  (Merryman)  would  waive  the  question  of  time, 
and  meet  him  at  Louisiana,  Missouri.  Upon  my  presenting  this 
note  to  Whitesides  and  stating  verbally  its  contents,  he  declined  re 
ceiving  it,  saying  he  had  business  in  St.  Louis,  and  it  was  as  near  as 
Louisiana.  Merryman  then  directed  me  to  notify  Whitesides  that 
he  should  publish  the  correspondence  between  them,  with  such  com 
ments  as  he  thought  fit.  This  I  did.  Thus  it  stood  at  bedtime  last 
night.  This  morning  Whitesides,  by  his  friend  Shields,  is  praying 
for  a  new  trial,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  mistaken  in  Merryman's 
proposition  to  meet  him  at  Louisiana,  Missouri,  thinking  it  was  the 
State  of  Louisiana.  This  Merryman  hoots  at,  and  is  preparing  his 
publication  j  while  the  town  is  in  a  ferment,  and  a  street  fight 
somewhat  anticipated. 

But  I  began  this  letter  not  for  what  I  have  been  writing,  but  to 
say  something  on  that  subject  which  you  know  to  be  of  such  infi 
nite  solicitude  to  me.  The  immense  sufferings  you  endured  from 
the  first  days  of  September  till  the  middle  of  February  you  never 
tried  to  conceal  from  me,  and  I  well  understood.  You  have  now 
been  the  husband  of  a  lovely  woman  nearly  eight  months.  That 
you  are  happier  now  than  the  day  you  married  her  I  well  know,  for 
without  you  could  not  be  living.  But  I  have  your  word  for  it,  too, 
and  the  returning  elasticity  of  spirits  which  is  manifested  in  your 
letters.  But  I  want  to  ask  a  close  question,  "Are  you  now  in  feel 
ing  as  well  as  judgment  glad  that  you  are  married  as  you  are?" 
From  anybody  but  me  this  would  be  an  impudent  question,  not  to 
be  tolerated ;  but  I  know  you  will  pardon  it  in  me.  Please  answer 
it  quickly,  as  I  am  impatient  to  know.  I  have  sent  my  love  to  your 
Fanny  so  often,  I  fear  she  is  getting  tired  of  it.  However,  I  venture 
to  tender  it  again.  Yours  forever, 

LINCOLN. 


72  ADDRESSES  AND  LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

March  1,  1843. — RESOLUTIONS  AT  A  WHIG  MEETING  AT 
SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS. 

The  object  of  the  meeting  was  stated  by  Mr.  Lincoln  of  Spring 
field,  who  offered  the  following  resolutions,  which  were  unanimously 
adopted : 

Resolved,  That  a  tariff  of  duties  on  imported  goods,  producing  sufficient 
revenue  for  the  payment  of  the  necessary  expenditures  of  the  National  Gov 
ernment,  and  so  adjusted  as  to  protect  American  industry,  is  indispensably 
necessary  to  the  prosperity  of  the  American  people. 

Resolved,  That  we  are  opposed  to  direct  taxation  for  the  support  of  the 
National  Government. 

Resolved,  That  a  national  bank,  properly  restricted,  is  highly  necessary  and 
proper  to  the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  a  sound  currency,  and  for 
the  cheap  and  safe  collection,  keeping,  and  disbursing  of  the  public  revenue. 

Resolved,  That  the  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public 
lands,  upon  the  principles  of  Mr.  Clay's  bill,  accords  with  the  best  interests 
of  the  nation,  and  particularly  with  those  of  the  State  of  Illinois. 

Resolved,  That  we  recommend  to  the  Whigs  of  each  congressional  district 
of  the  State,  to  nominate  and  support  at  the  approaching  election  a  candi 
date  of  their  own  principles,  regardless  of  the  chances  of  success. 

Resolved,  That  we  recommend  to  the  Whigs  of  all  portions  of  the  State  to 
adopt  and  rigidly  adhere  to  the  convention  system  of  nominating  candidates. 

Resolved,  That  we  recommend  to  the  Whigs  of  each  congressional  district 
to  hold  a  district  convention  on  or  before  the  first  Monday  of  May  next,  to  be 
composed  of  a  number  of  delegates  from  each  county  equal  to  double  the 
number  of  its  representatives  in  the  General  Assembly,  provided,  each  county 
shall  have  at  least  one  delegate.  Said  delegates  to  be  chosen  by  primary 
meetings  of  the  Whigs,  at  such  times  and  places  as  they  in  their  respective 
counties  may  see  fit.  Said  district  conventions  each  to  nominate  one  candi 
date  for  Congress,  and  one  delegate  to  a  National  Convention  for  the  purpose 
of  nominating  candidates  for  President  and  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States.  The  seven  delegates  so  nominated  to  a  national  convention  to  have 
power  to  add  two  delegates  to  their  own  number,  and  to  fill  all  vacancies. 

Resolved,  That  A.  T.  Bledsoe,  S.  T.  Logan,  and  A.  Lincoln  be  appointed  a 
committee  to  prepare  an  address  to  the  people  of  the  State. 

Resolved,  That  N.  W.  Edwards,  A.  G.  Henry,  James  H.  Matheny,  John  C. 
Doremus,  and  James  C.  Conkling  be  appointed  a  Whig  Central  State  Com 
mittee,  with  authority  to  fill  any  vacancy  that  may  occur  in  the  committee. 


March  4,  1843. — CIRCULAR  FROM  WHIG  COMMITTEE. 
Address  to  the  People  of  Illinois. 

Fellow-citizens :  By  a  resolution  of  a  meeting  of  such  of  the  Whigs 
of  the  State  as  are  now  at  Springfield,  we,  the  undersigned,  were  ap 
pointed  to  prepare  an  address  to  you.  The  performance  of  that  task 
we  now  undertake. 

Several  resolutions  were  adopted  by  the  meeting j  and  the  chief 
object  of  this  address  is  to  show  briefly  the  reasons  for  their  adoption. 

The  first  of  those  resolutions  declares  a  tariff  of  duties  upon  for- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  73 

eign  importations,  producing  sufficient  revenue  for  the  support  of 
the  General  Government,  and  so  adjusted  as  to  protect  American 
industry,  to  be  indispensably  necessary  to  the  prosperity  of  the 
American  people ;  and  the  second  declares  direct  taxation  for  a  na 
tional  revenue  to  be  improper.  Those  two  resolutions  are  kindred 
in  their  nature,  and  therefore  proper  and  convenient  to  be  considered 
together.  The  question  of  protection  is  a  subject  entirely  too  broad 
to  be  crowded  into  a  few  pages  only,  together  with  several  other 
subjects.  On  that  point  we  therefore  content  ourselves  with  giving 
the  following  extracts  from  the  writings  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  General 
Jackson,  and  the  speech  of  Mr.  Calhoun : 

To  be  independent  for  the  comforts  of  life,  we  must  fabricate  them  our 
selves.  We  must  now  place  the  manufacturer  by  the  side  of  the  agriculturalist. 
The  grand  inquiry  now  is,  Shall  we  make  our  own  comforts,  or  go  without 
them  at  the  will  of  a  foreign  nation  ?  He,  therefore,  who  is  now  against  do 
mestic  manufactures  must  be  for  reducing  us  either  to  dependence  on  that 
foreign  nation,  or  to  be  clothed  in  skins  and  to  live  like  wild  beasts  in  dens 
and  caverns.  I  am  not  one  of  those  j  experience  has  taught  me  that  manu 
factures  are  now  as  necessary  to  our  independence  as  to  our  comfort. — 
Letter  of  Mr.  Jefferson  to  Benjamin  Austin. 

I  ask,  What  is  the  real  situation  of  the  agriculturalist  ?  Where  has  the 
American  farmer  a  market  for  his  surplus  produce  ?  Except  for  cotton,  he 
has  neither  a  foreign  nor  a  home  market.  Does  not  this  clearly  prove,  when 
there  is  no  market  at  home  or  abroad,  that  there  [is]  too  much  labor  em 
ployed  in  agriculture  ?  Common  sense  at  once  points  out  the  remedy.  Take 
from  agriculture  six  hundred  thousand  men,  women,  and  children,  and  you 
will  at  once  give  a  market  for  more  breadstuffs  than  all  Europe  now  fur 
nishes.  In  short,  we  have  been  too  long  subject  to  the  policy  of  British 
merchants.  It  is  time  we  should  become  a  little  more  Americanized,  and 
instead  of  feeding  the  paupers  and  laborers  of  England,  feed  our  own :  or 
else  in  a  short  time,  by  continuing  our  present  policy,  we  shall  all  be  ren 
dered  paupers  ourselves. — General  Jackson's  Letter  to  Dr.  Coleman. 

When  our  manufactures  are  grown  to  a  certain  perfection,  as  they  soon 
will  be,  under  the  fostering  care  of  government,  the  farmer  will  find  a  ready 
market  for  his  surplus  produce,  and —  what  is  of  equal  consequence  —  a  cer 
tain  and  cheap  supply  of  all  he  wants  j  his  prosperity  will  diffuse  itself  to 
every  class  of  the  community. —  Speech  of  Hon.  J.  C.  Calhoun  on  the  Tariff. 

The  question  of  revenue  we  will  now  briefly  consider.  For 
several  years  past  the  revenues  of  the  government  have  been  un 
equal  to  its  expenditures,  and  consequently  loan  after  loan,  some 
times  direct  and  sometimes  indirect  in  form,  has  been  resorted  to. 
By  this  means  a  new  national  debt  has  been  created,  and  is  still 
growing  on  us  with  a  rapidity  fearful  to  contemplate  —  a  rapidity 
only  reasonably  to  be  expected  in  time  of  war.  This  state  of  things 
has  been  produced  by  a  prevailing  unwillingness  either  to  increase 
the  tariff  or  resort  to  direct  taxation.  But  the  one  or  the  other 
must  come.  Coming  expenditures  must  be  met,  and  the  present 
debt  must  be  paid;  and  money  cannot  always  be  borrowed  for 
these  objects.  The  system  of  loans  is  but  temporary  in  its  nature, 
and  must  soon  explode.  It  is  a  system  not  only  ruinous  while  it 
lasts,  but  one  that  must  soon  fail  and  leave  us  destitute.  As  an  in- 


74  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

dividual  who  undertakes  to  live  by  borrowing  soon  finds  his  orig 
inal  means  devoured  by  interest,  and,  next,  110  one  left  to  borrow 
from,  so  must  it  be  with  a  government. 

We  repeat,  then,  that  a  tariff  sufficient  for  revenue,  or  a  direct 
tax,  must  soon  be  resorted  to  $  and,  indeed,  we  believe  this  alterna 
tive  is  now  denied  by  no  one.  But  which  system  shall  be  adopted  ? 
Some  of  our  opponents,  in  theory,  admit  the  propriety  of  a  tariff 
sufficient  for  a  revenue ;  but  even  they  will  not  in  practice  vote  for 
such  a  tariff;  while  others  boldly  advocate  direct  taxation.  Inas 
much,  therefore,  as  some  of  them  boldly  advocate  direct  taxation, 
and  all  the  rest — or  so  nearly  all  as  to  make  exceptions  needless  — 
refuse  to  adopt  the  tariff,  we  think  it  is  doing  them  no  injustice  to 
class  them  all  as  advocates  of  direct  taxation.  Indeed,  we  believe 
they  are  only  delaying  an  open  avowal  of  the  system  till  they  can 
assure  themselves  that  the  people  will  tolerate  it.  Let  us,  then, 
briefly  compare  the  two  systems.  The  tariff  is  the  cheaper  system, 
because  the  duties,  being  collected  in  large  parcels  at  a  few  commer 
cial  points,  will  require  comparatively  few  officers  in  their  collec 
tion  ;  while  by  the  direct-tax  system  the  land  must  be  literally 
covered  with  assessors  and  collectors,  going  forth  like  swarms  of 
Egyptian  locusts,  devouring  every  blade  of  grass  and  other  green 
thing.  And,  again,  by  the  tariff  system  the  whole  revenue  is  paid 
by  the  consumers  of  foreign  goods,  and  those  chiefly  the  luxuries, 
and  not  the  necessaries,  of  life.  By  this  system  the  man  who  con 
tents  himself  to  live  upon  the  products  of  his  own  country  pays 
nothing  at  all.  And  surely  that  country  is  extensive  enough,  and  its 
products  abundant  and  varied  enough,  to  answer  all  the  real  wants 
of  its  people.  In  short,  by  this  system  the  burthen  of  revenue  falls 
almost  entirely  on  the  wealthy  and  luxurious  few,  while  the  sub 
stantial  and  laboring  many  who  live  at  home,  and  upon  home  prod 
ucts,  go  entirely  free.  By  the  direct  tax  system  none  can  escape. 
However  strictly  the  citizen  may  exclude  from  his  premises  all  foreign 
luxuries, — fine  cloths,  fine  silks,  rich  wines,  golden  chains,  and  dia 
mond  rings, —  still,  for  the  possession  of  his  house,  his  barn,  and  his 
homespun,  he  is  to  be  perpetually  haunted  and  harassed  by  the  tax- 
gatherer.  With  these  views  we  leave  it  to  be  determined  whether 
we  or  our  opponents  are  the  more  truly  democratic  on  the  subject. 

The  third  resolution  declares  the  necessity  and  propriety  of  a 
national  bank.  During  the  last  fifty  years  so  much  has  been  said 
and  written  both  as  to  the  constitutionality  and  expediency  of  such 
an  institution,  that  we  could  not  hope  to'  improve  in  the  least  on 
former  discussions  of  the  subject,  were  we  to  undertake  it.  We, 
therefore,  upon  the  question  of  constitutionality  content  ourselves 
with  remarking  the  facts  that  the  first  national  bank  was  estab 
lished  chiefly  by  the  same  men  who  formed  the  Constitution,  at  a 
time  when  that  instrument  was  but  two  years  old,  and  receiving 
the  sanction,  as  president,  of  the  immortal  Washington ;  that  the 
second  received  the  sanction,  as  president,  of  Mr.  Madison,  to  whom 
common  consent  has  awarded  the  proud  title  of  "  Father  of  the  Con 
stitution";  and  subsequently  the  sanction  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
the  most  enlightened  judicial  tribunal  in  the  world.  Upon  the 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN  75 

question  of  expediency,  we  only  ask  you  to  examine  the  history  of 
the  times  during  the  existence  of  the  two  banks,  and  compare  those 
times  with  the  miserable  present. 

The  fourth  resolution  declares  the  expediency  of  Mr.  Clay's  Land 
Bill.  Much  incomprehensible  jargon  is  often  used  against  the  con 
stitutionality  of  this  measure.  We  forbear,  in  this  place,  attempt 
ing  an  answer  to  it,  simply  because,  in  our  opinion,  those  who  urge 
it  are  through  party  zeal  resolved  not  to  see  or  acknowledge  the 
truth.  The  question  of  expediency,  at  least  so  far  as  Illinois  is  con 
cerned,  seems  to  us  the  clearest  imaginable.  By  the  bill  we  are  to 
receive  annually  a  large  sum  of  money,  no  part  of  which  we  other 
wise  receive.  The  precise  annual  sum  cannot  be  known  in  advance ;  it 
doubtless  will  vary  in  different  years.  Still  it  is  something  to  know 
that  in  the  last  year — a  year  of  almost  unparalleled  pecuniary  press 
ure — it  amounted  to  more  than  forty  thousand  dollars.  This  an 
nual  income,  in  the  midst  of  our  almost  insupportable  difficulties, 
in  the  days  of  our  severest  necessity,  our  political  opponents 
are  furiously  resolving  to  take  and  keep  from  us.  And  for  what  ? 
Many  silly  reasons  are  given,  as  is  usual  in  cases  where  a  single 
good  one  is  not  to  be  found.  One  is  that  by  giving  us  the  pro 
ceeds  of  the  lands,  we  impoverish  the  national  treasury,  and  thereby 
render  necessary  an  increase  of  the  tariff.  This  may  be  true ;  but 
if  so,  the  amount  of  it  only  is  that  those  whose  pride,  whose  abund 
ance  of  means,  prompt  them  to  spurn  the  manufactures  of  our 
country,  and  to  strut  in  British  cloaks  and  coats  and  pantaloons, 
may  have  to  pay  a  few  cents  more  on  the  yard  for  the  cloth  that 
makes  them.  A  terrible  evil,  truly,  to  the  Illinois  farmer,  who 
never  wore,  nor  ever  expects  to  wear,  a  single  yard  of  British  goods 
in  his  whole  life.  Another  of  their  reasons  is  that  by  the  passage 
and  continuance  of  Mr.  Clay's  bill,  we  prevent  the  passage  of  a  bill 
which  would  give  us  more.  This,  if  it  were  sound  in  itself,  is  wag 
ing  destructive  war  with  the  former  position ;  for  if  Mr.  Clay's  bill 
impoverishes  the  treasury  too  much,  what  shall  be  said  of  one  that 
impoverishes  it  still  more  ?  But  it  is  not  sound  in  itself.  It  is  not 
true  that  Mr.  Clay's  bill  prevents  the  passage  of  one  more  favorable 
to  us  of  the  new  States.  Considering  the  strength  and  opposite  in 
terest  of  the  old  States,  the  wonder  is  that  they  ever  permitted  one 
to  pass  so  favorable  as  Mr.  Clay's.  The  last  twenty-odd  years'  ef 
forts  to  reduce  the  price  of  the  lands,  and  to  pass  graduation  bills  and 
cession  bills,  prove  the  assertion  to  be  true ;  and  if  there  were  no 
experience  in  support  of  it,  the  reason  itself  is  plain.  The  States  in 
which  none,  or  few,  of  the  public  lands  lie,  and  those  consequently 
interested  against  parting  with  them  except  for  the  best  price,  are 
the  majority;  and  a  moment's  reflection  will  show  that  they  must 
ever  continue  the  majority,  because  by  the  time  one  of  the  original 
new  States  (Ohio,  for  example)  becomes  populous  and  gets  weight  in 
Congress,  the  public  lands  in  her  limits  are  so  nearly  sold  out  that 
in  every  point  material  to  this  question  she  becomes  an  old  State. 
She  does  not  wish  the  price  reduced,  because  there  is  none  left  for 
her  citizens  to  buy ;  she  does  not  wish  them  ceded  to  the  States  in 
which  they  lie,  because  they  no  longer  lie  in  her  limits,  and  she  will 


76  ADDEESSES  AND  LETTERS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

get  nothing  by  the  cession.  In  the  nature  of  things,  the  States  in 
terested  in  the  reduction  of  price,  in  graduation,  in  cession,  and  in 
all  similar  projects,  never  can  be  the  majority.  Nor  is  there  reason 
to  hope  that  any  of  them  can  ever  succeed  as  a  Democratic  party 
measure,  because  we  have  heretofore  seen  that  party  in  full  power, 
year  after  year,  with  many  of  their  leaders  making  loud  professions 
in  favor  of  these  projects,  and  yet  doing  nothing.  What  reason, 
then,  is  there  to  believe  they  will  hereafter  do  better?  In  every 
light  in  which  we  can  view  this  question,  it  amounts  simply  to  this: 
Shall  we  accept  our  share  of  the  proceeds  under  Mr.  Clay's  bill,  or 
shall  we  rather  reject  that  and  get  nothing? 

The  fifth  resolution  recommends  that  a  Whig  candidate  for  Con 
gress  be  run  in  every  district,  regardless  of  the  chances  of  success. 
We  are  aware  that  it  is  sometimes  a  temporary  gratification,  when 
a  friend  cannot  succeed,  to  be  able  to  choose  between  opponents ; 
but  we  believe  that  that  gratification  is  the  seed-time  which  never 
fails  to  be  followed  by  a  most  abundant  harvest  of  bitterness.  By 
this  policy  we  entangle  ourselves.  By  voting  for  our  opponents,  such 
of  us  as  do  it  in  some  measure  estop  ourselves  to  complain  of  their 
acts,  however  glaringly  wrong  we  may  believe  them  to  be.  By  this 
policy  no  one  portion  of  our  friends  can  ever  be  certain  as  to  what 
course  another  portion  may  adopt;  and  by  this  want  of  mutual 
and  perfect  understanding  our  political  identity  is  partially  frittered 
away  and  lost.  And,  again,  those  who  are  thus  elected  by  our  aid 
ever  become  our  bitterest  persecutors.  Take  a  few  prominent  ex 
amples.  In  1830  Reynolds  was  so  elected  governor  5  in  1835  we 
exerted  our  whole  strength  to  elect  Judge  "Young  to  the  United 
States  Senate,  which  effort,  though  failing,  gave  him  the  promi 
nence  that  subsequently  elected  him;  in  1836  General  Ewing  was 
so  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate ;  and  yet  let  us  ask  what  three 
men  have  been  more  perseveringly  vindictive  in  their  assaults  upon 
all  our  men  and  measures  than  they  ?  During  the  last  summer  the 
whole  State  was  covered  with  pamphlet  editions  of  misrepresenta 
tions  against  us,  methodized  into  chapters  and  verses,  written  by 
two  of  these  same  men, — Reynolds  and  Young, — in  which  they  did 
not  stop  at  charging  us  with  error  merely,  but  roundly  denounced 
us  as  the  designing  enemies  of  human  liberty  itself.  If  it  be 
the  will  of  Heaven  that  such  men  shall  politically  live,  be  it  so  j 
but  never,  never  again  permit  them  to  draw  a  particle  of  their  sus 
tenance  from  us. 

The  sixth  resolution  recommends  the  adoption  of  the  convention 
system  for  the  nomination  of  candidates.  This  we  believe  to  be  of 
the  very  first  importance.  Whether  the  system  is  right  in  itself  we 
do  not  stop  to  inquire ;  contenting  ourselves  with  trying  to  show 
that  while  our  opponents  use  it,  it  is  madness  in  us  not  to  defend  our 
selves  with  it.  Experience  has  shown  that  we  cannot  successfully 
defend  ourselves  without  it.  For  examples,  look  at  the  elections  of 
last  year.  Our  candidate  for  governor,  with  the  approbation  of  a 
large  portion  of  the  party,  took  the  field  without  a  nomination,  and 
in  open  opposition  to  the  system.  Wherever  in  the  counties  the 
Whigs  had  held  conventions  and  nominated  candidates  for  the  legis- 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  77 

lature,  the  aspirants  who  were  not  nominated  were  induced  to  rebel 
against  the  nominations,  and  to  become  candidates,  as  is  said,  "  on 
their  own  hook.77  And,  go  where  you  would  into  a  large  Whig 
county,  you  were  sure  to  find  the  Whigs  not  contending  shoulder 
to  shoulder  against  the  common  enemy,  but  divided  into  factions, 
and  fighting  furiously  with  one  another.  The  election  came,  and 
what  was  the  result?  The  governor  beaten — the  Whig  vote  being 
decreased  many  thousands  since  1840,  although  the  Democratic  vote 
had  not  increased  any.  Beaten  almost  everywhere  for  members  of 
the  legislature, — Tazewell,  with  her  four  hundred  Whig  majority, 
sending  a  delegation  half  Democratic;  Vermillion,  with  her  five 
hundred,  doing  the  same;  Coles,  with  her  four  hundred,  sending 
two  out  of  three;  and  Morgan,  with  her  two  hundred  and  fifty, 
sending  three  out  of  four, —  and  this  to  say  nothing  of  the  numer 
ous  other  less  glaring  examples ;  the  whole  winding  up  with  the  ag 
gregate  number  of  twenty-seven  Democratic  representatives  sent 
from  Whig  counties.  As  to  the  senators,  too,  the  result  was  of  the 
same  character.  And  it  is  most  worthy  to  be  remembered  that  of 
all  the  Whigs  in  the  State  who  ran  against  the  regular  nominees,  a 
single  one  only  was  elected.  Although  they  succeeded  in  defeating 
the  nominees  almost  by  scores,  they  too  were  defeated,  and  the  spoils 
chucklingly  borne  off  by  the  common  enemy  ? 

We  do  not  mention  the  fact  of  many  of  the  Whigs  opposing  the 
convention  system  heretofore  for  the  purpose  of  censuring  them. 
Far  from  it.  We  expressly  protest  against  such  a  conclusion.  We 
know  they  were  generally,  perhaps  universally,  as  good  and  true 
Whigs  as  we  ourselves  claim  to  be.  We  mention  it  merely  to  draw 
attention  to  the  disastrous  result  it  produced,  as  an  example  forever 
hereafter  to  be  avoided.  That  "  union  is  strength  77  is  a  truth  that 
has  been  known,  illustrated,  and  declared  in  various  ways  and  forms 
in  all  ages  of  the  world.  That  great  fabulist  and  philosopher,  ^Esop, 
illustrated  it  by  his  fable  of  the  bundle  of  sticks;  and  he  whose 
wisdom  surpasses  that  of  all  philosophers  has  declared  that  "  a  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.'7  It  is  to  induce  our  friends  to 
act  upon  this  important  and  universally  acknowledged  truth  that 
we  urge  the  adoption  of  the  convention  system.  Reflection  will 
prove  that  there  is  no  other  way  of  practically  applying  it.  In  its 
application  we  know  there  will  be  incidents  temporarily  painful;  but, 
after  all,  those  incidents  will  be  fewer  and  less  intense  with  than  with 
out  the  system.  If  two  friends  aspire  to  the  same  office  it  is  certain 
that  both  cannot  succeed.  Would  it  not,  then,  be  much  less  painful 
to  have  the  question  decided  by  mutual  friends  some  time  before, 
than  to  snarl  and  quarrel  until  the  day  of  election,  and  then  both  be 
beaten  by  the  common  enemy  ? 

Before  leaving  this  subject,  we  think  proper  to  remark  that  we  dp 
not  understand  the  resolution  as  intended  to  recommend  the  appli 
cation  of  the  convention  system  to  the  nomination  of  candidates  for 
the  small  offices  no  way  connected  with  politics;  though  we  must 
say  we  do  not  perceive  that  such  an  application  of  it  would  be 
wrong. 

The  seventh  resolution  recommends  the  holding  of  district  con- 


78  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ventions  in  May  next,  for  the  purpose  of  nominating  candidates  for 
Congress.  The  propriety  of  this  rests  upon  the  same  reasons  with 
that  of  the  sixth,  and  therefore  needs  no  further  discussion. 

The  eighth  and  ninth  also  relate  merely  to  the  practical  applica 
tion  of  the  foregoing,  and  therefore  need  no  discussion. 

Before  closing,  permit  us  to  add  a  few  reflections  on  the  present 
condition  and  future  prospects  of  the  Whig  party.  In  almost  all 
the  States  we  have  fallen  into  the  minority,  and  despondency  seems 
to  prevail  universally  among  us.  Is  there  just  cause  for  this  ?  In 
1840  we  carried  the  nation  by  more  than  a  hundred  and  forty  thou 
sand  majority.  Our  opponents  charged  that  we  did  it  by  fraudulent 
voting  j  but  whatever  they  may  have  believed,  we  know  the  charge 
to  be  untrue.  Where,  now,  is  that  mighty  host  ?  Have  they  gone 
over  to  the  enemy?  Let  the  results  of  the  late  elections  answer. 
Every  State  which  has  fallen  oif  from  the  Whig  cause  since  1840 
has  done  so  not  by  giving  more  Democratic  votes  than  they  did 
then,  but  by  giving  fewer  Whig.  Bouck,  who  was  elected  Demo 
cratic  governor  of  New  York  last  fall  by  more  than  15,000  majority, 
had  not  then  as  many  votes  as  he  had  in  1840,  when  he  was  beaten 
by  seven  or  eight  thousand.  And  so  has  it  been  in  all  the  other 
States  which  have  fallen  away  from  our  cause.  From  this  it  is  evi 
dent  that  tens  of  thousands  in  the  late  elections  have  not  voted  at 
all.  Who  and  what  are  they  ?  is  an  important  question,  as  respects 
the  future.  They  can  come  forward  and  give  us  the  victory  again. 
That  all.  or  nearly  all,  of  them  are  Whigs  is  most  apparent.  Our 
opponents,  stung  to  madness  by  the  defeat  of  1840,  have  ever  since 
rallied  with  more  than  their  usual  unanimity.  It  has  not  been  they 
that  have  been  kept  from  the  polls.  These  facts  show  what  the  re 
sult  must  be,  once  the  people  again  rally  in  their  entire  strength. 
Proclaim  these  facts,  and  predict  this  result  5  and  although  unthink 
ing  opponents  may  smile  at  us,  the  sagacious  ones  will "  believe  and 
tremble."  And  why  shall  the  Whigs  not  all  rally  again!  Are  their 
principles  less  dear  now  than  in  1840?  Have  any  of  their  doctrines 
since  then  been  discovered  to  be  untrue?  It  is  true,  the  victory  of 
1840  did  not  produce  the  happy  results  anticipated ;  but  it  is  equally 
true,  as  we  believe,  that  the  unfortunate  death  of  General  Harrison 
was  the  cause  of  the  failure.  It  was  not  the  election  of  General 
Harrison  that  was  expected  to  produce  happy  effects,  but  the  mea 
sures  to  be  adopted  by  his  administration.  By  means  of  his  death, 
and  the  unexpected  course  of  his  successor,  those  measures  were 
never  adopted.  How  could  the  fruits  follow  ?  The  consequences 
we  always  predicted  would  follow  the  failure  of  those  measures  have 
followed,  and  are  now  upon  us  in  all  their  horrors.  By  the  course 
of  Mr.  Tyler  the  policy  of  our  opponents  has  continued  in  operation, 
still  leaving  them  with  the  advantage  of  charging  all  its  evils  upon 
us  as  the  results  of  a  Whig  administration.  Let  none  be  deceived 
by  this  somewhat  plausible,  though  entirely  false  charge.  If  they 
ask  us  for  the  sufficient  and  sound  currency  we  promised,  let  them 
be  answered  that  we  only  promised  it  through  the  medium  of  a  na 
tional  bank,  which  they,  aided  by  Mr.  Tyler,  prevented  our  estab 
lishing.  And  let  them  be  reminded,  too,  that  their  own  policy  in 


ADDEESSES  AND  LETTEES   OF  ABEAHAM  LINCOLN  79 

relation  to  the  currency  has  all  the  time  been,  and  still  is,  in  full  op 
eration.  Let  us  then  again  come  forth  in  our  might,  and  by  a  sec 
ond  victory  accomplish  that  which  death  only  prevented  in  the  first. 
We  can  do  it.  When  did  the  Whigs  ever  fail  if  they  were  fully 
aroused  and  united?  Even  in  single  States  and  districts,  under 
such  circumstances,  defeat  seldom  overtakes  them.  Call  to  mind 
the  contested  elections  within  the  last  few  years,  and  particularly 
those  of  Moore  and  Letcher  from  Kentucky,  Newland  and  Graham 
from  North  Carolina,  and  the  famous  New  Jersey  case.  In  all 
these  districts  Locofocoism  had  stalked  omnipotent  before ;  but 
when  the  whole  people  were  aroused  by  its  enormities  on  those  oc 
casions,  they  put  it  down  never  to  rise  again. 

We  declare  it  to  be  our  solemn  conviction,  that  the  Whigs  are  al 
ways  a  majority  of  this  nation ;  and  that  to  make  them  always  suc 
cessful  needs  but  to  get  them  all  to  the  polls  and  to  vote  unitedly. 
This  is  the  great  desideratum.  Let  us  make  every  effort  to  attain 
it.  At  every  election,  let  every  Whig  act  as  though  he  knew  the 
result  to  depend  upon  his  action.  In  the  great  contest  of  1840, 
some  more  than  twenty-one  hundred  thousand  votes  were  cast,  and 
so  surely  as  there  shall  be  that  many,  with  the  ordinary  increase 
added,  cast  in  1844,  that  surely  ^ill  a  Whig  be  elected  President  of 
the  United  States. 

A.  LINCOLN, 
S.  T.  LOGAN, 

March  4,  1843.  .  A.  T.  BLEDSOE. 


March  24,  1843. — LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  March  24,  1843. 

Dear  Speed:  .  .  .  We  had  a  meeting  of  the  Whigs  of  the  county 
here  on  last  Monday  to  appoint  delegates  to  a  district  convention  ; 
and  Baker  beat  me,  and  got  the  delegation  instructed  to  go  for  him. 
The  meeting,  in  spite  of  my  attempt  to  decline  it,  appointed  me  one 
of  the  delegates ;  so  that  in  getting  Baker  the  nomination  I  shall  be 
fixed  a  good  deal  like  a  fellow  who  is  made  a  groomsman  to  a  man 
that  has  cut  him  out  and  is  marrying  his  own  dear  "gal."  About 
the  prospects  of  your  having  a  namesake  at  our  town,  can't  say  ex 
actly  yet. 

A.  LINCOLN. 


March  26,  1843. — LETTER  TO  MARTIN  M.  MORRIS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  March  26,  1843. 

Friend  Morris  :  Your  letter  of  the  23d  was  received  on  yesterday 
morning,  and  for  which  (instead  of  an  excuse,  which  you  thought 
proper  to  ask)  I  tender  you  my  sincere  thanks.  It  is  truly  gratify 
ing  to  me  to  learn  that  while  the  people  of  Sangamon  have  cast  me 
off,  my  old  friends  of  Menard,  who  have  known  me  longest  and 


80  ADDRESSES  AND  LETTEKS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

best,  stick  to  me.  It  would  astonish,  if  not  amuse,  the  older  citi 
zens  to  learn  that  I  (a  stranger,  friendless,  uneducated,  penniless 
boy,  working1  on  a  flatboat  at  ten  dollars  per  month)  have  been  put 
down  here  as  the  candidate  of  pride,  wealth,  and  aristocratic  family 
distinction.  Yet  so,  chiefly,  it  was.  There  was,  too,  the  strangest 
combination  of  church  influence  against  me.  Baker  is  a  Campbell- 
ite ;  and  therefore,  as  I  suppose,  with  few  exceptions  got  all  that 
church.  My  wife  has  some  relations  in  the  Presbyterian  churches, 
and  some  with  the  Episcopal  churches ;  and  therefore,  wherever  it 
would  tell,  I  was  set  down  as  either  the  one  or  the  other,  while  it 
was  everywhere  contended  that  no  Christian  ought  to  go  for  me,  be 
cause  I  belonged  to  no  church,  was  suspected  of  being  a  deist,  and 
had  talked  about  fighting  a  duel.  With  all  these  things,  Baker,  of 
course,  had  nothing  to  do.  Nor  do  I  complain  of  them.  As  to  his 
own  church  going  for  him,  I  think  that  was  right  enough,  and  as  to 
the  influences  I  have  spoken  of  in  the  other,  though  they  were  very 
strong,  it  would  be  grossly  untrue  and  unjust  to  charge  that  they 
acted  upon  them  in  a  body,  or  were  very  near  so.  I  only  mean 
that  those  influences  levied  a  tax  of  a  considerable  per  cent,  upon 
my  strength  throughout  the  religious  controversy.  But  enough  of 
this. 

You  say  that  in  choosing  a  candidate  for  Congress  you  have  an 
equal  right  with  Sangamon,  and  in  this  you  are  undoubtedly  cor 
rect.  In  agreeing  to  withdraw  if  the  Whigs  of  Sangamon  should  go 
against  me,  I  did  not  mean  that  they  alone  were  worth  consulting, 
but  that  if  she,  with  her  heavy  delegation,  should  be  against  me,  it 
would  be  impossible  for  me  to  succeed,  and  therefore  I  had  as  well 
decline.  And  in  relation  to  Menard  having  rights,  permit  me  fully 
to  recognize  them,  and  to  express  the  opinion,  that  if  she  and  Mason 
act  circumspectly,  they  will  in  the  convention  be  able  so  far  to  en 
force  their  rights  as  to  decide  absolutely  which  one  of  the  candidates 
shall  be  successful.  Let  me  show  the  reason  of  this.  Hardin,  or 
some  other  Morgan  candidate,  will  get  Putnam,  Marshall,  Wood- 
ford,  Tazewell,  and  Logan — making  sixteen.  Then  you  and  Mason, 
having  three,  can  give  the  victory  to  either  side. 

You  say  you  shall  instruct  your  delegates  for  me,  unless  I  object. 
I  certainly  shall  not  object.  That  would  be  too  pleasant  a  compli 
ment  for  me  to  tread  in  the  dust.  And  besides,  if  anything  should 
happen  (which,  however,  is  not  probable)  by  which  Baker  should  be 
thrown  out  of  the  fight,  I  would  be  at  liberty  to  accept  the  nomina 
tion  if  I  could  get  it.  I  do,  however,  feel  myself  bound  not  to  hin 
der  him  in  any  way  from  getting  the  nomination.  I  should  despise 
myself  were  I  to  attempt  it.  I  think,  then,  it  would  be  proper  for 
your  meeting  to  appoint  three  delegates,  and  to  instruct  them  to  go 
for  some  one  as  a  first  choice,  some  one  else  as  a  second,  and  per 
haps  some  one  as  a  third  ;  and  if  in  those  instructions  I  were  named 
as  the  first  choice,  it  would  gratify  me  very  much.  If  you  wish  to 
hold  the  balance  of  power,  it  is  important  for  you  to  attend  to  and 
secure  the  vote  of  Mason  also.  You  should  be  sure  to  have  men 
appointed  delegates  that  you  know  you  can  safely  confide  in.  If 
yourself  and  James  Short  were  appointed  from  your  county,  all 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  81 

would  be  safe ;  but  whether  Jim's  woman  affair  a  year  ago  might 
not  be  in  the  way  of  his  appointment  is  a  question.  I  don't  know 
whether  you  know  it,  but  I  know  him  to  be  as  honorable  a  man  as 
there  is  in  the  world.  You  have  my  permission,  and  even  request, 
to  show  this  letter  to  Short ;  but  to  no  one  else,  unless  it  be  a  very 
particular  friend,  who  you  know  will  not  speak  of  it. 

Yours  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 

P.  S.    Will  you  write  me  again  ? 

To  MARTIN  M.  MORRIS,  Petersburg,  Illinois. 


April  14,  1843. —  LETTER  TO  MARTIN  M.  MORRIS. 

April  14,  1843. 

Friend  Morris :  I  have  heard  it  intimated  that  Baker  has  been  at 
tempting  to  get  you  or  Miles,  or  both  of  you,  to  violate  the  instruc 
tions  of  the  meeting  that  appointed  you,  and  to  go  for  him.  I  have 
insisted,  and  still  insist,  that  this  cannot  be  true.  Surely  Baker 
would  not  do  the  like.  As  well  might  Hardin  ask  me  to  vote  for 
him  in  the  convention.  Again,  it  is  said  there  will  be  an  attempt  to 
get  up  instructions  in  your  county  requiring  you  to  go  for  Baker. 
This  is  all  wrong.  Upon  the  same  rule,  why  might  not  I  fly  from 
the  decision  against  me  in  Sangamon,  and  get  up  instructions  to  their 
delegates  to  go  for  me  ?  There  are  at  least  1200  Whigs  in  the  county 
that  took  no  part,  and  yet  I  would  as  soon  put  my  head  in  the  fire 
as  to  attempt  it.  Besides,  if  any  one  should  get  the  nomination  by 
such  extraordinary  means,  all  harmony  in  the  district  would  inevita 
bly  be  lost.  Honest  Whigs  (and  very  nearly  all  of  them  are  honest) 
would  not  quietly  abide  such  enormities.  I  repeat,  such  an  attempt 
on  Baker's  part  cannot  be  true.  Write  me  at  Springfield  how  the 
matter  is.  Don't  show  or  speak  of  this  letter. 

A.  LINCOLN. 


May  18,  1843. — LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  May  18,  1843. 

Dear  Speed :  Yours  of  the  9th  instant  is  duly  received,  which  I  do 
not  meet  as  a  "bore,"  but  as  a  most  welcome  visitor.  I  will  answer 
the  business  part  of  it  first.  .  .  . 

In  relation  to  our  Congress  matter  here,  you  were  right  in  sup 
posing  I  would  support  the  nominee.  Neither  Baker  nor  I,  however, 
is  the  man,  but  Hardin,  so  far  as  I  can  judge  from  present  appear 
ances.  We  shall  have  no  split  or  trouble  about  the  matter;  all  will 
be  harmony.  In  relation  to  the  "  coming  events"  about  which  But 
ler  wrote  you,  I  had  not  heard  one  word  before  I  got  your  letter  • 
but  I  have  so  much  confidence  in  the  judgment  of  a  Butler  on  such 
a  subject  that  I  incline  to  think  there  may  be  some  reality  in  it. 
What  day  does  Butler  appoint?  By  the  way,  how  do  "events"  of 
VOL.  I.— 6. 


82  ADDRESSES  AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

the  same  sort  come  on  in  your  family?  Are  you  possessing  houses 
and  lands,  and  oxen  and  asses,  and  men-servants  and  maid-servants, 
and  begetting  sons  and  daughters?  We  are  not  keeping  house,  but 
boarding  at  the  Globe  Tavern,  which  is  very  well  kept  now  by  a 
widow  lady  of  the  name  of  Beck.  Our  room  (the  same  that  Dr. 
Wallace  occupied  there)  and  boarding  only  costs  us  four  dollars  a 
week.  Ann  Todd  was  married  something  more  than  a  year  since  to 
a  fellow  by  the  name  of  Campbell,  and  who,  Mary  says,  is  pretty 
much  of  a  "  dunce,"  though  he  has  a  little  money  and  property. 
They  live  in  Boonville,  Missouri,  and  have  not  been  heard  from 
lately  enough  for  me  to  say  anything  about  her  health.  I  reckon  it 
will  scarcely  be  in  our  power  to  visit  Kentucky  this  year.  Besides 
poverty  anfl  the  necessity  of  attending  to  business,  those  "coming 
events/'  I  suspect,  would  be  somewhat  in  the  way.  I  most  heartily 
wish  you  and  your  Fanny  would  not  fail  to  come.  Just  let  us  know 
the  time,  and  we  will  have  a  room  provided  for  you  at  our  house,  and 
all  be  merry  together  for  a  while.  Be  sure  to  give  my  respects  to 
your  mother  and  family ;  assure  her  that  if  ever  I  come  near  her,  I 
will  not  fail  to  call  and  see  her.  Mary  joins  in  sending  love  to  your 
Fanny  and  you.  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


November  17,  1845. — LETTER  TO  B.  F.  JAMES. 

SPRINGFIELD,  November  17,  1845. 

Friend  James :  The  paper  at  Pekin  has  nominated  Hardin  for 
governor;  and,  commenting  on  this,  the  Alton  paper  indirectly 
nominated  him  for  Congress.  It  would  give  Hardin  a  great  start, 
and  perhaps  use  me  up,  if  the  Whig  papers  of  the  district  should 
nominate  him  for  Congress.  If  your  feelings  toward  me  are  the 
same  as  when  I  saw  you  (which  I  have  no  reason  to  doubt),  I  wish 
you  would  let  nothing  appear  in  your  paper  which  may  operate 
against  me.  You  understand.  Matters  stand  just  as  they" did  when 
I  saw  you.  Baker  is  certainly  off  the  track,  and  I  fear  Hardin  in 
tends  to  be  on  it. 

In  relation  to  the  business  you  wrote  me  of  some  time  since,  I  sup 
pose  the  marshal  called  on  you  ;  and  we  think  it  can  be  adjusted  at 
court  to  the  satisfaction  of  you  and  friend  Thompson. 

A.  LINCOLN. 


November  24,  1845. — LETTER  TO  B.  F.  JAMES. 

SPRINGFIELD,  November  24,  1845. 

Friend  James  :  Yours  of  the  19th  was  not  received  till  this  morn 
ing.  The  error  I  fell  into  in  relation  to  the  Pekin  paper  I  dis 
covered  myself  the  day  after  I  wrote  you.  The  way  I  fell  into  it 
was  that  Stuart  (John  T.)  met  me  in  the  court,  and  told  me  about  a 
nomination  having  been  made  in  the  Pekin  paper,  and  about  the 
comments  upon  it  in  the  Alton  paper;  and  without  seeing  either 


ADDBESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  83 

paper  myself,  I  wrote  you.  In  writing  to  you,  I  only  meant  to 
call  your  attention  to  the  matter ;  and  that  done,  I  knew  all  would 
be  right  with  you.  Of  course  I  should  not  have  thought  this 
necessary  if  at  the  time  I  had  known  that  the  nomination  had 
been  made  in  your  paper.  And  let  me  assure  you  that  if  there  is 
anything  in  my  letter  indicating  an  opinion  that  the  nomination  for 
governor,  which  I  supposed  to  have  been  made  in  the  Pekin  paper, 
was  operating  or  could  operate  against  me,  such  was  not  my  mean 
ing.  Now  that  I  know  that  nomination  was  made  by  you,  I  say  that 
it  may  do  me  good,  while  I  do  not  see  that  it  can  do  me  harm.  But, 
while  the  subject  is  in  agitation,  should  any  of  the  papers  in  the  dis 
trict  nominate  the  same  man  for  Congress,  that  would  do  me  harm ; 
and  it  was  that  which  I  wished  to  guard  against.  Let  me  assure  you 
that  I  do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that  what  you  have  done  is  ill- 
judged,  or  that  anything  that  you  shall  do  will  be.  It  was  not  to 
object  to  the  course  of  the  Pekin  paper  (as  I  thought  it),  but  to 
guard  against  any  falling  into  the  wake  of  the  Alton  paper,  that  I 
wrote. 

You  perhaps  have  noticed  the  "Journal's"  article  of  last  week 
upon  the  same  subject.  It  was  written  without  any  consultation 
with  me,  but  I  was  told  by  Francis  of  its  purport  before  it  was  pub 
lished.  I  chose  to  let  it  go  as  it  was,  lest  it  should  be  suspected  that 
I  was  attempting  to  juggle  Hardin  out  of  a  nomination  for  Con 
gress  by  juggling  him  into  one  for  governor.  If  you,  and  the  other 
papers  a  little  more  distant  from  me,  choose  to  take  the  same  course 
you  have,  of  course  I  have  no  objection.  After  you  shall  have  re 
ceived  this,  I  think  we  shall  fully  understand  each  other,  and  that 
our  views  as  to  the  effect  of  these  things  are  not  dissimilar.  Confi 
dential,  of  course.  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


January  14,  1846. — LETTER  TO  B.  F.  JAMES. 

SPRINGFIELD,  January  14,  1846. 

Friend  James :  Yours  of  the  10th  was  not  received  until  this 
morning.  I  cannot  but  be  pleased  with  its  contents.  I  saw  Henry's 
communication  in  your  paper,  as  also  your  editorial  remarks, 
neither  of  which,  in  my  opinion,  was  in  any  way  misjudged, — both 
quite  the  thing.  I  think  just  as  you  do  concerning  the  dictation  of 
the  course  of  the  Alton  paper,  and  also  concerning  its  utter  harm- 
lessness.  As  to  the  proposition  to  hold  the  convention  at  Peters 
burg,  I  will  at  once  tell  you  all  I  know  and  all  I  feel.  A  good  friend 
of  ours  there — John  Bennett — wrote  me  that  he  thought  it  would 
do  good  with  the  Whigs  of  Menard  to  see  a  respectable  convention 
conducted  in  good  style.  They  are  a  little  disinclined  to  adopt  the 
convention  system ;  and  Bennett  thinks  some  of  their  prejudices 
would  be  done  away  by  their  having  the  convention  amongst  them.  At 
his  request,  therefore,  I  had  the  little  paragraph  put  in  the  "  Journal." 
This  is  all  I  know.  Now  as  to  what  I  feel.  I  feel  a  desire  that  they 
of  Petersburg  should  be  gratified,  if  it  can  be  done  without  a  sacri- 


84  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

fice  of  the  wishes  of  others,  and  without  detriment  to  the  cause  — no 
thing  more.  I  can  gain  nothing  in  the  contest  by  having  it  there.  I 
showed  your  letter  to  Stuart,  and  he  thinks  there  is  something  in 
your  suggestion  of  holding  it  at  your  town.  I  should  be  pleased  if 
I  could  concur  with  you  in  the  hope  that  my  name  would  be  the 
only  one  presented  to  the  convention  ;  but  I  cannot.  Hardin  is  a 
man  of  desperate  energy  and  perseverance,  and  one  that  never  backs 
out ;  and,  I  fear,  to  think  otherwise  is  to  be  deceived  in  the  charac 
ter  of  our  adversary.  I  would  rejoice  to  be  spared  the  labor  of  a 
contest ;  but  "  being  in,"  I  shall  go  it  thoroughly,  and  to  the  bottom. 
As  to  my  being  able  to  make  a  break  in  the  lower  counties,  I  tell 
you  that  I  can  possibly  get  Cass,  but  I  do  not  think  I  will.  Morgan 
and  Scott  are  beyond  my  reach;  Menard  is  safe  to  me;  Mason, 
neck  and  neck ;  Logan  is  mine.  To  make  the  matter  sure,  your  en 
tire  senatorial  district  must  be  secured.  Of  this  I  suppose  Tazewell 
is  safe;  and  I  have  much  done  in  both  the  other  counties.  In 
Woodford  I  have  Davenport,  Simons,  Willard,  Bracken,  Perry, 
Travis,  Dr.  Hazzard,  and  the  Clarks  and  some  others,  all  specially 
committed.  At  Lacon,  in  Marshall,  the  very  most  active  friend  I 
have  in  the  district  (if  I  except  yourself)  is  at  work.  Through  him 
I  have  procured  their  names,  and  written  to  three  or  four  of  the 
most  active  Whigs  in  each  precinct  of  the  county.  Still  I  wish  you 
all  in  Tazewell  to  keep  your  eyes  continually  on  Woodford  and 
Marshall.  Let  no  opportunity  of  making  a  mark  escape.  When 
they  shall  be  safe,  all  will  be  safe,  I  think. 

The  Beardstown  paper  is  entirely  in  the  hands  of  my  friends. 
The  editor  is  a  Whig,  and  personally  dislikes  Hardin.  When  the 
Supreme  Court  shall  adjourn  (which  it  is  thought  will  be  about  the 
15th  of  February),  it  is  my  intention  to  take  a  quiet  trip  through 
the  towns  and  neighborhoods  of  Logan  County,  Delevan,  Tremont, 
and  on  to  and  through  the  upper  counties.  Don't  speak  of  this,  or 
let  it  relax  any  of  your  vigilance.  When  I  shall  reach  Tremont,  we 
will  talk  over  everything  at  large.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


January  16,  1846.— LETTER  TO  B.  F.  JAMES. 

SPRINGFIELD,  January  16,  1846. 

Dear  James :  A  plan  is  on  foot  to  change  the  mode  of  selecting 
the  candidate  for  this  district.  The  movement  is  intended  to  injure 
me,  and,  if  effected,  most  likely  would  injure  me  to  some  extent.  I 
have  not  time  to  give  particulars  now ;  but  I  want  you  to  let  nothing 
prevent  your  getting  an  article  in  your  paper  of  this  week,  taking 
strong  ground  for  the  old  system  under  which  Hardin  and  Baker 
were  nominated,  without  seeming  to  know  or  suspect  that  any  one 
desires  to  change  it.  I  have  written  Dr.  Henry  more  at  length,  and 
he  will  probably  call  and  consult  with  you  on  getting  up  the  article; 
but  whether  he  does  or  not,  don't  fail,  on  any  account,  to  get  it  in 
this  week. 

A.  LINCOLN. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  85 


January  27,  1846. —  LETTER  TO  B.  F.  JAMES. 

SPRINGFIELD,  January  27,  1846. 

Dear  James :  Yours,  inclosing  the  article  from  the  "  Whig,"  is  re 
ceived.  In  my  judgment,  you  have  hit  the  matter  exactly  right.  I 
believe  it  is  too  late  to  get  the  article  in  the  "  Journal"  of  this  week; 
but  Dickinson  will  understand  it  just  as  well  from  your  paper,  know 
ing  as  he  does  your  position  toward  me.  More  than  all,  I  wrote  him 
at  the  same  time  I  did  you.  As  to  suggestions  for  the  committee,  I 
would  say  appoint  the  convention  for  the  first  Monday  of  May.  As 
to  the  place,  I  can  hardly  make  a  suggestion,  so  many  points  desiring 
it.  I  was  at  Petersburg  Saturday  and  Sunday,  and  they  are  very 
anxious  for  it  there.  A  friend  has  also  written  me  desiring  it  at 
Beardstown. 

I  would  have  the  committee  leave  the  mode  of  choosing  delegates 
to  the  Whigs  of  the  different  counties,  as  may  best  suit  them  respec 
tively.  I  would  have  them  propose,  for  the  sake  of  uniformity,  that 
the  delegates  should  all  be  instructed  as  to  their  man,  and  the  dele 
gation  of  each  county  should  go  as  a  unit.  If,  without  this,  some 
counties  should  send  united  delegations  and  others  divided  ones,  it 
might  make  bad  work.  Also  have  it  proposed  that  when  the  con 
vention  shall  meet,  if  there  shall  be  any  absent  delegates,  the  mem 
bers  present  may  fill  the  vacancies  with  persons  to  act  under  the 
same  instructions  which  may  be  known  to  have  been  given  to  such 
absentees.  You  understand.  Other  particulars  I  leave  to  you.  I 
am  sorry  to  say  I  am  afraid  I  cannot  go  to  Mason,  so  as  to  attend  to 
your  business;  but  if  I  shall  determine  to  go  there,  I  will  write  you. 

Do  you  hear  anything  from  Woodford  and  Marshall  ?  Davenport, 
ten  days  ago,  passed  through  here,  and  told  me  Woodford  is  safe ; 
but,  though  in  hope,  I  am  not  entirely  easy  about  Marshall.  I  have 
so  few  personal  acquaintances  in  that  county  that  I  cannot  get  at 
fit]  right.  Dickinson  is  doing  all  that  any  one  man  can  do;  but  it 
seems  like  it  is  an  overtask  for  one.  I  suppose  Dr.  Henry  will  be 
with  you  on  Saturday.  I  got  a  letter  from  him  to-day  on  the  same 
subject  as  yours,  and  shall  write  him  before  Saturday. 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

April  18,  1846. — LETTER  TO  JOHNSTON. 

TREMONT,  April  18, 1846. 

Friend  Johnston  :  Your  letter,  written  some  six  weeks  since,  was 
received  in  due  course,  and  also  the  paper  with  the  parody.  It  is  true, 
as  suggested  it  might  be,  that  I  have  never  seen  Poe's  " Raven"; 
and  I  very  well  know  that  a  parody  is  almost  entirely  dependent  for 
its  interest  upon  the  reader's  acquaintance  with  the  original.  Still 
there  is  enough  in  the  polecat,  self -considered,  to  afford  one  several 
hearty  laughs.  I  think  four  or  five  of  the  last  stanzas  are  decidedly 
funny,  particularly  where  Jeremiah  "scrubbed  and  washed,  and 
prayed  and  fasted." 


86  ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

I  have  not  your  letter  now  before  me;  but,  from  memory,  I  think 
you  ask  me  who  is  the  author  of  the  piece  I  sent  you,  and  that  you 
do  so  ask  as  to  indicate  a  slight  suspicion  that  I  myself  am  the  author. 
Beyond  all  question,  I  am  not  the  author.  I  would  give  all  I  am 
worth,  and  go  in  debt,  to  be  able  to  write  so  fine  a  piece  as  I  think 
that  is.  Neither  do  I  know  who  is  the  author.  I  met  it  in  a  strag 
gling  form  in  a  newspaper  last  summer,  and  I  remember  to  have 
seen  it  once  before,  about  fifteen  years  ago,  and  this  is  all  I  know 
about  it.  The  piece  of  poetry  of  my  own  which  I  alluded  to,  I  was 
led  to  write  under  the  following  circumstances.  In  the  fall  of  18447 
thinking  I  might  aid  some  to  carry  the  State  of  Indiana  for  Mr.  Clay, 
I  went  into  the  neighborhood  in  that  State  in  which  I  was  raised, 
where  my  mother  and  only  sister  were  buried,  and  from  which  I  had 
been  absent  about  fifteen  years.  That  part  of  the  country  is,  within 
itself,  as  unpoetical  as  any  spot  of  the  earth;  but  still,  seeing  it  and 
its  objects  and  inhabitants  aroused  feelings  in  me  which  were  cer 
tainly  poetry;  though  whether  my  expression  of  those  feelings  is 
poetry  is  quite  another  question.  When  I  got  to  writing,  the  change 
of  subject  divided  the  thing  into  four  little  divisions  or  cantos,  the 
first  only  of  which  I  send  you  now,  and  may  send  the  others  here 
after.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

My  childhood's  home  I  see  again, 

And  sadden  with  the  view; 
And  still,  as  memory  crowds  my  brain, 

There  ?s  pleasure  in  it  too. 

O  Memory !  thou  midway  world 

'Twixt  earth  and  paradise, 
Where  things  decayed  and  loved  ones  lost 

In  dreamy  shadows  rise, 

And,  freed  from  all  that  ?s  earthly  vile, 

Seem  hallowed,  pure,  and  bright, 
Like  scenes  in  some  enchanted  isle 

All  bathed  in  liquid  light. 

As  dusky  mountains  please  the  eye 

When  twilight  chases  day; 
As  bugle-notes  that,  passing  by, 

In  distance  die  away; 

As  leaving  some  grand  waterfall, 

We,  lingering,  list  its  roar  — 
So  memory  will  hallow  all 

We  7ve  known,  but  know  no  more. 

Near  twenty  years  have  passed  away 

Since  here  I  bid  farewell 
To  woods  and  fields,  and  scenes  of  play, 

And  playmates  loved  so  well. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  87 

Where  many  were,  but  few  remain 

Of  old  familiar  things; 
But  seeing  them,  to  mind  again 

The  lost  and  absent  brings. 

The  friends  I  left  that  parting  day, 

How  changed,  as  time  has  sped ! 
Young  childhood  grown,  strong  manhood  gray, 

And  half  of  all  are  dead. 

I  hear  the  loved  survivors  tell 

How  nought  from  death  could  save, 

Till  every  sound  appears  a  knell, 
And  every  spot  a  grave. 

I  range  the  fields  with  pensive  tread, 

And  pace  the  hollow  rooms, 
And  feel  (companion  of  the  dead) 

I  'm  living  in  the  tombs. 


September  6,  1846. — LETTER  TO  JOHNSTON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  September  6,  1846. 

Friend  Johnston  :  You  remember  when  I  wrote  you  from  Tremont 
last  spring,  sending  you  a  little  canto  of  what  I  called  poetry,  I 
promised  to  bore  you  with  another  some  time.  I  now  fulfil  the 
promise.  The  subject  of  the  present  one  is  an  insane  man ;  his  name 
is  Matthew  Gentry.  He  is  three  years  older  than  I,  and  when  we 
were  boys  we  went  to  school  together.  He  was  rather  a  bright  lad, 
and  the  son  of  the  rich  man  of  a  very  poor  neighborhood.  At  the 
age  of  nineteen  he  unaccountably  became  furiously  mad,  from  which 
condition  he  gradually  settled  down  into  harmless  insanity.  When, 
as  I  told  you  in  my  other  letter,  I  visited  my  old  home  in  the  fall  of 
1844,  I  found  him  still  lingering  in  this  wretched  condition.  In  my 
poetizing  mood,  I  could  not  forget  the  impression  his  case  made 
upon  me.  Here  is  the  result. 

But  here  7s  an  object  more  of  dread 
Than  aught  the  grave  contains — 

A  human  form  with  reason  fled, 
While  wretched  life  remains. 

When  terror  spread,  and  neighbors  ran 
Your  dangerous  strength  to  bind, 

And  soon,  a  howling,  crazy  man, 
Your  limbs  were  fast  confined : 

How  then  you  strove  and  shrieked  aloud, 

Your  bones  and  sinews  bared ; 
And  fiendish  on  the  gazing  crowd 

With  burning  eyeballs  glared ; 


88  ADDRESSES  AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

And  begged  and  swore,  and  wept  and  prayed, 

With  maniac  laughter  joined ; 
How  fearful  were  these  signs  displayed 

By  pangs  that  killed  the  mind  ! 

And  when  at  length  the  drear  and  long 

Time  soothed  thy  fiercer  woes, 
How  plaintively  thy  mournful  song 

Upon  the  still  night  rose ! 

1 7ve  heard  it  oft  as  if  I  dreamed, 

Far  distant,  sweet  and  lone, 
The  funeral  dirge  it  ever  seemed 

Of  reason  dead  and  gone. 

To  drink  its  strains  I  Ve  stole  away, 

All  stealthily  and  still, 
Ere  yet  the  rising  god  of  day 

Had  streaked  the  eastern  hill. 

Air  held  her  breath ;  trees  with  the  spell 

Seemed  sorrowing  angels  round, 
Whose  swelling  tears  in  dewdrops  fell 

Upon  the  listening  ground. 

But  this  is  past,  and  naught  remains 

That  raised  thee  o'er  the  brute ; 
Thy  piercing  shrieks  and  soothing  strain 

Are  like,  forever  mute. 

Now  fare  thee  well !     More  thou  the  cause 

Than  subject  now  of  woe. 
All  mental  pangs  by  time's  kind  laws 

Hast  lost  the  power  to  know. 

O  death !  thou  awe-inspiring  prince 

That  keepst  the  world  in  fear, 
Why  dost  thou  tear  more  blest  ones  hence, 

And  leave  him  lingering  here? 

If  I  should  ever  send  another,  the  subject  will  be  a  "  Bear-Hunt." 
Yours  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 


October  22,  1846.— LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  October  22, 1846. 

Dear  Speed :  .  .  .  You,  no  doubt,  assign  the  suspension  of 
our  correspondence  to  the  true  philosophic  cause ;  though  it  must 
be  confessed  by  both  of  us  that  this  is  rather  a  cold  reason  for 
allowing  a  friendship  such  as  ours  to  die  out  by  degrees.  I  propose 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  89 

now  that,  upon  receipt  of  this,  you  shall  be  considered  in  my  debt, 
and  under  obligations  to  pay  soon,  and  that  neither  shall  remain 
long  in  arrears  hereafter.  Are  you  agreed? 

Being  elected  to  Congress,  though  I  am  very  grateful  to  our 
friends  for  having  done  it,  has  not  pleased  me  as  much  as  I  expected. 

We  have  another  boy,  born  the  10th  of  March.  He  is  very  much 
such  a  child  as  Bob  was  at  his  age,  rather  of  a  longer  order.  Bob 
is  "  short  and  low,"  and  I  expect  always  will  be.  He  talks  very 
plainly, — almost  as  plainly  as  anybody.  He  is  quite  smart  enough. 
I  sometimes  fear  that  he  is  one  of  the  little  rare-ripe  sort  that  are 
smarter  at  about  five  than  ever  after.  He  has  a  great  deal  of  that 
sort  of  mischief  that  is  the  offspring  of  such  animal  spirits.  Since 
I  began  this  letter,  a  messenger  came  to % tell  me  Bob  was  lost;  but 
by  the  time  I  reached  the  house  his  motner  had  found  him  and  had 
him  whipped,  and  by  now,  very  likely,  he  is  run  away  again.  Mary 
has  read  your  letter,  and  wishes  to  be  remembered  to  Mrs.  Speed 
and  you,  in  which  I  most  sincerely  join  her.  As  ever  yours, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


February  25,  1847.— LETTER  TO  JOHNSTON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  February  25,  1847. 

Dear  Johnston :  Yours  of  the  2d  of  December  was  duly  delivered 
to  me  by  Mr.  Williams.  To  say  the  least,  I  am  not  at  all  displeased 
with  your  proposal  to  publish  the  poetry,  or  doggerel,  or  whatever 
else  it  may  be  called,  which  I  sent  you.  I  consent  that  it  may  be 
done,  together  with  the  third  canto,  which  I  now  send  you. 
Whether  the  prefatory  remarks  in  my  letter  shall  be  published  with 
the  verses,  I  leave  entirely  to  your  discretion  $  but  let  names  be  sup 
pressed  by  all  means.  I  have  not  sufficient  hope  of  the  verses  at 
tracting  any  favorable  notice  to  tempt  me  to  risk  being  ridiculed 
for  having  written  them. 

Why  not  drop  into  the  paper,  at  the  same  time,  the  "  half  dozen 
stanzas  of  your  own  n  1  Or  if,  for  any  reason,  it  suit  your  feelings 
better,  send  them  to  me,  and  I  will  take  pleasure  in  putting  them  in 
the  paper  here.  Family  well,  and  nothing  new.  Yours  sincerely, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


[December  1,  1847?]. —  FRAGMENTS  OF  TARIFF  DISCUSSION. 

Whether  the  protective  policy  shall  be  finally  abandoned  is  now 
the  question. — Discussion  and  experience  already  had,  and  question 
now  in  greater  dispute  than  ever. —  Has  there  not  been  some  great 
error  in  the  mode  of  discussion? — Propose  a  single  issue  of  fact, 
namely :  From  1816  to  the  present,  have  protected  articles  cost  us 
more  of  labor  during  the  higher  than  during  the  lower  duties  upon 
them?  —  Introduce  the  evidence. —  Analyze  this  issue,  and  try  to 
show  that  it  embraces  the  true  and  the  whole  question  of  the  pro 
tective  policy. —  Intended  as  a  test  of  experience. —  The  period  se- 


90  ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

lected  is  fair,  because  it  is  a  period  of  peace — a  period  sufficiently 
long  [to]  furnish  a  fair  average  under  all  other  causes  operating  on 
prices,  a  period  in  which  various  modifications  of  higher  and  lower 
duties  have  occurred. — Protected  articles  only  are  embraced.  Show 
that  these  only  belong  to  the  question. —  The  labor  price  only  is  em 
braced.  Show  this  to  be  correct. 


I  suppose  the  true  effect  of  duties  upon  prices  to  be  as  follows :  If 
a  certain  duty  be  levied  upon  an  article  which  by  nature  cannot  be 

Eroduced  in  this  country,  as  three  cents  a  pound  upon  coffee,  the  ef- 
3ct  will  be  that  the  consumer  will  pay  one  cent  more  per  pound 
than  before,  the  producer  will  take  one  cent  less,  and  the  merchant 
one  cent  less  in  profits ;  in  other  words,  the  burden  of  the  duty  will 
[be]  distributed  over  consumption,  production,  and  commerce,  and 
not  confined  to  either.  But  if  a  duty  amounting  to  full  protection 
be  levied  upon  an  article  which  can  be  produced  here  with  as  little 
labor  as  elsewhere, —  as  iron, — that  article  will  ultimately,  and  at  no 
distant  day,  in  consequence  of  such  duty,  be  sold  to  our  people 
cheaper  than  before,  at  least  by  the  amount  of  the  cost  of  carrying 
it  from  abroad. 

First.  As  to  useless  labor.  Before  proceeding,  however,  it  may 
be  as  well  to  give  a  specimen  of  what  I  conceive  to  be  useless  labor. 
I  say,  then,  that  all  carrying,  and  incidents  of  carrying,  of  articles 
from  the  place  of  their  production  to  a  distant  place  for  consump 
tion,  which  articles  could  be  produced  of  as  good  quality,  in  suffi 
cient  quantity  and  with  as  little  labor,  at  the  place  of  consumption 
as  at  the  place  carried  from,  is  useless  labor.  Applying  this  prin 
ciple  to  our  own  country  by  an  example,  let  us  suppose  that  A  and  B 
are  a  Pennsylvania  farmer  and  a  Pennsylvania  iron-maker  whose 
lands  are  adjoining.  Under  the  protective  policy  A  is  furnishing  B 
with  bread  and  meat,  and  vegetables  and  fruits,  and  food  for  horses 
and  oxen,  and  fresh  supplies  of  horses  and  oxen  themselves  occa 
sionally,  and  receiving  in  exchange  all  the  iron,  iron  utensils,  tools, 
and  implements  he  needs.  In  this  process  of  exchange  each  receives 
the  whole  of  that  which  the  other  parts  with,  and  the  reward  of  la 
bor  between  them  is  perfect  —  each  receiving  the  product  of  just 
so  much  labor  as  he  has  himself  bestowed  on  what  he  parts  with  for 
it.  But  the  change  comes.  The  protective  policy  is  abandoned, 
and  A  determines  to  buy  his  iron  and  iron  manufactures  of  C  in 
Europe.  This  he  can  only  do  by  a  direct  or  an  indirect  exchange 
of  the  produce  of  his  farm  for  them.  "We  will  suppose  the  direct 
exchange  is  adopted.  In  this  A  desires  to  exchange  ten  barrels  of 
flour — the  precise  product  of  one  hundred  days7  labor — for  the 
largest  quantity  of  iron,  etc.,  that  he  can  get.  C  also  wishes  to  ex 
change  the  precise  product,  in  iron,  of  one  hundred  days'  labor  for 
the  greatest  quantity  of  flour  he  can  get.  In  intrinsic  value  the 
things  to  be  so  exchanged  are  precisely  equal.  But  before  this  ex 
change  can  take  place,  the  flour  must  be  carried  from  Pennsylvania 
to  England,  and  the  iron  from  England  to  Pennsylvania.  The  flour 
starts.  The  wagoner  who  hauls  it  to  Philadelphia  takes  a  part  of  it 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN  91 

to  pay  him  for  his  labor ;  then  a  merchant  there  takes  a  little  more 
for  storage  and  forwarding  commission,  and  another  takes  a  little 
more  for  insurance ;  and  then  the  ship-owner  carries  it  across  the 
water,  and  takes  a  little  more  of  it  for  his  trouble.  Still,  before  it 
reaches  C,  it  is  tolled  two  or  three  times  more  for  storage,  drayage, 
commission,  and  so  on ;  so  that  when  C  gets  it  there  are  but  seven 
and  a  half  barrels  of  it  left.  The  iron,  too,  in  its  transit  from  Eng 
land  to  Pennsylvania,  goes  through  the  same  process  of  tolling  •  so 
that  when  it  reaches  A  there  are  but  three  quarters  of  it  left.  The 
result  of  this  case  is  that  A  and  C  have  each  parted  with  one  hun 
dred  days'  labor,  and  each  received  but  seventy-five  in  return.  That 
the  carrying  in  this  case  was  introduced  by  A  ceasing  to  buy  of  B 
and  turning  [to]  C ;  that  it  was  utterly  useless  5  and  that  it  is  ruin 
ous  in  its  effects  upon  A,  are  all  little  less  than  self-evident.  "But," 
asks  one,  "  if  A  is  now  only  getting  three  quarters  as  much  iron 
from  C  for  ten  barrels  of  flour  as  he  used  to  get  of  B,  why  does  he 
not  turn  back  to  B?"  The  answer  is :  "B  has  quit  making  iron, 
and  so  has  none  to  sell."  "  But  why  did  B  quit  making  ?  "  "  Be 
cause  A  quit  buying  of  him,  and  he  had  no  other  customer  to  sell 
to."  "But  surely  A  did  not  cease  buying  of  B  with  the  expectation 
of  buying  of  C  on  harder  terms?"  "  Certainly  not.  Let  me  tell 
you  how  that  was.  When  B  was  making  iron  as  well  as  C,  B  had 
but  one  customer,  this  farmer  A  ;  C  had  four  customers  in  Europe." 


It  seems  to  be  an  opinion  very  generally  entertained  that  the  con 
dition  of  a  nation  is  best  whenever  it  can  buy  cheapest ;  but  this  is 
not  necessarily  true,  because  if,  at  the  same  time  and  by  the  same 
cause,  it  is  compelled  to  sell  correspondingly  cheap,  nothing  is  gained. 
Then  it  is  said  the  best  condition  is  when  we  can  buy  cheapest  and 
sell  dearest ;  but  this  again  is  not  necessarily  true,  because  with  both 
these  we  might  have  scarcely  anything  to  sell,  or,  which  is  the  same 
thing,  to  buy  with.  To  illustrate  this,  suppose  a  man  in  the  present 
state  of  things  is  laboring  the  year  round,  at  ten  dollars  per  month, 
which  amounts  in  the  year  to  $120.  A  change  in  affairs  enables  him 
to  buy  supplies  at  half  the  former  price,  to  get  fifty  dollars  per 
month  for  his  labor,  but  at  the  same  time  deprives  him  of  employ 
ment  during  all  the  months  of  the  year  but  one.  In  this  case, 
though  goods  have  fallen  one  half,  and  labor  risen  five  to  one,  it  is 
still  plain  that  at  the  end  of  the  year  the  laborer  is  twenty  dollars 
poorer  than  under  the  old  state  of  things. 

These  reflections  show  that  to  reason  and  act  correctly  on  this 
subject  we  must  look  not  merely  to  buying  cheap,  nor  yet  to  buying 
cheap  and  selling  dear,  but  also  to  having  constant  employment,  so 
that  we  may  have  the  largest  possible  amount  of  something  to  sell. 
This  matter  of  employment  can  only  be  secured  by  an  ample,  steady, 
and  certain  market  to  sell  the  products  of  our  labor  in. 

But  let  us  yield  the  point,  and  admit  that  by  abandoning  the  pro 
tective  policy  our  farmers  can  purchase  their  supplies  of  manufac 
tured  articles  cheaper  than  by  continuing  it;  and  then  let  us  see 
whether,  even  at  that,  they  will  upon  the  whole  be  gamers  by  the 


92  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

change.  To  simplify  this  question,  let  us  suppose  the  whole  agricul 
tural  interest  of  the  country  to  be  in  the  hands  of  one  man,  who  has 
one  hundred  laborers  in  his  employ;  the  whole  manufacturing  in 
terest  to  be  in  the  hands  of  one  other  man,  who  has  twenty  laborers 
in  his  employ.  The  farmer ^owns  all  the  plow  and  pasture  land,  and 
the  manufacturer  all  the  iron-mines  and  coal-banks  and  sites  of 
water-power.  Each  is  pushing  on  in  his  own  way,  and  obtaining 
supplies  from  the  other  so  far  as  he  needs, — that  is,  the  manufac 
turer  is  buying  of  the  farmer  all  the  cotton  he  can  use  in  his  cotton- 
factory  ;  all  the  wool  he  can  use  in  his  woolen  establishment ;  all 
the  bread  and  meat,  as  well  as  all  the  fruits  and  vegetables,  which 
are  necessary  for  himself  and  all  his  hands  in  all  his  departments ; 
all  the  corn  and  oats  and  hay  which  are  necessary  for  all  his  horses 
and  oxen,  as  well  as  fresh  supplies  of  horses  and  oxen  themselves  to 
do  all  his  heavy  hauling  about  his  iron- works  and  generally  of  every 
sort.  The  farmer,  in  turn,  is  buying  of  the  manufacturer  all  the 
iron,  iron  tools,  wooden  tools,  cotton  goods,  woolen  goods,  etc.,  that 
he  needs  in  his  business  and  for  his  hands.  But  after  a  while  far 
mer  discovers  that  were  it  not  for  the  protective  policy  he  could 
buy  all  these  supplies  cheaper  from  a  European  manufacturer,  owing 
to  the  fact  that  the  price  of  labor  is  only  one  quarter  as  high  there 
as  here.  He  and  his  hands  are  a  majority  of  the  whole,  and  there 
fore  have  the  legal  and  moral  right  to  have  their  interest  first  con 
sulted.  They  throw  off  the  protective  policy,  and  farmer  ceases 
buying  of  home  manufacturer.  Very  soon,  however,  he  discovers 
that  to  buy  even  at  the  cheaper  rate  requires  something  to  buy  with, 
and  somehow  or  other  he  is  falling  short  in  this  particular. 

In  the  early  days  of  our  race  the  Almighty  said  to  the  first  of  our 
race,  "In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread";  and  since 
then,  if  we  except  the  light  and  the  air  of  heaven,  no  good  thing  has 
been  or  can  be  enjoyed  by  us  without  having  first  cost  labor.  And 
inasmuch  as  most  good  things  are  produced  by  labor,  it  follows  that 
all  such  things  of  right  belong  to  those  whose  labor  has  produced 
them.  But  it  has  so  happened,  in  all  ages  of  the  world,  that  some 
have  labored,  and  others  have  without  labor  enjoyed  a  large  propor 
tion  of  the  fruits.  This  is  wrong,  and  should  not  continue.  To  se 
cure  to  each  laborer  the  whole  product  of  his  labor,  or  as  nearly  as 
possible,  is  a  worthy  object  of  any  good  government. 

But  then  a  question  arises,  How  can  a  government  best  effect  this? 
In  our  own  country,  in  its  present  condition,  will  the  protective  prin 
ciple  advance  or  retard  this  object  ?  Upon  this  subject  the  habits  of 
our  whole  species  fall  into  three  great  classes — useful  labor,  useless 
labor,  and  idleness.  Of  these  the  first  only  is  meritorious,  and  to  it 
all  the  products  of  labor  rightfully  belong;  but  the  two  latter,  while 
they  exist,  are  heavy  pensioners  upon  the  first,  robbing  it  of  a  large 
portion  of  its  just  rights.  The  only  remedy  for  this  is  to,  so  far  as 
possible,  drive  useless  labor  and  idleness  out  of  existence.  And, 
first,  as  to  useless  labor.  Before  making  war  upon  this,  we  must 
learn  to  distinguish  it  from  the  useful.  It  appears  to  me  that  all 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  93 

labor  done  directly  and  indirectly  in  carrying  articles  to  the  place  of 
consumption,  which  could  have  been  produced  in  sufficient  abun 
dance,  with  as  little  labor,  at  the  place  of  consumption  as  at  the  place 
they  were  carried  from,  is  useless  labor.  Let  us  take  a  few  examples 
of  the  application  of  this  principle  to  our  own  country.  Iron,  and 
everything  made  of  iron,  can  be  produced  in  sufficient  abundance,  and 
with  as  little  labor,  in  the  United  States  as  anywhere  else  in  the 
world;  therefore  all  labor  done  in  bringing  iron  and  its  fabrics  from 
a  foreign  country  to  the  United  States  is  useless  labor.  The  same 
precisely  may  be  said  of  cotton,  wool,  and  of  their  fabrics  respec 
tively,  as  well  as  many  other  articles.  While  the  uselessness  of  the 
carrying  labor  is  equally  true  of  all  the  articles  mentioned,  and  of 
many  others  not  mentioned,  it  is  perhaps  more  glaringly  obvious  in 
relation  to  the  cotton  goods  we  purchase  from  abroad.  The  raw  cot 
ton  from  which  they  are  made  itself  grows  in  our  own  country,  is 
carried  by  land  and  by  water  to  England,  is  there  spun,  wove,  dyed, 
stamped,  etc.,  and  then  carried  back  again  and  worn  in  the  very 
country  where  it  grew,  and  partly  by  the  very  persons  who  grew  it. 
Why  should  it  not  be  spun,  wove,  etc.,  in  the  very  neighborhood 
where  it  both  grows  and  is  consumed,  and  the  carrying  thereby  dis 
pensed  with?  Has  nature  interposed  any  obstacle?  Are  not  all  the 
agents — animal-power,  water-power,  and  steam-power — as  good  and 
as  abundant  here  as  elsewhere?  Will  not  as  small  an  amount  of 
human  labor  answer  here  as  elsewhere  ?  We  may  easily  see  that  the 
cost  of  this  useless  labor  is  very  heavy.  It  includes  not  only  the 
cost  of  the  actual  carriage,  but  also  the  insurances  of  every  kind,  and 
the  profits  of  the  merchants  through  whose  hands  it  passes.  All 
these  create  a  heavy  burden  necessarily  falling  upon  the  useful  labor 
connected  with  such  articles,  either  depressing  the  price  to  the  pro 
ducer  or  advancing  it  to  the  consumer,  or,  what  is  more  probable, 
doing  both  in  part. 

A  supposed  case  will  serve  to  illustrate  several  points  now  to  the 
purpose.  A,  in  the  interior  of  South  Carolina,  has  one  hundred 
pounds  of  cotton,  which  we  suppose  to  be  the  precise  product  of  one 
man's  labor  for  twenty  days.  B,  in  Manchester,  England,  has  one 
hundred  yards  of  cotton  cloth,  the  precise  product  of  the  same 
amount  of  labor.  This  lot  of  cotton  and  lot  of  cloth  are  precisely 
equal  to  each  other  in  their  intrinsic  value.  But  A  wishes  to  part 
with  his  cotton  for  the  largest  quantity  of  cloth  he  can  get.  B  also 
wishes  to  part  with  his  cloth  for  the  greatest  quantity  of  cotton 
he  can  get.  An  exchange  is  therefore  necessary;  but  before  this 
can  be  effected,  the  cotton  must  be  carried  to  Manchester,  and  the 
cloth  to  South  Carolina.  The  cotton  starts  to  Manchester.  The  man 
that  hauls  it  to  Charleston  in  his  wagon  takes  a  little  of  it  out  to  pay 
him  for  his  trouble ;  the  merchant  who  stores  it  a  while  before  the 
ship  is  ready  to  sail  takes  a  little  out  for  his  trouble ;  the  ship-owner 
who  carries  it  across  the  water  takes  a  little  out  for  his  trouble. 
Still,  before  it  gets  to  Manchester  it  is  tolled  two  or  three  times  more 
for  drayage,  storage,  commission,  and  so  on;  so  that  when  it  reaches 
B's  hands  there  are  but  seventy-five  pounds  of  it  left.  The  cloth, 
too,  in  its  transit  from  Manchester  to  South  Carolina,  goes  through 


94  ADDEESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

the  same  process  of  tolling ;  so  that  when  it  reaches  A  there  are  but 
seventy-five  yards  of  it.  Now,  in  this  case,  A  and  B  have  each  parted 
with  twenty  days7  labor,  and  each  received  but  fifteen  in  return. 
But  now  let  us  suppose  that  B  has  removed  to  the  side  of  A's  farm 
in  South  Carolina,  and  has  there  made  his  lot  of  cloth.  Is  it  not  clear 
that  he  and  A  can  then  exchange  their  cloth  and  cotton,  each  getting 
the  whole  of  what  the  other  parts  with? 

This  supposed  case  shows  the  utter  uselessness  of  the  carrying 
labor  in  all  similar  cases,  and  also  the  direct  burden  it  imposes 
upon  useful  labor.  And  whoever  will  take  up  the  train  of  reflection 
suggested  by  this  case,  and  run  it  out  to  the  full  extent  of  its  just 
application,  will  be  astonished  at  the  amount  of  useless  labor  he  will 
thus  discover  to  be  done  in  this  very  way.  I  am  mistaken  if  it  is 
not  in  fact  many  times  over  equal  to  all  the  real  want  in  the  world. 
This  useless  labor  I  would  have  discontinued,  and  those  engaged  in 
it  added  to  the  class  of  useful  laborers.  If  I  be  asked  whether  I 
would  destroy  all  commerce,  I  answer,  Certainly  not ;  I  would  con 
tinue  it  where  it  is  necessary,  and  discontinue  it  where  it  is  not. 
An  instance :  I  would  continue  commerce  so  far  as  it  is  employed  in 
bringing  us  coffee,  and  I  would  discontinue  it  so  far  as  it  is  em 


ployed  in  bringing  us  cotton  goods. 
But  let  us  yield  the 


point,  and  admit  that  by  abandoning  the  pro 
tective  policy  our  farmers  can  purchase  their  supplies  of  manufac 
tured  articles  cheaper  than  before;  and  then  let  us  see  whether, 
even  at  that,  the  farmers  will  upon  the  whole  be  gainers  by  the 
change.  To  simplify  this  question,  let  us  suppose  our  whole  popu 
lation  to  consist  of  but  twenty  men.  Under  the  prevalence  of  the 
protective  policy,  fifteen  of  these  are  farmers,  one  is  a  miller,  one 
manufactures  iron,  one  implements  from  iron,  one  cotton  goods, 
and  one  woolen  goods.  The  farmers  discover  that,  owing  to  labor 
only  costing  one  quarter  as  much  in  Europe  as  here,  they  can  buy 
iron,  iron  implements,  cotton  goods,  and  woolen  goods  cheaper 
when  brought  from  Europe  than  when  made  by  their  neighbors. 
They  are  the  majority,  and  therefore  have  both  the  legal  and  moral 
right  to  have  their  interest  first  consulted.  They  throw  off  the  pro 
tective  policy,  and  cease  buying  these  articles  of  their  neighbors. 
But  they  soon  discover  that  to  buy,  and  at  the  cheaper  rate,  requires 
something  to  buy  with.  Falling  short  in  this  particular,  one  of 
these  farmers  takes  a  load  of  wheat  to  the  miller  and  gets  it  made 
into  flour,  and  starts,  as  had  been  his  custom,  to  the  iron  furnace. 
He  approaches  the  well-known  spot,  but,  strange  to  say,  all  is  cold 
and  still  as  death ;  no  smoke  rises,  no  furnace  roars,  no  anvil  rings. 
After  some  search  he  finds  the  owner  of  the  desolate  place,  and  calls 
out  to  him,  "  Come,  Vulcan,  don't  you  want  to  buy  a  load  of  flour  ?  "* 
"  Why,"  says  Vulcan,  "I  am  hungry  enough,  to  be  sure, — have  n't 
tasted  bread  for  a  week ;  but  then  you  see  my  works  are  stopped, 
and  I  have  nothing  to  give  you  for  your  flour."  "But,  Vulcan, 
why  don't  you  go  to  work  and  get  something  ? "  "I  am  ready  to  do 
so.  Will  you  hire  me,  farmer?"  "  Oh,  no  ;  I  could  only  set  you  to 
raising  wheat,  and  you  see  I  have  more  of  that  already  than  I  can 
get  anything  for."  "  But  give  me  employment,  and  send  your  flour 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN  95 

to  Europe  for  a  market."  "  Why,  Vulcan,  how  silly  you  talk ! 
Don't  you  know  they  raise  wheat  in  Europe  as  well  as  here,  and 
that  labor  is  so  cheap  there  as  to  fix  the  price  of  flour  there  so  low 
as  scarcely  to  pay  the  long  carriage  of  it  from  here,  leaving  nothing 
whatever 'to  me?77  "But,  farmer,  could  n?t  you  pay  to  raise  and 
prepare  garden-stuffs,  and  fruits,  such  as  radishes,  cabbages,  Irish 
and  sweet  potatoes,  cucumbers,  watermelons  and  musk-melons, 
plums,  pears,  peaches,  apples,  and  the  like?  All  these  are  good 
things,  and  used  to  sell  well.'7  "  So  they  did  use  to  sell  well ;  but  it 
was  to  you  we  sold  them,  and  now  you  tell  us  you  have  nothing  to 
buy  with.  Of  course  I  cannot  sell  such  things  to  the  other  farmers, 
because  each  of  them  raises  enough  for  himself,  and  in  fact  rather 
wishes  to  sell  than  to  buy.  Neither  can  I  send  them  to  Europe  for 
a  market,  because,  to  say  nothing  of  European  markets  being 
stocked  with  such  articles  at  lower  prices  than  I  can  afford,  they 
are  of  such  a  nature  as  to  rot  before  they  could  reach  there.  The 
truth  is,  Vulcan,  I  am  compelled  to  quit  raising  these  things  alto 
gether,  except  a  few  for  my  own  use ;  and  this  leaves  part  of  my 
own  time  idle  on  my  hands,  instead  of  my  finding  employment  for 


If  at  any  time  all  labor  should  cease,  and  all  existing  provisions 
be  equally  divided  among  the  people,  at  the  end  of  a  single  year 
there  could  scarcely  be  one  human  being  left  alive ;  all  would  have 
perished  by  want  of  subsistence.  So,  again,  if  upon  such  division 
all  that  sort  of  labor  which  produces  provisions  should  cease,  and 
each  individual  should  take  up  so  much  of  his  share  as  he  could,  and 
carry  it  continually  around  his  habitation,  although  in  this  carrying 
the  amount  of  labor  going  on  might  be  as  great  as  ever  so  long  as 
it  could  last,  at  the  end  of  the  year  the  result  would  be  precisely  the 
same  —  that  is,  none  would  be  left  living. 

The  first  of  these  propositions  shows  that  universal  idleness  would 
speedily  result  in  universal  ruin  ;  and  the  second  shows  that  useless 
labor  is,  in  this  respect,  the  same  as  idleness.  I  submit,  then, 
whether  it  does  not  follow  that  partial  idleness  and  partial  useless 
labor  would,  in  the  proportion  of  their  extent,  in  like  manner  result 
in  partial  ruin ;  whether,  if  all  should  subsist  upon  the  labor  that 
one  half  should  perform,  it  would  not  result  in  very  scanty  allow 
ance  to  the  whole. 

Believing  that  these  propositions  and  the  conclusions  I  draw  from 
them  cannot  be  successfully  controverted,  I  for  the  present  assume 
their  correctness,  and  proceed  to  try  to  show  that  the  abandonment 
of  the  protective  policy  by  the  American  government  must  result  in 
the  increase  of  both  useless  labor  and  idleness,  and  so,  in  propor 
tion,  must  produce  want  and  ruin  among  our  people. 

(The  foregoing  scraps  about  protection  were  written  by  Lincoln 
between  his  election  to  Congress  in  1846  and  taking  his  seat  in  De 
cember,  1847.) 


96  ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


December  5,  1847. — LETTER  TO  WILLIAM  H.  HERNDON. 

WASHINGTON,  December  5, 1847. 

Dear  William  :  You  may  remember  that  about  a  year  ago  a  man 
by  the  name  of  Wilson  (James  Wilson,  I  think)  paid  us  twenty  dol 
lars  as  an  advance  fee  to  attend  to  a  case  in  the  Supreme  Court  for 
him,  against  a  Mr.  Campbell,  the  record  of  which  case  was  in  the 
hands  of  Mr.  Dixon  of  St.  Louis,  who  never  furnished  it  to  us. 
When  I  was  at  Bloomington  last  fall,  I  met  a  friend  of  Wilson,  who 
mentioned  the  subject  to  me,  and  induced  me  to  write  to  Wilson, 
telling  him  I  would  leave  the  ten  dollars  with  you  which  had  been 
left  with  me  to  pay  for  making  abstracts  in  the  case,  so  that  the 
case  may  go  on  this  winter ;  but  I  came  away,  and  forgot  to  do  it. 
What  I  want  now  is  to  send  you  the  money,  to  be  used  accordingly, 
if  any  one  comes  on  to  start  the  case,  or  to  be  retained  by  you  if  no 
one  does. 

There  is  nothing  of  consequence  new  here.  Congress  is  to  organ 
ize  to-morrow.  Last  night  we  held  a  Whig  caucus  for  the  House, 
and  nominated  Winthrop  of  Massachusetts  for  speaker,  Sargent  of 
Pennsylvania  for  sergeant-at-arms,  Homer  of  New  Jersey  door 
keeper,  and  McCormick  of  District  of  Columbia  postmaster.  The 
Whig  majority  in  the  House  is  so  small  that,  together  with  some 
little  dissatisfaction,  [it]  leaves  it  doubtful  whether  we  will  elect 
them  all. 

This  paper  is  too  thick  to  fold,  which  is  the  reason  I  send  only 
a  half-sheet.  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


December  13,  1847. — LETTER  TO  WILLIAM  H.  HERNDON. 

WASHINGTON,  December  13,  1847. 

Dear  William:  Your  letter,  advising  me  of  the  receipt  of  our  fee 
in  the  bank  case,  is  just  received,  and  I  don't  expect  to  hear  another 
as  good  a  piece  of  news  from  Springfield  while  I  am  away.  I  am 
under  no  obligations  to  the  bank ;  and  I  therefore  wish  you  to  buy 
bank  certificates,  and  pay  my  debt  there,  so  as  to  pay  it  with  the 
least  money  possible.  I  would  as  soon  you  should  buy  them  of  Mr. 
Ridgely,  or  any  other  person  at  the  bank,  as  of  any  one  else,  pro 
vided  you  can  get  them  as  cheaply.  I  suppose,  after  the  bank  debt 
shall  be  paid,  there  will  be  some  money  left,  out  of  which  I  would 
like  to  have  you  pay  Lavely  and  Stout  twenty  dollars,  and  Priest 
and  somebody  (oil-makers)  ten  dollars,  for  materials  got  for  house- 
painting.  If  there  shall  still  be  any  left,  keep  it  till  you  see  or  hear 
from  me. 

I  shall  begin  sending  documents  so  soon  as  L  can  get  them.  I 
wrote  you  yesterday  about  a  "  Congressional  Globe."  As  you  are 
all  so  anxious  for  me  to  distinguish  myself,  I  have  concluded  to  do 
so  before  long.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  97 


December  22,  1847.— RESOLUTIONS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

Whereas,  The  President  of  the  United  States,  in  his  message  of 
May  11, 1846,  has  declared  that  "  the  Mexican  Government  not  only 
refused  to  receive  him  [the  envoy  of  the  United  States] ,  or  to  listen 
to  his  propositions,  but,  after  a  long-continued  series  of  menaces, 
has  at  last  invaded  our  territory  and  shed  the  blood  of  our  fellow- 
citizens  on  our  own  soil." 

And  again,  in  his  message  of  December  8,  1846,  that  "  we  had 
ample  cause  of  war  against  Mexico  long  before  the  breaking  out  of 
hostilities ;  but  even  then  we  forbore  to  take  redress  into  our  own 
hands  until  Mexico  herself  became  the  aggressor,  by  invading  our 
soil  in  hostile  array,  and  shedding  the  blood  of  our  citizens." 

And  yet  again,  in  his  message  of  December  7,  1847,  that  "  the 
Mexican  Government  refused  even  to  hear  the  terms  of  adjustment 
which  he  [our  minister  of  peace]  was  authorized  to  propose,  and 
finally,  under  wholly  unjustifiable  pretexts,  involved  the  two  coun 
tries  in  war,  by  invading  the  territory  of  the  State  of  Texas,  strik 
ing  the  first  blow,  and  shedding  the  blood  of  our  citizens  on  our 
own  soil." 

And  whereas.  This  House  is  desirous  to  obtain  a  full  knowledge 
of  all  the  facts  which,  go  to  establish  whether  the  particular  spot  on 
which  the  blood  of  our  citizens  was  so  shed  was  or  was  not  at  that 
time  our  own  soil :  therefore, 

Resolved,  By  the  House  of  Representatives,  that  the  President  of 
the  United  States  be  respectfully  requested  to  inform  this  House— 

First.  Whether  the  spot  on  which  the  blood  of  our  citizens  was 
shed,  as  in  his  message  declared,  was  or  was  not  within  the  terri 
tory  of  Spain,  at  least  after  the  treaty  of  1819  until  the  Mexican 
revolution. 

Second.  Whether  that  spot  is  or  is  not  within  the  territory  which 
was  wrested  from  Spain  by  the  revolutionary  Government  of  Mexico. 

Third.  Whether  that  spot  is  or  is  not  within  a  settlement  of 
people,  which  settlement  has  existed  ever  since  long  before  the  Texas 
revolution,  and  until  its  inhabitants  fled  before  the  approach  of  the 
United  States  army. 

Fourth.  Whether  that  settlement  is  or  is  not  isolated  from  any 
and  all  other  settlements  by  the  Gulf  and  the  Rio  Grande  on  the 
south  and  west,  and  by  wide  uninhabited  regions  on  the  north  and  east. 

Fifth.  Whether  the  people  of  that  settlement,  or  a  majority  of 
them,  or  any  of  them,  have  ever  submitted  themselves  to  the  govern 
ment  or  laws  of  Texas  or  of  the  United  States,  by  consent  or  by 
compulsion,  either  by  accepting  office,  or  voting  at  elections,  or  pay 
ing  tax,  or  serving  on  juries,  or  having  process  served  upon  them, 
or  in  any  other  way. 

Sixth.  Whether  the  people  of  that  settlement  did  or  did  not  flee 

from  the  approach  of  the  United  States  army,  leaving  unprotected 

their  homes  and  their  growing  crops,  before  the  blood  was  shed,  as 

in  the  message  stated ;  and  whether  the  first  blood,  so  shed,  was  or 

VOL.  1  —  7. 


98  ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

was  not  shed  within  the  inclosure  of  one  of  the  people  who  had  thus 
fled  from  it. 

Seventh.  Whether  our  citizens,  whose  blood  was  shed,  as  in  his 
message  declared,  were  or  were  not,  at  that  time,  armed  officers  and 
soldiers,  sent  into  that  settlement  by  the  military  order  of  the  Presi 
dent,  through  the  Secretary  of  War. 

Eighth.  Whether  the  military  force  of  the  United  States  was  or 
was  not  so  sent  into  that  settlement  after  General  Taylor  had  more 
than  once  intimated  to  the  War  Department  that,  in  his  opinion,  no 
such  movement  was  necessary  to  the  defense  or  protection  of  Texas. 


January  5,  1848. — REMARKS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

Mr.  Lincoln  said  he  had  made  an  effort,  some  few  days  since,  to 
obtain  the  floor  in  relation  to  this  measure  [resolution  to  direct  Post 
master-General  to  make  arrangements  with  railroad  for  carrying  the 
mails — in  Committee  of  the  Whole],  but  had  failed.  One  of  the 
objects  he  had  then  had  in  view  was  now  in  a  great  measure  super 
seded  by  what  had  fallen  from  the  gentleman  from  Virginia  who 
had  just  taken  his  seat.  He  begged  to  assure  his  friends  on  the 
other  side  of  the  House  that  no  assault  whatever  was  meant  upon 
the  Postmaster-General,  and  he  was  glad  that  what  the  gentleman 
had  now  said  modified  to  a  great  extent  the  impression  which  might 
have  been  created  by  the  language  he  had  used  on  a  previous  occa 
sion.  He  wanted  to  state  to  gentlemen  who  might  have  entertained 
such  impressions,  that  the  Committee  on  the  Post-office  was  com 
posed  of  five  Whigs  and  four  Democrats,  and  their  report  was 
understood  as  sustaining,  not  impugning,  the  position  taken  by  the 
Postmaster-General.  That  report  had  met  with  the  approbation  of 
all  the  Whigs,  and  of  all  the  Democrats  also,  with  the  exception  of 
one,  and  he  wanted  to  go  even  further  than  this.  [Intimation  was 
informally  given  Mr.  Lincoln  that  it  was  not  in  order  to  mention  on 
the  floor  what  had  taken  place  in  committee.]  He  then  observed 
that  if  he  had  been  out  of  order  in  what  he  had  said,  he  took  it  all 
back  so  far  as  he  could.  He  had  no  desire,  he  could  assure  gentlemen, 
ever  to  be  out  of  order — though  he  never  could  keep  long  in  order. 

Mr.  Lincoln  went  on  to  observe  that  he  differed  in  opinion,  in 
the  present  case,  from  his  honorable  friend  from  Richmond  [Mr. 
Botts].  That  gentleman  had  begun  his  remarks  by  saying  that  if 
all  prepossessions  in  this  matter  could  be  removed  out  of  the  way, 
but  little  difficulty  would  be  experienced  in  coming  to  an  agreement. 
Now,  he  could  assure  that  gentleman  that  he  had  himself  begun  the 
examination  of  the  subject  with  prepossessions  all  in  his  favor.  He 
had  long  and  often  heard  of  him,  and,  from  what  he  had  heard,  was 
prepossessed  in  his  favor.  Of  the  Postmaster-General  he  had  also 
heard,  but  had  no  prepossessions  in  his  favor,  though  certainly  none 
of  an  opposite  kind.  He  differed,  however,  with  that  gentleman  in 
politics,  while  in  this  respect  he  agreed  with  the  gentleman  from 
Virginia  [Mr.  Botts],  whom  he  wished  to  oblige  whenever  it  was  in 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  99 

his  power.  That  gentleman  had  referred  to  the  report  made  to  the 
House  by  the  Postmaster-General,  and  had  intimated  an  apprehen 
sion  that  gentlemen  would  be  disposed  to  rely  on  that  report  alone, 
and  derive  their  views  of  the  case  from  that  document  alone.  Now 
it  so  happened  that  a  pamphlet  had  been  slipped  into  his  [Mr  Lin 
coln's]  hand  before  he  read  the  report  of  the  Postmaster-General ; 
so  that,  even  in  this,  he  had  begun  with  prepossessions  in  favor  of 
the  gentleman  from  Virginia. 

As  to  the  report,  he  had  but  one  remark  to  make :  he  had  care 
fully  examined  it,  and  he  did  not  understand  that  there  was  any  dis 
pute  as  to  the  facts  therein  stated — the  dispute,  if  he  understood 
it,  was  confined  altogether  to  the  inferences  to  be  drawn  from  those 
facts.  It  was  a  difference  not  about  facts,  but  about  conclusions. 
The  facts  were  not  disputed.  If  he  was  right  in  this,  he  supposed 
the  House  might  assume  the  facts  to  be  as  they  were  stated,  and 
thence  proceed  to  draw  their  own  conclusions. 

The  gentleman  had  said  that  the  Postmaster-General  had  got  into 
a  personal  squabble  with  the  railroad  company.  Of  this  Mr.  Lin 
coln  knew  nothing,  nor  did  he  need  or  desire  to  know  anything,  be 
cause  it  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  a  just  conclusion  from  the 
premises.  But  the  gentleman  had  gone  on  to  ask  whether  so  great 
a  grievance  as  the  present  detention  of  the  Southern  mail  ought  not 
to  be  remedied  ?  Mr.  Lincoln  would  assure  the  gentleman  that  if 
there  was  a  proper  way  of  doing  it,  no  man  was  more  anxious  than 
he  that  it  should  be  done.  The  report  made  by  the  committee  had 
been  intended  to  yield  much  for  the  sake  of  removing  that  griev 
ance.  That  the  grievance  was  very  great,  there  was  no  dispute  in 
any  quarter.  He  supposed  that  the  statements  made  by  the  gentle 
man  from  Virginia  to  show  this  were  all  entirely  correct  in  point  of 
fact.  He  did  suppose  that  the  interruptions  of  regular  intercourse, 
and  all  the  other  inconveniences  growing  out  of  it,  were  all  as  that 
gentleman  had  stated  them  to  be ;  and  certainly,  if  redress  could  be 
rendered,  it  was  proper  it  should  be  rendered  as  soon  as  possible. 
The  gentleman  said  that  in  order  to  effect  this,  no  new  legislative 
action  was  needed ;  all  that  was  necessary  was  that  the  Postmaster- 
General  should  be  required  to  do  what  the  law,  as  it  stood,  author 
ized  and  required  him  to  do. 

We  come  then,  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  to  the  law.  Now  the  Postmas 
ter-General  says  he  cannot  give  to  this  company  more  than  two 
hundred  and  thirty-seven  dollars  and  fifty  cents  per  railroad  mile  of 
transportation,  and  twelve  and  half  per  cent  less  for  transportation 
by  steamboats.  He  considers  himself  as  restricted  by  law  to  this 
amount;  and  he  says,  further,  that  he  would  not  give  more  if  he 
could,  because  in  his  apprehension  it  would  not  be  fair  and  just. 


January  8,  1848. — LETTER  TO  WILLIAM  H.  HERNDON, 

WASHINGTON,  January  8,  1848. 

Dear   William :  Your  letter  of  December  27  was  received  a  day  or 
two  ago.    I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  the  trouble  you  have  taken, 


100          ADDEESSES  AND   LETTEES   OF  ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

and  promise  to  take  in  my  little  business  there.  As  to  speech- 
making,  by  way  of  getting  the  hang  of  the  House  I  made  a  little 
speech  two  or  three  days  ago  on  a  post-office  question  of  no  general 
interest.  I  find  speaking  here  and  elsewhere  about  the  same  thing. 
I  was  about  as  badly  scared,  and  no  worse,  as  I  am  when  I  speak  in 
court.  I  expect  to  make  one  within  a  week  or  two,  in  which  I  hope 
to  succeed  well  enough  to  wish  you  to  see  it. 

It  is  very  pleasant  to  learn  from  you  that  there  are  some  who  de 
sire  that  I  should  be  reelected.  I  most  heartily  thank  them  for  their 
kind  partiality j  and  lean  say,  as  Mr.  Clay  said  of  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  that  "  personally  I  would  not  object "  to  a  reelection,  although 
I  thought  at  the  time,  and  still  think,  it  would  be  quite  as  well  for  me 
to  return  to  the  law  at  the  end  of  a  single  term.  I  made  the  decla 
ration  that  I  would  not  be  a  candidate  again,  more  from  a  wish  to 
deal  fairly  with  others,  to  keep  peace  among  our  friends,  and  to  keep 
the  district  from  going  to  the  enemy,  than  for  any  cause  personal  to 
myself;  so  that,  if  it  should  so  happen  that  nobody  else  wishes  to  be 
elected,  I  could  not  refuse  the  people  the  right  of  sending  me  again. 
But  to  enter  myself  as  a  competitor  of  others,  or  to  authorize  any 
one  so  to  enter  me,  is  what  my  word  and  honor  forbid. 

I  got  some  letters  intimating  a  probability  of  so  much  difficulty 
amongst  our  friends  as  to  lose  us  the  district 5  but  I  remember  such 
letters  were  written  to  Baker  when  my  own  case  was  under  consid 
eration,  and  I  trust  there  is  no  more  ground  for  such  apprehension 
now  than  there  was  then.  Remember  I  am  always  glad  to  receive  a 
letter  from  you.  Most  truly  your  friend, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


January  12,  1848. —  SPEECH  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

Mr.  Chairman :  Some  if  not  all  the  gentlemen  on  the  other  side 
of  the  House  who  have  addressed  the  committee  within  the  last  two 
days  have  spoken  rather  complainingly,  if  I  have  rightly  under 
stood  them,  of  the  vote  given  a  week  or  "ten  days  ago  declaring  that 
the  war  with  Mexico  was  unnecessarily  and  unconstitutionally  com 
menced  by  the  President.  I  admit  that  such  a  vote  should  not  be 
given  in  mere  party  wantonness,  and  that  the  one  given  is  justly 
censurable,  if  it  have  no  other  or  better  foundation.  I  am  one  of 
those  who  joined  in  that  vote;  and  I  did  so  under  my  best  impression 
of  the  truth  of  the  case.  How  I  got  this  impression,  and  how  it  may 
possibly  be  remedied,  I  will  now  try  to  show.  When  the  war  began, 
it  was  my  opinion  that  all  those  who  because  of  knowing  too  little, 
or  because  of  knowing  too  much,  could  not  conscientiously  oppose 
the  conduct  of  the  President  in  the  beginning  of  it  should  never 
theless,  as  good  citizens  and  patriots,  remain  silent  on  that  point,  ^at 
least  till  the  war  should  be  ended.  Some  leading  Democrats,  in 
cluding  ex-President  Van  Buren,  have  taken  this  same  view,  as  I 
understand  them ;  and  I  adhered  to  it  and  acted  upon  it,  until  since 
I  took  my  seat  here  ;  and  I  think  I  should  still  adhere  to  it  were  it 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          101 

not  that  the  President  and  his  friends  will  not  allow  it  to  be  so. 
Besides  the  continual  effort  of  the  President  to  argue  every  silent 
vote  given  for  supplies  into  an  indorsement  of  the  justice  and  wis 
dom  of  his  conduct ;  besides  that  singularly  candid  paragraph  in  his 
late  message  in  which  he  tells  us  that  Congress  with  great  una 
nimity  had  declared  that  "  by  the  act  of  the  Republic  of  Mexico,  a 
state  of  war  exists  between  that  Government  and  the  United  States/' 
when  the  same  journals  that  informed  him  of  this  also  informed 
him  that  when  that  declaration  stood  disconnected  from  the  ques 
tion  of  supplies  sixty-seven  in  the  House,  and  not  fourteen  merely, 
voted  against  it ;  besides  this  open  attempt  to  prove  by  telling  the 
truth  what  he  could  not  prove  by  telling  the  whole  truth — demand 
ing  of  all  who  will  not  submit  to  be  misrepresented,  in  justice  to 
themselves,  to  speak  out, —  besides  all  this,  one  of  my  colleagues 
[Mr.  Richardson]  at  a  very  early  day  in  the  session  brought  in  a  set 
of  resolutions  expressly  indorsing  the  original  justice  of  the  war  on 
the  part  of  the  President.  Upon  these  resolutions  when  they  shall 
be  put  on  their  passage  I  shall  be  compelled  to  vote ;  so  that  I 
cannot  be  silent  if  I  would.  Seeing  this,  I  went  about  preparing 
myself  to  give  the  vote  understandingly  when  it  should  come.  I 
carefully  examined  the  President's  message,  to  ascertain  what  he 
himself  had  said  and  proved  upon  the  point.  The  result  of  this  ex 
amination  was  to  make  the  impression  that,  taking  for  true  all  the 
President  states  as  facts,  he  falls  far  short  of  proving  his  justifica 
tion  ;  and  that  the  President  would  have  gone  farther  with  his  proof 
if  it  had  not  been  for  the  small  matter  that  the  truth  would  not  per 
mit  him.  Under  the  impression  thus  made  I  gave  the  vote  before 
mentioned.  I  propose  now  to  give  concisely  the  process  of  the  ex 
amination  I  made,  and  how  I  reached  the  conclusion  I  did.  The 
President,  in  his  first  war  message  of  May,  1846,  declares  that  the 
soil  was  ours  on  which  hostilities  were  commenced  by  Mexico,  and 
he  repeats  that  declaration  almost  in  the  same  language  in  each 
successive  annual  message,  thus  showing  that  he  deems  that  point 
a  highly  essential  one.  In  the  importance  of  that  point  I  entirely 
agree  with  the  President.  To  my  judgment  it  is  the  very  point 
upon  which  he  should  be  justified,  or  condemned.  In  his  message 
of  December,  1846,  it  seems  to  have  occurred  to  him,  as  is  certainly 
true,  that  title — ownership — to  soil  or  anything  else  is  not  a  simple 
fact,  but  is  a  conclusion  following  on  one  or  more  simple  facts; 
and  that  it  was  incumbent  upon  him  to  present  the  facts  from  which 
he  concluded  the  soil  was  ours  on  which  the  first  blood  of  the  war 
was  shed. 

Accordingly,  a  little  below  the  middle  of  page  twelve  in  the  mes 
sage  last  referred  to  he  enters  upon  that  task;  forming  an  issue 
and  introducing  testimony,  extending  the  whole  to  a  little  below 
the  middle  of  page  fourteen.  Now,  I  propose  to  try  to  show  that 
the  whole  of  this — issue  and  evidence — is  from  beginning  to  end  the 
sheerest  deception.  The  issue,  as  he  presents  it,  is  in  these  words : 
"  But  there  are  those  who,  conceding  all  this  to  be  true,  assume  the 
ground  that  the  true  western  boundary  of  Texas  is  the  Nueces,  in 
stead  of  the  Rio  Grande;  and  that,  therefore,  in  marching  our  army 


102          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

to  the  east  bank  of  the  latter  river,  we  passed  the  Texas  line  and  in 
vaded  the  territory  of  Mexico."  Now  this  issue  is  made  up  of  two 
affirmatives  and  no  negative.  The  main  deception  of  it  is  that  it 
assumes  as  true  that  one  river  or  the  other  is  necessarily  the  boun 
dary  ;  and  cheats  the  superficial  thinker  entirely  out  of  the  idea 
that  possibly  the  boundary  is  somewhere  between  the  two,  and  not 
actually  at  either.  A  further  deception  is  that  it  will  let  in  evidence 
which  a  true  issue  would  exclude.  A  true  issue  made  by  the  Presi 
dent  would  be  about  as  f ollowrs :  "  I  say  the  soil  was  ours,  on  which 
the  first  blood  was  shed ;  there  are  those  who  say  it  was  not." 

I  now  proceed  to  examine  the  President's  evidence  as  applicable 
to  such  an  issue.  When  that  evidence  is  analyzed,  it  is  all  included 
in  the  following  propositions : 

(1)  That  the  Rio  Grande  was  the  western  boundary  of  Louisiana 
as  we  purchased  it  of  France  in  1803. 

(2)  That  the  Republic  of  Texas  always  claimed  the  Rio  Grande  as 
her  western  boundary. 

(3)  That  by  various  acts  she  had  claimed  it  on  paper. 

(4)  That  Santa  Anna  in  his  treaty  with  Texas  recognized  the  Rio 
Grande  as  her  boundary. 

(5)  That  Texas  before,  and  the  United  States  after,  annexation  had 
exercised  jurisdiction  beyond  the  Nueces — between  the  two  rivers. 

(6)  That  our  Congress  understood  the  boundary  of  Texas  to  ex 
tend  beyond  the  Nueces. 

Now  for  each  of  these  in  its  turn.  His  first  item  is  that  the  Rio 
Grande  was  the  western  boundary  of  Louisiana,  as  we  purchased 
it  of  France  in  1803 ;  and  seeming  to  expect  this  to  be  disputed,  he 
argues  over  the  amount  of  nearly  a  page  to  prove  it  true ;  at  the 
end  of  which  he  lets  us  know  that  by  the  treaty  of  1819  we  sold 
to  Spain  the  whole  country  from  the  Rio  Grande  eastward  to  the 
Sabine.  Now,  admitting  for  the  present  that  the  Rio  Grande  was 
the  boundary  of  Louisiana,  what,  under  heaven,  had  that  to  do  with 
the  present  boundary  between  us  and  Mexico?  How,  Mr.  Chair 
man,  the  line  that  once  divided  your  land  from  mine  can  still  be  the 
boundary  between  us  after  I  have  sold  my  land  to  you  is  to  me 
yond  all  comprehension.  And  how  any  man,  with  an  honest  pur 
pose  only  of  proving  the  truth,  could  ever  have  thought  of  introdu 
cing  such  a  fact  to  prove  such  an  issue  is  equally  incomprehensible. 
His  next  piece  of  evidence  is  that  "the  Republic  of  Texas  always 
claimed  this  river  (Rio  Grande)  as  her  western  boundary."  That  is 
not  true,  in  fact.  Texas  has  claimed  it,  but  she  has  not  always 
claimed  it.  There  is  at  least  one  distinguished  exception.  Her 
State  constitution — the  republic's  most  solemn  and  well-considered 
act;  that  which  may,  without  impropriety,  be  called  her  last  will 
and  testament,  revoking  all  others — makes  no  such  claim.  But  sup 
pose  she  had  always  claimed  it.  Has  not  Mexico  always  claimed  the 
contrary  ?  So  that  there  is  but  claim  against  claim,  leaving  nothing 
proved  until  we  get  back  of  the  claims  and  find  which  has  the  better 
foundation.  Though  not  in  the  order  in  which  the  President  pre 
sents  his  evidence,  I  now  consider  that  class  of  his  statements  which 
are  in  substance  nothing  more  than  that  Texas  has,  by  various  acts 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          103 

of  her  Convention  and  Congress,  claimed  the  Rio  Grande  as  her 
boundary,  on  paper.  I  mean  here  what  he  says  about  the  fixing 
of  the  Rio  Grande  as  her  boundary  in  her  old  constitution  (not  her 
State  constitution),  about  forming  congressional  districts,  coun 
ties,  etc.  Now  all  of  this  is  but  naked  claim ;  and  what  I  have  al 
ready  said  about  claims  is  strictly  applicable  to  this.  If  I  should 
claim  your  land  by  word  of  mouth,  that  certainly  would  not  make 
it  mine ;  and  if  I  were  to  claim  it  by  a  deed  which  I  had  made  my 
self,  and  with  which  you  had  had  nothing  to  do,  the  claim  would  be 
quite  the  same  in  substance  —  or  rather,  in  utter  nothingness.  I 
next  consider  the  President's  statement  that  Santa  Anna  in  his 
treaty  with  Texas  recognized  the  Rio  Grande  as  the  western  boun 
dary  of  Texas.  Besides  the  position  so  often  taken,  that  Santa  Anna 
while  a  prisoner  of  war,  a  captive,  could  not  bind  Mexico  by  a 
treaty,  which  I  deem  conclusive — besides  this,  I  wish  to  say  some 
thing  in  relation  to  this  treaty,  so  called  by  the  President,  with 
Santa  Anna.  If  any  man  would  like  to  be  amused  by  a  sight  of 
that  little  thing  which  the  President  calls  by  that  big  name,  he  can 
have  it  by  turning  to  "  Niles's  Register,"  Vol.  L,  p.  336.  And  if  any 
one  should  suppose  that  "  Niles's  Register "  is  a  curious  repository 
of  so  mighty  a  document  as  a  solemn  treaty  between  nations,  I  can 
only  say  that  I  learned  to  a  tolerable  degree  of  certainty,  by  inquiry 
at  the  State  Department,  that  the  President  himself  never  saw  it 
anywhere  else.  By  the  way,  I  believe  I  should  not  err  if  I  were  to 
declare  that  during  the  first  ten  years  of  the  existence  of  that  docu 
ment  it  was  never  by  anybody  called  a  treaty  —  that  it  was  never  so 
called  till  the  President,  in  his  extremity,  attempted  by  so  calling  it 
to  wring  something  from  it  in  justification  of  himself  in  connec 
tion  with  the  Mexican  war.  It  has  none  of  the  distinguishing 
features  of  a  treaty.  It  does  not  call  itself  a  treaty.  Santa  Anna 
does  not  therein  assume  to  bind  Mexico;  he  assumes  only  to  act 
as  the  President-Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Mexican  army  and 
navy ;  stipulates  that  the  then  present  hostilities  should  cease,  and 
that  he  would  not  himself  take  up  arms,  nor  influence  the  Mexican 
people  to  take  up  arms,  against  Texas  during  the  existence  of  the 
war  of  independence.  He  did  not  recognize  the  independence  of 
Texas;  he  did  not  assume  to  put  an  end  to  the  war,  but  clearly 
indicated  his  expectation  of  its  continuance ;  he  did  not  say  one 
word  about  boundary,  and,  most  probably,  never  thought  of  it.  It 
is  stipulated  therein  that  the  Mexican  forces  should  evacuate  the 
territory  of  Texas,  passing  to  the  other  side  of  the  Rio  Grande ;  and 
in  another  article  it  is  stipulated  that,  to  prevent  collisions  between 
the  armies,  the  Texas  army  should  not  approach  nearer  than  within 
five  leagues  —  of  what  is  not  said,  but  clearly,  from  the  object  stated, 
it  is  of  the  Rio  Grande.  Now,  if  this  is  a  treaty  recognizing  the  Rio 
Grande  as  the  boundary  of  Texas,  it  contains  the  singular  features 
of  stipulating  that  Texas  shall  not  go  within  five  leagues  of  her  own 
boundary. 

Next  comes  the  evidence  of  Texas  before  annexation,  and  the 
United  States  afterward,  exercising  jurisdiction  beyond  the  Nueces 
and  between  the  two  rivers.  This  actual  exercise  of  jurisdiction  is 


104         ADDRESSES  AND  LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  very  class  or  quality  of  evidence  we  want.  It  is  excellent  so  far 
as  it  goes;  but  does  it  go  far  enough?  He  tells  us  it  went  beyond 
the  Nueces,  but  he  does  not  tell  us  it  went  to  the  Rio  Grande.  He 
tells  us  jurisdiction  was  exercised  between  the  two  rivers,  but  he  does 
not  tell  us  it  was  exercised  over  all  the  territory  between  them. 
Some  simple-minded  people  think  it  is  possible  to  cross  one  river 
and  go  beyond  it  without  going  all  the  way  to  the  next,  that  juris 
diction  may  be  exercised  between  two  rivers  without  covering  all  the 
country  between  them.  I  know  a  man,  not  very  unlike  myself,  who 
exercises  jurisdiction  over  a  piece  of  land  between  the  Wabash  and 
the  Mississippi ;  and  yet  so  far  is  this  from  being  all  there  is  between 
those  rivers  that  it  is  just  one  hundred  and  fifty-two  feet  long  by 
fifty  feet  wide,  and  no  part  of  it  much  within  a  hundred  miles  o*f 
either.  He  has  a  neighbor  between  him  and  the  Mississippi  —  that 
is,  just  across  the  street,  in  that  direction — whom  I  am  sure  he  could 
neither  persuade  nor  force  to  give  up  his  habitation  j  but  which 
nevertheless  he  could  certainly  annex,  if  it  were  to  be  done  by 
merely  standing  on  his  own  side  of  the  street  and  claiming  it,  or  even 
sitting  down  and  writing  a  deed  for  it. 

But  next  the  President  tells  us  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
understood  the  State  of  Texas  they  admitted  into  the  Union  to  ex 
tend  beyond  the  Nueces.  Well,  I  suppose  they  did.  I  certainly  so 
understood  it.  But  how  far  beyond J?  That  Congress  did  not  un 
derstand  it  to  extend  clear  to  the  Rio  Grande  is  quite  certain,  by  the 
fact  of  their  joint  resolutions  for  admission  expressly  leaving  all 
questions  of  boundary  to  future  adjustment.  And  it  may  be  added 
that  Texas  herself  is  proved  to  have  had  the  same  understanding  of 
it  that  our  Congress  had,  by  the  fact  of  the  exact  conformity  of  her 
new  constitution  to  those  resolutions. 

I  am  now  through  the  whole  of  the  President's  evidence ;  and  it  is 
a  singular  fact  that  if  any  one  should  declare  the  President  sent  the 
army  into  the  midst  of  a  settlement  of  Mexican  people  who  had  never 
submitted,  by  consent  or  by  force,  to  the  authority  of  Texas  or  of 
the  United  States,  and  that  there  and  thereby  the  first  blood  of  the 
war  was  shed,  there  is  not  one  word  in  all  the  President  has  said 
which  would  either  admit  or  deny  the  declaration.  This  strange 
omission  it  does  seem  to  me  could  not  have  occurred  but  by  design. 
My  way  of  living  leads  me  to  be  about  the  courts  of  justice;  and 
there  I  have  sometimes  seen  a  good  lawyer,  struggling  for  his  client's 
neck  in  a  desperate  case,  employing  every  artifice  to  work  round, 
befog,  and  cover  up  with  many  words  some  point  arising  in  the  case 
which  he  dared  not  admit  and  yet  could  not  deny.  Party  bias  may 
help  to  make  it  appear  so,  but  with  all  the  allowance  I  can  make  for 
such  bias,  it  still  does  appear  to  me  that  just  such,  and  from  just 
such  necessity,  is  the  President's  struggle  in  this  case. 

Some  time  after  my  colleague  [Mr.  Richardson]  introduced  the 
resolutions  I  have  mentioned,  I  introduced  a  preamble,  resolution, 
and  interrogations,  intended  to  draw  the  President  out,  if  possible, 
on  this  hitherto  untrodden  ground.  To  show  their  relevancy,  I  pro 
pose  to  state  my  understanding  of  the  true  rule  for  ascertaining  the 
boundary  between  Texas  and  Mexico.  It  is  that  wherever  Texas  was 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          105 

exercising  jurisdiction  was  hers;  and  wherever  Mexico  was  exercis 
ing  jurisdiction  was  hers;  and  that  whatever  separated  the  actual 
exercise  of  jurisdiction  of  the  one  from  that  of  the  other  was  the  true 
boundary  between  them.  If,  as  is  probably  true,  Texas  was  exer 
cising  jurisdiction  along  the  western  bank  of  the  Nueces,  and  Mexico 
was  exercising  it  along  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Rio  Grande,  then 
neither  river  was  the  boundary ;  but  the  uninhabited  country  be 
tween  the  two  was.  The  extent  of  our  territory  in  that  region  de-' 
pended  not  on  any  treaty-fixed  boundary  (for  no  treaty  had  attempted 
it),  but  on  revolution.  Any  people  anywhere  being  inclined  and 
having  the  power  have  the  right  to  rise  up  and  shake  off  the  existing 
government,  and  form  a  new  one  that  suits  them  better.  This  is  a 
most  valuable,  a  most  sacred  right — a  right  which  we  hope  and  be 
lieve  is  to  liberate  the  world.  Nor  is  this  right  confined  to  cases  in 
which  the  whole  people  of  an  existing  government  may  choose  to 
exercise  it.  Any  portion  of  such  people  that  can  may  revolutionize 
and  make  their  own  of  so  much  of  the  territory  as  they  inhabit. 
More  than  this,  a  majority  of  any  portion  of  such  people  may  revo 
lutionize,  putting  down  a  minority,  intermingled  with  or  near  about 
them,  who  may  oppose  this  movement.  Such  minority  was  precisely 
the  case  of  the  Tories  of  our  own  revolution.  It  is  a  quality  of  revo 
lutions  not  to  go  by  old  lines  or  old  laws ;  but  to  break  up  both,  and 
make  new  ones. 

As  to  the  country  now  in  question,  we  bought  it  of  France  in 
1803,  and  sold  it  to  Spain  in  1819,  according  to  the  President's 
statements.  After  this,  all  Mexico,  including  Texas,  revolution 
ized  against  Spain;  and  still  later  Texas  revolutionized  against 
Mexico.  In  my  view,  just  so  far  as  she  carried  her  resolution  by  ob 
taining  the  actual,  willing  or  unwilling,  submission  of  the  people, 
so  far  the  country  was  hers,  and  no  farther.  Now,  sir,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  obtaining  the  very  best  evidence  as  to  whether  Texas  had 
actually  carried  her  revolution  to  the  place  where  the  hostilities  of 
the  present  war  commenced,  let  the  President  answer  the  interroga 
tories  I  proposed,  as  before  mentioned,  or  some  other  similar  ones. 
Let  him  answer  fully,  fairly,  and  candidly.  Let  him  answer  with 
facts  and  not  with  arguments.  Let  him  remember  he  sits  where 
Washington  sat,  and  so  remembering,  let  him  answer  as  Washing 
ton  would  answer.  As  a  nation  should  not,  and  the  Almighty  will 
not,  be  evaded,  so  let  him  attempt  no  evasion — no  equivocation. 
And  if,  so  answering,  he  can  show  that  the  soil  was  ours  where  the 
first  blood  of  the  war  was  shed, — that  it  was  not  within  an  inhabited 
country,  or,  if  within  such,  that  the  inhabitants  had  submitted  them 
selves  to  the  civil  authority  of  Texas  or  of  the  United  States,  and  that 
the  same  is  true  of  the  site  of  Fort  Brown, — then  I  am  with  him  for 
his  justification.  In  that  case  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  reverse  the 
vote  I  gave  the  other  day.  I  have  a  selfish  motive  for  desiring  that 
the  President  may  do  this — I  expect  to  gain  some  votes,  in  connec 
tion  with  the  war,  which,  without  his  so  doing,  will  be  of  doubtful 
propriety  in  my  own  judgment,  but  which  will  be  free  from  the 
doubt  if  he  does  so.  But  if  he  can  not  or  will  not  do  this, — if  on 
any  pretense  or  no  pretense  he  shall  refuse  or  omit  it — then  I  shall 


106          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

be  fully  convinced  of  what  I  more  than  suspect  already — that  he  is 
deeply  conscious  of  being  in  the  wrong  5  that  he  feels  the  blood  of 
this  war,  like  the  blood  of  Abel,  is  crying  to  Heaven  against  him ; 
that  originally  having  some  strong  motive — what,  I  will  not  stop 
now  to  give  my  opinion  concerning — to  involve  the  two  countries 
in  a  war,  and  trusting  to  escape  scrutiny  by  fixing  the  public  gaze 
upon  the  exceeding  brightness  of  military  glory, — that  attractive 
rainbow  that  rises  in  showers  of  blood — that  serpent's  eye  that 
charms  to  destroy, — he  plunged  into  it,  and  has  swept  on  and  on 
till,  disappointed  in  his  calculation  of  the  ease  with  which  Mexico 
might  be  subdued,  he  now  finds  himself  he  knows  not  where.  How 
like  the  half -insane  mumbling  of  a  fever  dream  is  the  whole  war 
part  of  his  late  message !  At  one  time  telling  us  that  Mexico  has 
nothing  whatever  that  we  can  get  but  territory ;  at  another  showing 
us  how  we  can  support  the  war  by  levying  contributions  on  Mexico. 
At  one  time  urging  the  national  honor,  the  security  of  the  future, 
the  prevention  of  foreign  interference,  and  even  the  good  of  Mexico 
herself  as  among  the  objects  of  the  war  j  at  another  telling  us  that 
"  to  reject  indemnity,  by  refusing  to  accept  a  cession  of  territory, 
would  be  to  abandon  all  our  just  demands,  and  to  wage  the  war 
bearing  all  its  expenses,  without  a  purpose  or  definite  object."  So 
then  this  national  honor,  security  of  the  future,  and  everything  but 
territorial  indemnity  may  be  considered  the  no-purposes  and  indefi 
nite  objects  of  the  war !  But,  having  it  now  settled  that  territorial 
indemnity  is  the  only  object,  we  are  urged  to  seize,  by  legislation 
here,  all  that  he  was  content  to  take  a  few  months  ago,  and  the 
whole  province  of  Lower  California  to  boot,  and  to  still  carry  on 
the  war — to  take  all  we  are  fighting  for,  and  still  fight  on.  Again, 
the  President  is  resolved  under  all  circumstances  to  have  full  terri 
torial  indemnity  for  the  expenses  of  the  war ;  but  he  forgets  to  tell 
us  how  we  are  to  get  the  excess  after  those  expenses  shall  have  sur 
passed  the  value  of  the  whole  of  the  Mexican  territory.  So  again,  he 
insists  that  the  separate  national  existence  of  Mexico  shall  be  main 
tained  ;  but  he  does  not  tell  us  how  this  can  be  done,  after  we  shall 
have  taken  all  her  territory.  Lest  the  questions  I  have  suggested 
be  considered  speculative  merely,  let  me  be  indulged  a  moment  in 
trying  to  show  they  are  not.  The  war  has  gone  on  some  twenty 
months ;  for  the  expenses  of  which,  together  with  an  inconsiderable 
old  score,  the  President  now  claims  about  one  half  of  the  Mexican 
territory,  and  that  by  far  the  better  half,  so  far  as  concerns  our 
ability  to  make  anything  out  of  it.  It  is  comparatively  uninhabited ; 
so  that  we  could  establish  land  offices  in  it,  and  raise  some  money  in 
that  way.  But  the  other  half  is  already  inhabited,  as  I  understand 
it,  tolerably  densely  for  the  nature  of  the  country,  and  all  its  lands, 
or  all  that  are  valuable,  already  appropriated  as  private  property. 
How  then  are  we  to  make  anything  out  of  these  lands  with  this  en 
cumbrance  on  them  ?  or  how  remove  the  encumbrance  ?  I  suppose 
no  one  would  say  we  should  kill  the  people,  or  drive  them  out,  or 
make  slaves  of  them ;  or  confiscate  their  property.  How,  then,  can 
we  make  much  out  of  this  part  of  the  territory  ?  If  the  prosecution 
of  the  war  has  in  expenses  already  equaled  the  better  half  of  the 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN          107 

country,  how  long  its  future  prosecution  will  be  in  equaling  the  less 
valuable  half  is  not  a  speculative,  but  a  practical,  question,  pressing 
closely  upon  us.  And  yet  it  is  a  question  which  the  President  seems 
never  to  have  thought  of.  As  to  the  mode  of  terminating  the  war 
and  securing  peace,  the  President  is  equally  wandering  and  indefi 
nite.  First,  it  is  to  be  done  by  a  more  vigorous  prosecution  of  the 
war  in  the  vital  parts  of  the  enemy's  country ;  and  after  apparently 
talking  himself  tired  on  this  point,  the  President  drops  down  into  a 
half-despairing  tone,  and  tells  us  that  "  with  a  people  distracted  and 
divided  by  contending  factions,  and  a  government  subject  to  con 
stant  changes  by  successive  revolutions,  the  continued  success  of  our 
arms  may  fail  to  secure  a  satisfactory  peace."  Then  he  suggests  the 
propriety  of  wheedling  the  Mexican  people  to  desert  the  counsels  of 
their  own  leaders,  and,  trusting  in  our  protestations,  to  set  up  a 
government  from  which  we  can  secure  a  satisfactory  peace ;  telling 
us  that  "  this  may  become  the  only  mode  of  obtaining  such  a  peace." 
But  soon  he  falls  into  doubt  of  this  too  $  and  then  drops  back  onto 
the  already  half-abandoned  ground  of  "  more  vigorous  prosecution." 
All  this  shows  that  the  President  is  in  nowise  satisfied  with  his  own 
positions.  First  he  takes  up  one,  and  in  attempting  to  argue  us 
into  it  he  argues  himself  out  of  it,  then  seizes  another  and  goes 
through  the  same  process,  and  then,  confused  at  being  able  to  think 
of  nothing  new,  he  snatches  up  the  old  one  again,  which  he  has  some 
time  before  cast  off.  His  mind,  taxed  beyond  its  power,  is  running 
hither  and  thither,  like  some  tortured  creature  on  a  burning  surface, 
finding  no  position  on  which  it  can  settle  down  and  be  at  ease. 

Again,  it  is  a  singular  omission  in  this  message  that  it  nowhere 
intimates  when  the  President  expects  the  war  to  terminate.  At  its 
beginning,  General  Scott  was  by  this  same  President  driven  into 
disfavor,  if  not  disgrace,  for  intimating  that  peace  could  not  be  con 
quered  in  less  than  three  or  four  months.  But  now,  at  the  end  of 
about  twenty  months,  during  which  time  our  arms  have  given  us  the 
most  splendid  successes,  every  department  and  every  part,  land  and 
water,  officers  and  privates,  regulars  and  volunteers,  doing  all  that 
men  could  do,  and  hundreds  of  things  which  it  had  ever  before  been 
thought  men  could  not  do — after  all  this,  this  same  President  gives  a 
long  message,  without  showing  us  that  as  to  the  end  he  himself  has 
even  an  imaginary  conception.  As  I  have  before  said,  he  knows  not 
where  he  is.  He  is  a  bewildered,  confounded,  and  miserably  perplexed 
man.  God  grant  he  may  be  able  to  show  there  is  not  something 
about  his  conscience  more  painful  than  all  his  mental  perplexity. 


The  following  is  a  copy  of  the  so-called  "  treaty  "  referred  to  in 
the  speech: 

Articles  of  Agreement  entered  into  between  his  Excellency  David  G. 
Burnet,  President  of  the  Republic  of  Texas,  of  the  one  part,  and  his  Ex 
cellency  General  Santa  Anna,  President-General-in-Chief  of  the  Mexican 
Army,  of  the  other  part. 

Article  I.  General  Antonio  Lopez  de  Santa  Anna  agrees  that  he  will 
not  take  up  arms,  nor  will  he  exercise  his  influence  to  canse  them  to  be  taken 
up,  against  the  people  of  Texas  during  the  present  war  of  independence. 


108          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Article  II.  All  hostilities  between  the  Mexican  and  Texan  troops  will 
cease  immediately,  both  by  land  and  water. 

Article  III.  The  Mexican  troops  will  evacuate  the  territory  of  Texas, 
passing  to  the  other  side  of  the  Rio  Grande  Del  Norte. 

Article  IV.  The  Mexican  army,  in  its  retreat,  shall  not  take  the  property 
of  any  person  without  his  consent  and  just  indemnification,  using  only  such 
articles  as  may  be  necessary  for  its  subsistence,  in  cases  when  the  owner 
may  not  be  present,  and  remitting  to  the  commander  of  the  army  of  Texas, 
or  to  the  commissioners  to  be  appointed  for  the  adjustment  of  such  matters, 
an  account  of  the  value  of  the  property  consumed,  the  place  where  taken, 
and  the  name  of  the  owner,  if  it  can  be  ascertained. 

Article  V.  That  all  private  property,  including  cattle,  horses,  negro 
slaves,  or  indentured  persons,  of  whatever  denomination,  that  may  have 
been  captured  by  any  portion  of  the  Mexican  army,  or  may  have  taken 
refuge  in  the  said  army,  since  the  commencement  of  the  late  invasion,  shall 
be  restored  to  the  commander  of  the  Texan  army,  or  to  such  other  persons 
as  may  be  appointed  by  the  Government  of  Texas  to  receive  them. 

Article  VI.  The  troops  of  both  armies  will  refrain  from  coming  in  con 
tact  with  each  other ;  and  to  this  end  the  commander  of  the  army  of  Texas 
will  be  careful  not  to  approach  within  a  shorter  distance  than  five  leagues. 

Article  VII.  The  Mexican  army  shall  not  make  any  other  delay  on  its 
march  than  that  which  is  necessary  to  take  up  their  hospitals,  baggage, 
etc.,  and  to  cross  the  rivers  j  any  delay  not  necessary  to  these  purposes  to 
be  considered  an  infraction  of  this  agreement. 

Article  VIII.  By  an  express,  to  be  immediately  despatched,  this  agree 
ment  shall  be  sent  to  General  Vincente  Filisola  and  to  General  T.  J.  Rusk, 
commander  of  the  Texan  army,  in  order  that  they  may  be  apprized  of  its 
stipulations  j  and  to  this  end  they  will  exchange  engagements  to  comply 
with  the  same. 

Article  IX.  That  all  Texan  prisoners  now  in  the  possession  of  the  Mexi 
can  army,  or  its  authorities,  be  forthwith  released,  and  furnished  with  free 
passports  to  return  to  their  homes  j  in  consideration  of  which  a  correspond 
ing  number  of  Mexican  prisoners,  rank  and  file,  now  in  possession  of  the 
Government  of  Texas  shall  be  immediately  released  j  the  remainder  of  the 
Mexican  prisoners  that  continue  in  the  possession  of  the  Government  of 
Texas  to  be  treated  with  due  humanity, —  any  extraordinary  comforts  that 
may  be  furnished  them  to  be  at  the  charge  of  the  Government  of  Mexico. 

Article  X.  General  Antonio  Lopez  de  Santa  Anna  will  be  sent  to  Vera 
Cruz  as  soon  as  it  shall  be  deemed  proper. 

The  contracting  parties  sign  this  instrument  for  the  above-mentioned  pur 
poses,  in  duplicate,  at  the  port  of  Velasco,  this  fourteenth  day  of  May,  1836. 

DAVID  G.  BURNET,  President, 

JAS.  COLLINGSWORTH,  Secretary  of  State, 

ANTONIO  LOPEZ  DE  SANTA  ANNA, 

B.  HARDIMAN,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 

P.  W.  GRAYSON,  Attorney- General. 

January  19,  1848. — REPORT   IN  THE    UNITED  STATES 
HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  from  the  Committee  on  the  Post-Office  and  Post 
Roads,  made  the  following  report: 

The  Committee  on  the  Post-Office  and  Post  Roads,  to  whom  was 
referred  the  petition  of  Messrs.  Saltmarsh  and  Fuller,  report:  That, 
as  proved  to  their  satisfaction,  the  mail  routes  from  Milledgeville  to 
Athens,  and  from  Warrenton  to  Decatur,  in  the  State  of  Georgia 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          109 

(numbered  2366  and  2380),  were  let  to  Reeside  and  Avery  at  $1300 
per  annum  for  the  former  and  $1500  for  the  latter,  for  the  term  of 
four  years,  to  commence  on  the  first  day  of  January,  1835;  that, 
previous  to  the  time  for  commencing  the  service,  Reeside  sold 
his  interest  therein  to  Avery;  that  on  the  llth  of  May,  1835, 
Avery  sold  the  whole  to  these  petitioners,  Saltmarsh  and  Fuller,  to 
take  effect  from  the  beginning,  January  1,  1835;  that,  at  this  time, 
the  Assistant  Postmaster-General,  being  called  on  for  that  purpose, 
consented  to  the  transfer  of  the  contracts  from  Reeside  and  Avery 
to  these  petitioners,  and  promised  to  have  proper  entries  of  the 
transfer  made  on  the  books  of  the  department,  which,  however,  was 
neglected  to  be  done ;  that  the  petitioners,  supposing  all  was  right, 
in  good  faith  commenced  the  transportation  of  the  mail  on  these 
routes,  and  after  difficulty  arose,  still  trusting  that  all  would  be 
made  right,  continued  the  service  till  December  1,  1837 ;  that  they 
performed  the  service  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  the  department, 
and  have  never  been  paid  anything  for  it  except  $—  — ;  that  the 
difficulty  occurred  as  follows:  Mr.  Barry  was  Postmaster-General  at 
the  times  of  making  the  contracts  and  the  attempted  transfer  of 
them;  Mr.  Kendall  succeeded  Mr.  Barry,  and  finding  Reeside  appa 
rently  in  debt  to  the  department,  and  these  contracts  still  standing  in 
the  names  of  Reeside  and  Avery,  refused  to  pay  for  the  services  un 
der  them,  otherwise  than  by  credits  to  Reeside ;  afterward,  however, 
he  divided  the  compensation,  still  crediting  one  half  to  Reeside,  and 
directing  the  other  to  be  paid  to  the  order  of  Avery,  who  disclaimed 
all  right  to  it.  After  discontinuing  the  service,  these  petitioners,  sup 
posing  they  might  have  legal  redress  against  Avery,  brought  suit 
against  him  in  New  Orleans;  in  which  suit  they  failed,  on  the  ground 
that  Avery  had  complied  with  his  contract,  having  done  so  much 
toward  the  transfer  as  they  had  accepted  and  been  satisfied  with. 
Still  later  the  department  sued  Reeside  on  his  supposed  indebted 
ness,  and  by  a  verdict  of  the  jury  it  was  determined  that  the  depart 
ment  was  indebted  to  him  in  a  sum  much  beyond  all  the  credits 
given  him  on  the  account  above  stated.  Under  these  circumstances, 
the  committee  consider  the  petitioners  clearly  entitled  to  relief,  and 
they  report  a  bill  accordingly ;  lest,  however,  there  should  be  some 
mistake  as  to  the  amount  which  they  have  already  received,  we  so 
frame  it  as  that,  by  adjustment  at  the  department,  they  may  be  paid 
so  much  as  remains  unpaid  for  service  actually  performed  by  them  — 
not  charging  them  with  the  credits  given  to  Reeside.  The  commit 
tee  think  it  not  improbable  that  the  petitioners  purchased  the  right 
of  Avery  to  be  paid  for  the  service  from  the  1st  of  January,  till  their 
purchase  on  May  11, 1835;  but  the  evidence  on  this  point  being  very 
vague,  they  forbear  to  report  in  favor  of  allowing  it. 


January  19,  1848. — LETTER  TO  WILLIAM  H.  HERNDON. 

WASHINGTON,  January  19,  1848. 

Dear  William :  Inclosed  you  find  a  letter  of  Louis  W.  Chandler. 
What  is  wanted  is  that  you  shall  ascertain  whether  the  claim  upon 


11.0          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  note  described  has  received  any  dividend  in  the  Probate  Court 
of  Christian  County,  where  the  estate  of  Mr.  Overton  Williams  has 
been  administered  on.  If  nothing  is  paid  on  it,  withdraw  the  note 
and  send  it  to  me,  so  that  Chandler  can  see  the  indorser  of  it.  At 
all  events  write  me  all  about  it,  till  I  can  somehow  get  it  off  my 
hands.  I  have  already  been  bored  more  than  enough  about  it ;  not 
the  least  of  which  annoyance  is  his  cursed,  unreadable,  and  ungodly 
handwriting. 

I  have  made  a  speech,  a  copy  of  which  I  will  send  you  by  next 
mail.  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


February  1,  1848. — LETTER  TO  WILLIAM  H.  HEENDON. 

WASHINGTON,  February  1,  1848. 

Dear  William :  Your  letter  of  the  19th  ultimo  was  received  last 
night,  and  for  which  I  am  much  obliged.  The  only  thing  in  it  that 
I  wish  to  talk  to  you  at  once  about  is  that  because  of  my  vote  for 
Ashmun's  amendment  you  fear  that  you  and  I  disagree  about  the 
war.  I  regret  this,  not  because  of  any  fear  we  shall  remain  dis 
agreed  after  you  have  read  this  letter,  but  because  if  you  misunder 
stand  I  fear  other  good  friends  may  also.  That  vote  affirms  that 
the  war  was  unnecessarily  and  unconstitutionally  commenced  by 
the  President ;  and  I  will  stake  my  life  that  if  you  had  been  in  my 
place  you  would  have  voted  just  as  I  did.  Would  you  have  voted 
what  you  felt  and  knew  to  be  a  lie?  I  know  you  would  not. 
Would  you  have  gone  out  of  the  House — skulked  the  vote?  I  ex 
pect  not.  If  you  had  skulked  one  vote,  you  would  have  had  to 
skulk  many  more  before  the  end  of  the  session.  Richardson's  reso 
lutions,  introduced  before  I  made  any  move  or  gave  any  vote  upon 
the  subject,  make  the  direct  question  of  the  justice  of  the  war;  so 
that  no  man  can  be  silent  if  he  would.  You  are  compelled  to  speak ; 
and  your  only  alternative  is  to  tell  the  truth  or  a  lie.  I  cannot 
doubt  which  you  would  do. 

This  vote  has  nothing  to  do  in  determining  my  votes  on  the  ques 
tions  of  supplies.  I  have  always  intended,  and  still  intend,  to  vote 
supplies;  perhaps  not  in  the  precise  form  recommended  by  the 
President,  but  in  a  better  form  for  all  purposes,  except  Locofoco 
party  purposes.  It  is  in  this  particular  you  seem  mistaken.  The 
Locos  are  untiring  in  their  efforts  to  make  the  impression  that  all 
who  vote  supplies  or  take  part  in  the  war  do  of  necessity  approve 
the  President's  conduct  in  the  beginning  of  it ;  but  the  Whigs  have 
from  the  beginning  made  and  kept  the  distinction  between  the  two. 
In  the  very  first  act  nearly  all  the  Whigs  voted  against  the  pream 
ble  declaring  that  war  existed  by  the  act  of  Mexico ;  and  yet  nearly 
all  of  them  voted  for  the  supplies.  As  to  the  Whig  men  who  have 
participated  in  the  war,  so  far  as  they  have  spoken  in  my  hearing 
they  do  not  hesitate  to  denounce  as  unjust  the  President's  conduct 
in  the  beginning  of  the  war.  They  do  not  suppose  that  such  de 
nunciation  is  directed  by  undying  hatred  to  him,  as  "  The  Regis- 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          111 

ter  "  would  have  it  believed.  There  are  two  such  Whigs  on  this  floor 
(Colonel  Haskell  and  Major  James).  The  former  fought  as  a  colo 
nel  by  the  side  of  Colonel  Baker  at  Cerro  Gordo,  and  stands  side 
by  side  with  me  in  the  vote  that  you  seem  dissatisfied  with.  The 
latter,  the  history  of  whose  capture  with  Cassius  Clay  you  well 
know,  had  not  arrived  here  when  that  vote  was  given  j  but,  as  I  un 
derstand,  he  stands  ready  to  give  just  such  a  vote  whenever  an  oc 
casion  shall  present.  Baker,  too,  who  is  now  here,  says  the  truth  is 
undoubtedly  that  way ;  and  whenever  he  shall  speak  out,  he  will 
say  so.  Colonel  Doniphan,  too,  the  favorite  Whig  of  Missouri,  and 
who  overran  all  Northern  Mexico,  on  his  return  home  in  a  public 
speech  at  St.  Louis  condemned  the  administration  in  relation  to  the 
war,  if  I  remember.  G.  T.  M.  Davis,  who  has  been  through  almost 
the  whole  war,  declares  in  favor  of  Mr.  Clay;  from  which  I  infer 
that  he  adopts  the  sentiments  of  Mr.  Clay,  generally  at  least.  On 
the' other  hand,  I  have  heard  of  but  one  Whig  who  has  been  to  the 
war  attempting  to  justify  the  President's  conduct.  That  one  was 
Captain  Bishop,  editor  of  the  "  Charleston  Courier/'  and  a  very 
clever  fellow.  I  do  not  mean  this  letter  for  the  public,  but  for  you. 
Before  it  reaches  you,  you  will  have  seen  and  read  my  pamphlet 
speech,  and  perhaps  been  scared  anew  by  it.  After  you  get  over  your 
scare,  read  it  over  again,  sentence  by  sentence,  and  tell  me  honestly 
what  you  think  of  it.  I  condensed  all  I  could  for  fear  of  being  cut 
off  by  the  hour  rule,  and  when  I  got  through  I  had  spoken  but 
forty-five  minutes.  Yours  forever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


February  2,  1848. —  LETTER  TO  WILLIAM  H.  HERNDON. 

WASHINGTON,  Februrary  2,  1848. 

Dear  William :  I  just  take  my  pen  to  say  that  Mr.  Stephens,  of 
Georgia,  a  little,  slim,  pale-faced,  consumptive  man,  with  a  voice  like 
Logan's,  has  just  concluded  the  very  best  speech  of  an  hour's  length 
I  ever  heard.  My  old  withered  dry  eyes  are  full  of  tears  yet. 

If  he  writes  it  out  anything  like  he  delivered  it,  our  people  shall 
see  a  good  many  copies  of  it.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 
To  WILLIAM  H.  HERNDON,  Esq. 


February  15,  1848. —  LETTER  TO  WILLIAM  H.  HERNDON. 

WASHINGTON,  February  15,  1848. 

Dear  William :  Your  letter  of  the  29th  January  was  received  last 
night.  Being  exclusively  a  constitutional  argument,  I  wish  to  sub 
mit  some  reflections  upon  it  in  the  same  spirit  of  kindness  that  I 
know  actuates  you.  Let  me  first  state  what  I  understand  to  be  your 
position.  It  is  that  if  it  shall  become  necessary  to  repel  invasion, 
the  President  may;  without  violation  of  the  Constitution,  cross  the 


112          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

line  and  invade  the  territory  of  another  country,  and  that  whether 
such  necessity  exists  in  any  given  case  the  President  is  the  sole  judge. 

Before  going  further  consider  well  whether  this  is  or  is  not  your 
position.  If  it  is,  it  is  a  position  that  neither  the  President  himself, 
nor  any  friend  of  his,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  ever  taken.  Their  only 
positions  are — first,  that  the  soil  was  ours  when  the  hostilities  com 
menced  ;  and  second,  that  whether  it  was  rightfully  ours  or  not,  Con 
gress  had  annexed  it,  and  the  President  for  that  reason  was  bound  to 
defend  it ;  both  of  which  are  as  clearly  proved  to  be  false  in  fact  as 
you  can  prove  that  your  house  is  mine.  The  soil  was  not  ours,  and 
Congress  did  not  annex  or  attempt  to  annex  it.  But  to  return  to 
your  position.  Allow  the  President  to  invade  a  neighboring  nation 
whenever  he  shall  deem  it  necessary  to  repel  an  invasion,  and  you 
allow  him  to  do  so  whenever  he  may  choose  to  say  he  deems  it  ne 
cessary  for  such  purpose,  and  you  allow  him  to  make  war  at  pleasure. 
Study  to  see  if  you  can  fix  any  limit  to  his  power  in  this  respect, 
after  having  given  him  so  much  as  you  propose.  If  to-day  he  should 
choose  to  say  he  thinks  it  necessary  to  invade  Canada  to  prevent  the 
British  from  invading  us,  how  could  you  stop  him?  You  may  say  to 
him,  "  I  see  no  probability  of  the  British  invading  us  " ;  but  he  will 
say  to  you,  "  Be  silent:  I  see  it,  if  you  don't.'7 

The  provision  of  the  Constitution  giving  the  war-making  power  to 
Congress  was  dictated,  as  I  understand  it,  by  the  following  reasons: 
Kings  had  always  been  involving  and  impoverishing  their  people  in 
wars,  pretending  generally,  if  not  always,  that  the  good  of  the  people 
was  the  object.  This  our  convention  understood  to  be  the  most  op 
pressive  of  all  kingly  oppressions,  and  they  resolved  to  so  frame 
the  Constitution  that  no  one  man  should  hold  the  power  of  bringing 
this  oppression  upon  us.  But  your  view  destroys  the  whole  matter, 
and  places  our  President  where  kings  have  always  stood.  Write 
soon  again.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


February  20,  1848. —  LETTER  TO  U.  F.  LINDER. 

WASHINGTON,  February  20,  1848. 

U.  F.  Linder :  ...  In  law,  it  is  good  policy  to  never 
plead  what  you  need  not,  lest  you  oblige  yourself  to  prove  what 
you  cannot.  Reflect  on  this  well  before  you  proceed.  The  appli 
cation  I  mean  to  make  of  this  rule  is  that  you  should  simply  go 
for  General  Taylor,  because  you  can  take  some  Democrats  and  lose 
no  Whigs ;  but  if  you  go  also  for  Mr.  Polk,  on  the  origin  and  mode 
of  prosecuting  the  war,  you  will  still  take  some  Democrats,  but  you 
will  lose  more  Whigs;  so  that  in  the  sum  of  the  operation,  you  will 
be  the  loser.  This  is  at  least  my  opinion;  and  if  you  will  look 
around,  I  doubt  if  you  do  not  discover  such  to  be  the  fact  among 
your  own  neighbors.  Further  than  this  :  by  justifying  Mr.  Polk's 
mode  of  prosecuting  the  war,  you  put  yourself  in  opposition  to 
General  Taylor  himself,  for  we  all  know  he  has  declared  for,  and  in 
fact  originated,  the  defensive  line  of  policy. 


ADDKESSES    AND    LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          113 


March  9,  1848. —  REPORT  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  from  the  Committee  on  the  Post-Office  and  Post 
Roads,  made  the  following  report : 

The  Committee  on  the  Post- Office  and  Post  Roads,  to  whom  was 
referred  the  resolution  of  the  House  of  Representatives  entitled 
"  An  Act  authorizing  Postmasters  at  county  seats  of  justice  to  re 
ceive  subscriptions  for  newspapers  and  periodicals,  to  be  paid 
through  the  agency  of  the  Post-Office  Department,  and  for  other 
purposes,"  beg  leave  to  submit  the  following  report : 

The  committee  have  reason  to  believe  that  a  general  wish  per 
vades  the  community  at  large,  that  some  such  facility  as  the  pro 
posed  measure  should  be  granted  by  express  law,  for  subscribing, 
through  the  agency  of  the  Post-Office  Department,  to  newspapers 
and  periodicals  which  diffuse  daily,  weekly,  or  monthly  intelligence 
of  passing  events.  Compliance  with  this  general  wish  is  deemed 
to  be  in  accordance  with  our  republican  institutions,  which  can 
be  best  sustained  by  the  diffusion  of  knowledge  and  the  due  en 
couragement  of  a  universal,  national  spirit  of  inquiry  and  discus 
sion  of  public  events  through  the  medium  of  the  public  press. 
The  committee,  however,  has  not  been  insensible  to  its  duty  of 
guarding  the  Post-Office  Department  against  injurious  sacrifices 
for  the  accomplishment  of  this  object,  whereby  its  ordinary  efficacy 
might  be  impaired  or  embarrassed.  It  has  therefore  been  a  subject 
of  much  consideration;  but  it  is  now  confidently  hoped  that  the 
bill  herewith  submitted  effectually  obviates  all  objections  which 
might  exist  with  regard  to  a  less  matured  proposition. 

The  committee  learned,  upon  inquiry,  that  the  Post-Office  Depart 
ment,  in  view  of  meeting  the  general  wish  on  this  subject,  made  the 
experiment  through  one  of  its  own  internal  regulations,  when  the 
new  postage  system  went  into  operation  on  the  first  of  July,  1845, 
and  that  it  was  continued  until  the  thirtieth  of  September,  1847. 
But  this  experiment,  for  reasons  hereafter  stated,  proved  unsatisfac 
tory,  and  it  was  discontinued  by  order  of  the  Postmaster-General. 
As  far  as  the  committee  can  at  present  ascertain,  the  following 
seem  to  have  been  the  principal  grounds  of  dissatisfaction  in  this 
experiment : 

(1)  The  legal  responsibility  of  postmasters  receiving  newspaper 
subscriptions,  or  of  their  sureties,  was  not  defined. 

(2)  The  authority  was  open  to  all  postmasters  instead  of  being 
limited  to  those  of  specific  offices. 

(3)  The  consequence  of  this  extension  of  authority  was  that,  in 
innumerable  instances,  the  money,  without  the  previous  knowledge 
or  control  of  the  officers  of  the  department  who  are  responsible  for 
the  good  management  of  its  finances,  was  deposited  in  offices  where 
it  was  improper  such  funds  should  be  placed ;  and  the  repayment 
was  ordered,  not  by  the  financial  officers,  but  by  the  postmasters, 
at  points  where  it  was  inconvenient  to  the  department  so  to  disburse 
its  funds. 

VOL.  I.— 8. 


114          ADDRESSES    AND   LETTEKS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

(4)  The  inconvenience  of  accumulating  uncertain  and  fluctuating 
sums  at  small  offices  was  felt  seriously  in  consequent  overpayments 
to  contractors  on  their  quarterly  collecting  orders  j  and,  in  case  of 
private  mail  routes,  in  litigation  concerning  the  misapplication  of 
such  funds  to  the  special  service  of  supplying  mails. 

(5)  The  accumulation  of  such  funds  on  draft  offices  could  not  "be 
known  to  the  financial  clerks  of  the  department  in  time  to  control  it, 
and  too  often  this  rendered  uncertain  all  their  calculations  of  funds 
in  hand. 

(6)  The  orders  of  payment  were  for  the  most  part  issued  upon 
the  principal  offices,  such  as  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Boston,  Balti 
more,  etc.,  where  the  large  offices  of  publishers  are  located,  causing 
an  illimitable  and  uncontrollable  drain  of  the  department  funds 
from  those  points  where  it  was  essential  to  husband  them  for  its 
own  regular  disbursements.     In  Philadelphia  alone  this  drain  aver 
aged  $5000  per  quarter ;  and  in  other  cities  of  the  seaboard  it  was 
proportionate. 

(7)  The  embarrassment  of  the  department  was  increased  by  the 
illimitable,  uncontrollable,  and  irresponsible  scattering  of  its  funds 
from  concentrated  points  suitable  for  its  distributions,  to  remote, 
unsafe,  and  inconvenient  offices,  where  they  could  not  be  again 
made  available  till  collected  by  special  agents,  or  were  transferred 
at  considerable  expense  into  the  principal  disbursing  offices  again. 

(8)  There  was  a  vast  increase  of  duties  thrown  upon  the  limited 
force  before  necessary  to  conduct  the  business  of  the  department ;. 
and  from  the  delay  of  obtaining  vouchers  impediments  arose  to  the 
speedy  settlement  of  accounts  with  present  or  retired  postmasters, 
causing  postponements  which  endangered  the  liability  of  sureties 
under  the  act  of  limitations,  and  causing  much  danger  of  an  increase 
of  such  cases. 

(9)  The  most  responsible  postmasters  (at  the  large  offices)  were 
ordered  by  the  least  responsible  (at  small  offices)  to  make  payments 
upon  their  vouchers,  without  having  the  means   of  ascertaining 
whether  these  vouchers  were   genuine  or  forged,  or  if  genuine, 
whether  the  signers  were  in  or  out  of  office,  or  solvent  or  defaulters. 

(10)  The  transaction  of  this  business  for  subscribers  and  publish 
ers  at  the  public  expense,  and  the  embarrassment,  inconvenience, 
and  delay  of  the  department's  own  business  occasioned  by  it,  were 
not  justified  by  any  sufficient  remuneration  of  revenue  to  sustain 
the  department,  as  required  in  every  other  respect  with  regard  to 
its  agency. 

The  committee,  in  view  of  these  objections,  has  been  solicitous  to 
frame  a  bill  which  would  not  be  obnoxious  to  them  in  principle  or 
in  practical  effect. 

It  is  confidently  believed  that  by  limiting  the  offices  for  receiv 
ing  subscriptions  to  less  than  one  tenth  of  the  number  authorized 
by  the  experiment  already  tried,  and  designating  the  county  seat  in 
each  county  for  the  purpose,  the  control  of  the  department  will  be 
rendered  satisfactory ;  particularly  as  it  will  be  in  the  power  of  the 
Auditor,  who  is  the  officer  required  by  law  to  check  the  accounts,  to 
approve  or  disapprove  of  the  deposits,  and  to  sanction  not  only  the 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          115 

payment,  but  to  point  out  the  place  of  payment.  If  these  payments 
should  cause  a  drain  on  the  principal  offices  of  the  seaboard,  it  will 
be  compensated  by  the  accumulation  of  funds  at  county  seats,  where 
the  contractors  on  those  routes  can  be  paid  to  that  extent  by  the  de 
partment's  drafts,  with  more  local  convenience  to  themselves  than 
by  drafts  on  the  seaboard  offices. 

The  legal  responsibility  for  these  deposits  is  denned,  and  the  ac 
cumulation  of  funds  at  the  point  of  deposit,  and  the  repayment  at 
points  drawn  upon,  being  known  to  and  controlled  by  the  Auditor, 
will  not  occasion  any  such  embarrassments  as  were  before  felt ;  the 
record  kept  by  the  Auditor  on  the  passing  of  the  certificates  through 
his  hands  will  enable  him  to  settle  accounts  without  the  delay  occa 
sioned  by  vouchers  being  withheld  j  all  doubt  or  uncertainty  as  to 
the  genuineness  of  certificates,  or  the  propriety  of  their  issue,  will  be 
removed  by  the  Auditor's  examination  and  approval ;  and  there  can 
be  no  risk  of  loss  of  funds  by  transmission,  as  the  certificate  will 
not  be  payable  till  sanctioned  by  the  Auditor,  and  after  his  sanction 
the  payor  need  not  pay  it  unless  it  is  presented  by  the  publisher  or 
his  known  clerk  or  agent. 

The  main  principle  of  equivalent  for  the  agency  of  the  depart 
ment  is  secured  by  the  postage  required  to  be  paid  upon  the  trans 
mission  of  the  certificates,  augmenting  adequately  the  post-office 
revenue. 

The  committee,  conceiving  that  in  this  report  all  the  difficulties 
of  the  subject  have  been  fully  and  fairly  stated,  and  that  these  diffi 
culties  have  been  obviated  by  the  plan  proposed  in  the  accompany 
ing  bill,  and  believing  that  the  measure  will  satisfactorily  meet  the 
wants  and  wishes  of  a  very  large  portion  of  the  community,  beg  leave 
to  recommend  its  adoption. 


March  9,  1848. —  REPORT  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  from  the  Committee  on  the  Post-Office  and  Post 
Roads,  made  the  following  report : 

The  Committee  on  the  Post-Office  and  Post  Roads,  to  whom  was 
referred  the  petition  of  H.  M.  Barney,  postmaster  at  Brimfield,  Peo- 
ria  County,  Illinois,  report :  That  they  have  been  satisfied  by  evi 
dence,  that  on  the  15th  of  December,  1847,  said  petitioner  had  his 
store,  with  some  fifteen  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  goods,  together 
with  all  the  papers  of  the  post-office,  entirely  destroyed  by  fire ;  and 
that  the  specie  funds  of  the  office  were  melted  down,  partially  lost 
and  partially  destroyed ;  that  his  large  individual  loss  entirely  pre 
cludes  the  idea  of  embezzlement ;  that  the  balances  due  the  depart 
ment  of  former  quarters  had  been  only  about  twenty-five  dollars ; 
and  that  owing  to  the  destruction  of  papers,  the  exact  amount  due 
for  the  quarter  ending  December  31,  1847,  cannot  be  ascertained. 
They  therefore  report  a  joint  resolution,  releasing  said  petitioner 
from  paying  anything  for  the  quarter  last  mentioned. 


116          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

March  24,  1848. — LETTER  TO  DAVID  LINCOLN. 

WASHINGTON,  March  24,  1848. 
MR.  DAVID  LINCOLN. 

Dear  Sir :  Your  very  worthy  representative,  Gov.  McDowell,  has 
given  me  your  name  and  address,  and  as  my  father  was  born  in 
Rockingham,  from  whence  his  father,  Abraham  Lincoln,  emigrated 
to  Kentucky  about  the  year  1782,  I  have  concluded  to  address  you 
to  ascertain  whether  we  are  not  of  the  same  family.  I  shall  be 
much  obliged  if  you  will  write  me,  telling  me  whether  you  in  any 
way  know  anything  of  my  grandfather,  what  relation  you  are  to  him, 
and  so  on.  Also,  if  you  know  where  your  family  came  from  when 
they  settled  in  Virginia,  tracing  them  back  as  far  as  your  knowledge 
extends.  Very  respectfully, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


March  29,  1848. — REMARKS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

The  bill  for  raising  additional  military  force  for  limited  time,  etc., 
was  reported  from  Committee  on  Judiciary  ;  similar  bills  had  been 
reported  from  Committee  on  Public  Lands  and  Military  Committee. 

Mr.  Lincoln  said  if  there  was  a  general  desire  on  the  part  of  the 
House  to  pass  the  bill  now  he  should  be  glad  to  have  it  done — con 
curring,  as  he  did  generally,  with  the  gentleman  from  Arkansas 
[Mr.  Johnson]  that  the  postponement  might  jeopard  the  safety  of 
the  proposition.  If,  however,  a  reference  was  to  be  made,  he  wished 
to  make  a  very  few  remarks  in  relation  to  the  several  subjects  desired 
by  the  gentlemen  to  be  embraced  in  amendments  to  the  ninth  section 
of  the  act  of  the  last  session  of  Congress.  The  first  amendment  de 
sired  by  members  of  this  House  had  for  its  only  object  to  give  bounty 
lands  to  such  persons  as  had  served  for  a  time  as  privates,  but  had 
never  been  discharged  as  such,  because  promoted  to  office.  That 
subject,  and  no  other,  was  embraced  in  this  bill.  There  were  some 
others  who  desired,  while  they  were  legislating  on  this  subject,  that 
they  should  also  give  bounty  lands  to  the  volunteers  of  the  War  of 
1812.  His  friend  from  Maryland  said  there  were  no  such  men.  He 
[Mr.  L.]  did  not  say  there  were  many,  but  he  was  very  confident 
there  were  some.  His  friend  from  Kentucky  near  him  [Mr.  Gaines] 
told  him  he  himself  was  one. 

There  was  still  another  proposition  touching  this  matter ;  that 
was,  that  persons  entitled  to  bounty  land  should  by  law  be  entitled 
to  locate  these  lands  in  parcels,  and  not  be  required  to  locate  them 
in  one  body,  as  was  provided  by  the  existing  law. 

Now  he  had  carefully  drawn  up  a  bill  embracing  these  three  sepa 
rate  propositions,  which  he  intended  to  propose  as  a  substitute  for 
all  these  bills  in  the  House,  or  in  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the 
State  of  the  Union,  at  some  suitable  time.  If  there  was  a  disposition 
on  the  part  of  the  House  to  act  at  once  on  this  separate  proposition, 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          117 

he  repeated  that,  with  the  gentlemen  from  Arkansas,  he  should  pre 
fer  it  lest  they  should  lose  all.  But  if  there  was  to  be  a  reference, 
he  desired  to  introduce  his  bill  embracing  the  three  propositions, 
thus  enabling  the  Committee  and  the  House  to  act  at  the  same  time, 
whether  favorably  or  unfavorably,  upon  all.  He  inquired  whether 
an  amendment  was  now  in  order. 
The  Speaker  replied  in  the  negative. 


April  2,  1848. —  LETTER  TO  DAVID  LINCOLN. 

WASHINGTON,  April  2,  1848. 

Dear  Sir :  Last  evening  I  was  much  gratified  by  receiving  and 
reading  your  letter  of  the  30th  of  March.  There  is  no  longer  any 
doubt  that  your  uncle  Abraham  and  my  grandfather  was  the  same 
man.  His  family  did  reside  in  Washington  County,  Kentucky,  just 
as  you  say  you  found  them  in  1801  or  1802.  The  oldest  son,  Uncle 
Mordecai,  near  twenty  years  ago  removed  from  Kentucky  to  Han 
cock  County,  Illinois,  where  within  a  year  or  two  afterward  he  died, 
and  where  his  surviving  children  now  live.  His  two  sons  there  now 
are  Abraham  and  Mordecai ;  and  their  post-office  is  "  La  Harpe." 
Uncle  Josiah,  farther  back  than  my  recollection,  went  from  Ken 
tucky  to  Blue  River  in  Indiana.  I  have  not  heard  from  him  in  a 
great  many  years,  and  whether  he  is  still  living  I  cannot  say.  My 
recollection  of  what  I  have  heard  is  that  he  has  several  daughters 
and  only  one  son,  Thomas  —  their  post-office  is  "Coryden,  Harrison 
County,  Indiana."  My  father,  Thomas,  is  still  living,  in  Coles 
County,  Illinois,  being  in  the  seventy-first  year  of  his  age  —  his 
post-office  is  " Charleston,  Coles  County,  Illinois"  —  I  am  his  only 
child.  I  am  now  in  my  fortieth  year:  and  I  live  in  Springfield, 
Sangamon  County,  Illinois.  This  is  the  outline  of  my  grandfa 
ther's  family  in  the  West. 

I  think  my  father  has  told  me  that  grandfather  had  four  brothers 
—  Isaac,  Jacob,  John,  and  Thomas.  Is  that  correct?  And  which 
of  them  was  your  father  ?  Are  any  of  them  alive  ?  I  am  quite  sure 
that  Isaac  resided  on  Watauga,  near  a  point  where  Virginia  and  Ten 
nessee  join  ;  and  that  he  has  been  dead  more  than  twenty,  perhaps 
thirty,  years  ;  also  that  Thomas  removed  to  Kentucky,  near  Lexing 
ton,  where  he  died  a  good  while  ago. 

What  was  your  grandfather's  Christian  name?  Was  he  not  a 
Quaker  ?  About  what  time  did  he  emigrate  from  Berks  County, 
Pennsylvania,  to  Virginia  ?  Do  you  know  anything  of  your  family 
(or  rather  I  may  now  say  our  family),  farther  back  than  your 
grandfather  ? 

If  it  be  not  too  much  trouble  to  you,  I  shall  be  much  pleased  to 
hear  from  you  again.  Be  assured  1  will  call  on  you,  should  any 
thing  ever  bring  me  near  you.  I  shall  give  your  respects  to  Gov 
ernor  McDowell  as  you  desire.  Very  truly  yours, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


118          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 


April  30,  1848. — LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBUENE. 

WASHINGTON,  April  30, 1848. 

Dear  Washburne :  I  have  this  moment  received  your  very  short 
note  asking  me  if  old  Taylor  is  to  be  used  up,  and  who  will  be  the 
nominee.  My  hope  of  Taylor's  nomination  is  as  high — a  little 
higher  than  it  was  when  you  left.  Still,  the  case  is  by  no  means 
out  of  doubt.  Mr.  Clay's  letter  has  not  advanced  his  interests  any 
here.  Several  who  were  against  Taylor,  but  not  for  anybody  par 
ticularly,  before,  are  since  taking  ground,  some  for  Scott  and  some 
for  McLean.  Who  will  be  nominated  neither  I  nor  any  one  else 
can  tell.  Now,  let  me  pray  to  you  in  turn.  My  prayer  is  that  you 
let  nothing  discourage  or  baffle  you,  but  that,  in  spite  of  every  diffi 
culty,  you  send  us  a  good  Taylor  delegate  from  your  circuit.  Make 
Baker,  who  is  now  with  you,  I  suppose,  help  about  it.  He  is  a  good 
hand  to  raise  a  breeze. 

General  Ashley,  in  the  Senate  from  Arkansas,  died  yesterday. 
Nothing  else  new  beyond  what  you  see  in  the  papers. 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


April  30,  1848. — LETTER  TO  ARCHIBALD  WILLIAMS. 

WASHINGTON,  April  30,  1848. 

Dear  Williams :  I  have  not  seen  in  the  papers  any  evidence  of  a 
movement  to  send  a  delegate  from  your  circuit  to  the  June  conven 
tion.  I  wish  to  say  that  I  think  it  all-important  that  a  delegate 
should  be  sent.  Mr.  Clay's  chance  for  an  election  is  just  no  chance 
at  all.  He  might  get  New  York,  and  that  would  have  elected  in 
1844,  but  it  will  not  now,  because  he  must  now,  at  the  least,  lose 
Tennessee,  which  he  had  then,  and  in  addition  the  fifteen  new  votes 
of  Florida,  Texas,  Iowa,  and  Wisconsin.  I  know  our  good  friend 
Browning  is  a  great  admirer  of  Mr.  Clay,  and  I  therefore  fear  he  is 
favoring  his  nomination.  If  he  is,  ask  him  to  discard  feeling,  and 
try  if  he  can  possibly,  as  a  matter  of  judgment,  count  the  votes  ne 
cessary  to  elect  him. 

In  my  judgment  we  can  elect  nobody  but  General  Taylor ;  and  we 
cannot  elect  him  without  a  nomination.  Therefore  don't  fail  to  send 
a  delegate.  Your  friend  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


May  11,  1848. — REMARKS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

A  bill  for  the  admission  of  Wisconsin  into  the  Union  had  been 
passed. 

Mr.  Lincoln  moved  to  reconsider  the  vote  by  which  the  bill  was 
passed.  He  stated  to  the  House  that  he  had  made  this  motion  for 
the  purpose  of  obtaining  an  opportunity  to  say  a  few  words  in  rela- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          119 

tion  to  a  point  raised  in  the  course  of  the  debate  on  this  bill,  which 
he  would  now  proceed  to  make  if  in  order.  The  point  in  the  case 
to  which  he  referred  arose  on  the  amendment  that  was  submitted 
by  the  gentleman  from  Vermont  [Mr.  Collamer]  in  Committee  of 
the  Whole  on  the  state  of  the  Union,  and  which  was  afterward  re 
newed  in  the  House,  in  relation  to  the  question  whether  the  reserved 
sections,  which,  by  some  bills  heretofore  passed,  by  which  an  appro 
priation  of  land  had  been  made  to  Wisconsin,  had  been  enhanced  in 
value,  should  be  reduced  to  the  minimum  price  of  the  public  lands. 
The  question  of  the  reduction  in  value  of  those  sections  was  to  him 
at  this  time  a  matter  very  nearly  of  indifference.  He  was  inclined 
to  desire  that  Wisconsin  should  be  obliged  by  having  it  reduced. 
But  the  gentleman  from  Indiana  [Mr.  C.  B.  Smith],  the  chairman  of 
the  Committee  on  Territories,  yesterday  associated  that  question 
with  the  general  question,  which  is  now  to  some  extent  agitated  in 
Congress,  of  making  appropriations  of  alternate  sections  of  land  to 
aid  the  States  in  making  internal  improvements,  and  enhancing  the 
price  of  the  sections  reserved;  and  the  gentleman  from  Indiana  took 
ground  against  that  policy.  He  did  not  make  any  special  argument 
in  favor  of  Wisconsin,  but  he  took  ground  generally  against  the 
policy  of  giving  alternate  sections  of  land,  and  enhancing  the  price 
of  the  reserved  sections.  Now  he  [Mr.  Lincoln]  did  not  at  this  time 
take  the  floor  for  the  purpose  of  attempting  to  make  an  argument 
on  the  general  subject.  He  rose  simply  to  protest  against  the  doc 
trine  which  the  gentleman  from  Indiana  had  avowed  in  the  course  of 
what  he  [Mr.  Lincoln]  could  not  but  consider  an  unsound  argument. 

It  might,  however,  be  true,  for  anything  he  knew,  that  the  gentle 
man  from  Indiana  might  convince  him  that  his  argument  was  sound ; 
but  he  [Mr.  Lincoln]  feared  that  gentleman  would  not  be  able  to 
convince  a  majority  in  Congress  that  it  was  sound.  It  was  true  the 
question  appeared  in  a  different  aspect  to  persons  inconsequence  of 
a  difference  in  the  point  from  which  they  looked  at  it.  It  did  not 
look  to  persons  residing  east  of  the  mountains  as  it  did  to  those  who 
lived  among  the  public  lands.  But,  for  his  part,  he  would  state  that 
if  Congress  would  make  a  donation  of  alternate  sections  of  public 
land  for  the  purpose  of  internal  improvements  in  his  State,  and  for 
bid  the  reserved  sections  being  sold  at  $1.25,  he  should  be  glad  to  see 
the  appropriation  made ;  though  he  should  prefer  it  if  the  reserved 
sections  were  not  enhanced  in  price.  He  repeated,  he  should  be  glad 
to  have  such  appropriations  made,  even  though  the  reserved  sections 
should  be  enhanced  in  price.  He  did  not  wish  to  be  understood  as 
concurring  in  any  intimation  that  they  would  refuse  to  receive  such 
an  appropriation  of  alternate  sections  of  land  because  a  condition 
enhancing  the  price  of  the  reserved  sections  should  be  attached 
thereto.  He  believed  his  position  would  now  be  understood ;  if  not, 
he  feared  he  should  not  be  able  to  make  himself  understood. 

But,  before  he  took  his  seat  he  would  remark  that  the  Senate 
during  the  present  session  had  passed  a  bill  making  appropriations 
of  land  on  that  principle  for  the  benefit  of  the  State  in  which  he  re 
sided — the  State  of  Illinois.  The  alternate  sections  were  to  be  given 
for  the  purpose  of  constructing  roads,  and  the  reserved  sections  were 


120         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

to  be  enhanced  in  value  in  consequence.  When  that  bill  came  here 
for  the  action  of  this  House — it  had  been  received,  and  was  now  be 
fore  the  Committee  on  Public  Lands — he  desired  much  to  see  it 
passed  as  it  was,  if  it  could  be  put  in  no  more  favorable  form  for  the 
State  of  Illinois.  When  it  should  be  before  this  House,  if  any  mem 
ber  from  a  section  of  the  Union  in  which  these  lands  did  not  lie, 
whose  interest  might  be  less  than  that  which  he  felt,  should  propose 
a  reduction  of  the  price  of  the  reserved  sections  to  $1.25,  he  should 
be  much  obliged;  but  he  did  not  think  it  would  be  well  for  those 
who  came  from  the  section  of  the  Union  in  which  the  lands  lay  to 
do  so.  He  wished  it,  then,  to  be  understood  that  he  did  not  join  in 
the  warfare  against  the  principle  which  had  engaged  the  minds  of 
some  members  of  Congress  who  were  favorable  to  the  improvements 
in  the  western  country. 

There  was  a  good  deal  of  force,  he  admitted,  in  what  fell  from  the 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Territories.  It  might  be  that  there 
was  no  precise  justice  in  raising  the  price  of  the  reserved  sections  to 
$2.50  per  acre.  It  might  be  proper  that  the  price  should  be  enhanced 
to  some  extent,  though  not  to  double  the  usual  price ;  but  he  should 
be  glad  to  have  such  an  appropriation  with  the  reserved  sections  at 
$2.50;  he  should  be  better  pleased  to  have  the  price  of  those  sections 
at  something  less  ;  and  he  should  be  still  better  pleased  to  have  them 
without  any  enhancement  at  all. 

There  was  one  portion  of  the  argument  of  the  gentleman  from 
Indiana,  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Territories  [Mr.  Smith], 
which  he  wished  to  take  occasion  to  say  that  he  did  not  view  as  un 
sound.  He  alluded  to  the  statement  that  the  General  Government 
was  interested  in  these  internal  improvements  being  made,  inasmuch 
as  they  increased  the  value  of  the  lands  that  were  unsold,  and  they 
enabled  the  government  to  sell  the  lands  which  could  not  be  sold 
without  them.  Thus,  then,  the  government  gained  by  internal  im 
provements  as  well  as  by  the  general  good  which  the  people  derived 
from  them,  and  it  might  be,  therefore,  that  the  lands  should  not  be 
sold  for  more  than  $1.50  instead  of  the  price  being  doubled.  He, 
however,  merely  mentioned  this  in  passing,  for  he  only  rose  to  state, 
as  the  principle  of  giving  these  lands  for  the  purposes  which  he  had 
mentioned  had  been  laid  hold  of  and  considered  favorably,  and  as 
there  were  some  gentlemen  who  had  constitutional  scruples  about 
giving  money  for  these  purchases  who  would  not  hesitate  to  give 
land,  that  he  was  not  willing  to  have  it  understood  that  he  was  one 
of  those  who  made  war  against  that  principle.  This  was  all  he  de 
sired  to  say,  and  having  accomplished  the  object  with  which  he  rose., 
he  withdrew  his  motion  to  reconsider. 


May  21,  1848. — LETTER  TO  REV.  J.  M.  PECK. 

WASHINGTON,  May  21,  1848. 
REV.  J.  M.  PECK. 

Dear  Sir:  On  last  evening  I  received  a  copy  of  the  "  Belleville  Ad 
vocate/'  with  the  appearance  of  having  been  sent  by  a  private  hand^ 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          121 

and  inasmuch  as  it  contained  your  oration  on  the  occasion  of  the 
celebrating  of  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista,  and  is  post-marked  at  Rock 
Spring,  I  cannot  doubt  that  it  is  to  you  I  am  indebted  for  this 
courtesy. 

I  own  that  finding  in  the  oration  a  labored  justification  of  the 
administration  on  the  origin  of  the  Mexican  war  disappointed  me, 
because  it  is  the  first  effort  of  the  kind  I  have  known  made  by  one 
appearing  to  me  to  be  intelligent,  right-minded,  and  impartial.  It 
is  this  disappointment  that  prompts  me  to  address  you  briefly  on 
the  subject.  I  do  not  propose  any  extended  review.  I  do  not  quar 
rel  with  facts — brief  exhibition  of  facts.  I  presume  it  is  correct  so 
far  as  it  goes ;  but  it  is  so  brief  as  to  exclude  some  facts  quite  as 
material  in  my  judgment  to  a  just  conclusion  as  any  it  includes. 
For  instance,  you  say,  "Paredes  came  into  power  the  last  of  Decem 
ber,  1845,  and  from  that  moment  all  hopes  of  avoiding  war  by  nego 
tiation  vanished."  A  little  further  on,  referring  to  this  and  other 
preceding  statements,  you  say,  "All  this  transpired  three  months 
before  General  Taylor  marched  across  the  desert  of  Nueces."  These 
two  statements  are  substantially  correct ;  and  you  evidently  intend 
to  have  it  inferred  that  General  Taylor  was  sent  across  the  desert  in 
consequence  of  the  destruction  of  all  hopes  of  peace,  in  the  overthrow 
of  Herara  by  Paredes.  Is  not  that  the  inference  you  intend?  If 
so,  the  material  fact  you  have  excluded  is  that  General  Taylor  was 
ordered  to  cross  the  desert  on  the  13th  of  January,  1846,  and  be 
fore  the  news  of  Herara's  fall  reached  Washington — before  the 
administration  which  gave  the  order  had  any  knowledge  that  Herara 
had  fallen.  Does  not  this  fact  cut  up  your  inference  by  the  roots  ? 
Must  you  not  find  some  other  excuse  for  that  order,  or  give  up  the 
case J?  All  that  part  of  the  three  months  you  speak  of  which  trans 
pired  after  the  13th  of  January,  was  expended  in  the  orders  going 
from  Washington  to  General  Taylor,  in  his  preparations  for  the 
march,  and  in  the  actual  march  across  the  desert,  and  not  in  the 
President's  waiting  to  hear  the  knell  of  peace  in  the  fall  of  Herara, 
or  for  any  other  object.  All  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  very  docu 
ments  you  seem  to  have  used. 

One  other  thing.  Although  you  say  at  one  point  "  I  shall  briefly 
exhibit  facts,  and  leave  each  person  to  perceive  the  just  application 
of  the  principles  already  laid  down  to  the  case  in  hand,"  you  very 
soon  get  to  making  applications  yourself, — in  one  instance  as  fol 
lows  :  "  In  view  of  all  the  facts,  the  conviction  to  my  mind  is  irre 
sistible  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States  committed  no 
aggression  on  Mexico."  Not  in  view  of  all  the  facts.  There  are 
facts  which  you  have  kept  out  of  view.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  United 
States  army  in  marching  to  the  Rio  Grande  marched  into  a  peace 
ful  Mexican  settlement,  and  frightened  the  inhabitants  away  from 
their  homes  and  their  growing  crops.  It  is  a  fact  that  Fort  Brown, 
opposite  Matamoras,  was  built  by  that  army  within  a  Mexican  cot 
ton-field,  on  which  at  the  time  the  army  reached  it  a  young  cotton 
crop  was  growing,  and  which  crop  wa*s  wholly  destroyed  and  the 
field  itself  greatly  and  permanently  injured  by  ditches,  embank 
ments,  and  the  like.  It  is  a  fact  that  when  the  Mexicans  captured 


122          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Captain  Thornton  and  his  command,  they  found  and  captured  them 
within  another  Mexican  field. 

Now  I  wish  to  bring  these  facts  to  your  notice,  and  to  ascertain 
what  is  the  result  of  your  reflections  upon  them.  If  you  deny  that 
they  are  facts,  I  think  I  can  furnish  proof  which  shall  convince  you 
that  you  are  mistaken.  If  you  admit  that  they  are  facts,  then  I 
shall  be  obliged  for  a  reference  to  any  law  of  language,  law  of  States, 
law  of  nations,  law  of  morals,  law  of  religions,  any  law,  human  or 
divine,  in  which  an  authority  can  be  found  for  saying  those  facts 
constitute  "no  aggression.'7 

Possibly  you  consider  those  acts  too  small  for  notice.  Would  you 
venture  to  so  consider  them  had  they  been  committed  by  any  nation 
on  earth  against  the  humblest  of  our  people  ?  I  know  you  would  not. 
Then  I  ask,  is  the  precept  "  Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should 
do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them  "  obsolete  f  of  no  force  ?  of  no  ap 
plication  ? 

I  shall  be  pleased  if  you  can  find  leisure  to  write  me. 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


June  12,  1848. — LETTER  TO  ARCHIBALD  WILLIAMS. 

WASHINGTON,  June  12,  1848. 

Dear  Williams :  On  my  return  from  Philadelphia,  where  I  had 
been  attending  the  nomination  of  "  Old  Rough,"  I  found  your  letter 
in  a  mass  of  others  which  had  accumulated  in  my  absence.  By 
many,  and  often,  it  had  been  said  they  would  not  abide  the  nomina 
tion  of  Taylor ;  but  since  the  deed  has  been  done,  they  are  fast  fall 
ing  in,  and  in  my  opinion  we  shall  have  a  most  overwhelming, 
glorious  triumph.  One  unmistakable  sign  is  that  all  the  odds  and 
ends  are  with  us — Barnburners,  Native  Americans,  Tyler  men,  dis 
appointed  office-seeking  Locof  ocos,  and  the  Lord  knows  what.  This 
is  important,  if  in  nothing  else,  in  showing  which  way  the  wind 
blows.  Some  of  the  sanguine  men  have  set  down  all  the  States  as 
certain  for  Taylor  but  Illinois,  and  it  as  doubtful.  Cannot  some 
thing  be  done  even  in  Illinois  ?  Taylor's  nomination  takes  the  Lo 
cos  on  the  blind  side.  It  turns  the  war  thunder  against  them.  The 
war  is  now  to  them  the  gallows  of  Haman,  which  they  built  for  us, 
and  on  which  they  are  doomed  to  be  hanged  themselves. 

Excuse  this  short  letter.  I  have  so  many  to  write  that  I  cannot 
devote  much  time  to  any  one.  Yours,  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


June  20,  1848. —  SPEECH  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

In  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the  State  of  the  Union,  on  the 
Civil  and  Diplomatic  Appropriation  Bill: 

Mr.  Chairman :  I  wish  at  all  times  in  no  way  to  practise  any 
fraud  upon  the  House  or  the  committee,  and  I  also  desire  to  do 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          123 

nothing  which  may  be  very  disagreeable  to  any  of  the  members.  I 
therefore  state  in*  advance  that  my  object  in  taking  the  floor  is 
to  make  a  speech  on  the  general  subject  of  internal  improvements ; 
and  if  I  am  out  of  order  in  doing  so,  I  give  the  chair  an  oppor 
tunity  of  so  deciding,  and  I  will  take  my  seat. 

The  Chair:  I  will  not  undertake  to  anticipate  what  the  gentle 
man  may  say  on  the  subject  of  internal  improvements.  He  will, 
therefore,  proceed  in  his  remarks,  and  if  any  question  of  order 
shall  be  made,  the  chair  will  then  decide  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln :  At  an  early  day  of  this  session  the  President  sent 
us  what  may  properly  be  called  an  internal  improvement  veto 
message.  The  late  Democratic  convention,  which  sat  at  Baltimore, 
and  which  nominated  General  Cass  for  the  presidency,  adopted  a 
set  of  resolutions,  now  called  the  Democratic  platform,  among 
which  is  one  in  these  words: 

That  the  Constitution  does  not  confer  upon  the  General  Government 
the  power  to  commence  and  carry  on  a  general  system  of  internal  im 
provements. 

General  Cass,  in  his  letter  accepting  the  nomination,  holds  this 
language : 

I  have  carefully  read  the  resolutions  of  the  Democratic  National  Con 
vention,  laying  down  the  platform  of  our  political  faith,  and  I  adhere  to 
them  as  firmly  as  I  approve  them  cordially. 

These  things,  taken  together,  show  that  the  question  of  inter 
nal  improvements  is  now  more  distinctly  made — has  become  more 
intense — than  at  any  former  period.  The  veto  message  and  the 
Baltimore  resolution  I  understand  to  be,  in  substance,  the  same 
thing;  the  latter  being  the  more  general  statement,  of  which  the 
former  is  the  amplification — the  bill  of  particulars.  While  I  know 
there  are  many  Democrats,  on  this  floor  and  elsewhere,  who  dis 
approve  that  message,  I  understand  that  all  who  shall  vote  for 
General  Cass  will  thereafter  be  counted  as  having  approved  it, — 
as  having  indorsed  all  its  doctrines.  I  suppose  all,  or  nearly  all, 
the  Democrats  will  vote  for  him.  Many  of  them  will  do  so  not 
because  they  like  his  position  on  this  question,  but  because  they 
prefer  him,  being  wrong  on  this,  to  another  whom  they  consider 
farther  wrong  on  other  questions.  In  this  way  the  internal  im 
provement  Democrats  are  to  be,  by  a  sort  of  forced  consent,  carried 
over  and  arrayed  against  themselves  on  this  measure  of  policy. 
General  Cass,  once  elected,  will  not  trouble  himself  to  make  a 
constitutional  argument,  or  perhaps  any  argument  at  all,  when  he 
shall  veto  a  river  or  harbor  bill;  he  will  consider  it  a  sufficient 
answer  to  all  Democratic  murmurs  to  point  to  Mr.  Folk's  message, 
and  to  the  "  Democratic  Platform."  This  being  the  case,  the  ques 
tion  of  improvements  is  verging  to  a  final  crisis ;  and  the  friends 
of  this  policy  must  now  battle,  and  battle  manfully,  or  surrender 
all.  In  this  view,  humble  as  I  am,  I  wish  to  review,  and  contest 
as  well  as  I  may,  the  general  positions  of  this  veto  message.  When 


124          ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

I  say  general  positions,  I  mean  to  exclude  from  consideration  so 
much  as  relates  to  the  present  embarrassed  state  of  the  treasury 
in  consequence  of  the  Mexican  War. 

Those  general  positions  are :  that  internal  improvements  ought 
not  to  be  made  by  the  General  Government — First.  Because  they 
would  overwhelm  the  treasury.  Second.  Because,  while  their  bur 
dens  would  be  general,  their  benefits  would  be  local  and  partial,  in 
volving  an  obnoxious  inequality ;  and — Third.  Because  they  would 
be  unconstitutional.  Fourth.  Because  the  States  may  do  enough  by 
the  levy  and  collection  of  tonnage  duties;  or  if  not — Fifth.  That 
the  Constitution  may  be  amended.  "  Do  nothing  at  all,  lest  you  do 
something  wrong,"  is  the  sum  of  these  positions — is  the  sum  of  this 
message.  And  this,  with  the  exception  of  what  is  said  about  con 
stitutionality,  applying  as  forcibly  to  what  is  said  about  making  im 
provements  by  State  authority  as  by  the  national  authority;  so 
that  we  must  abandon  the  improvements  of  the  country  altogether, 
by  any  and  every  authority,  or  we  must  resist  and  repudiate  the 
doctrines  of  this  message.  Let  us  attempt  the  latter. 

The  first  position  is,  that  a  system  of  internal  improvements 
would  overwhelm  the  treasury.  That  in  such  a  system  there  is  a 
tendency  to  undue  expansion,  is  not  to  be  denied.  Such  tendency 
is  founded  in  the  nature  of  the  subject.  A  member  of  Congress  will 
prefer  voting  for  a  bill  which  contains  an  appropriation  for  his  dis 
trict,  to  voting  for  one  which  does  not ;  and  when  a  bill  shall  be  ex 
panded  till  every  district  shall  be  provided  for,  that  it  will  be  too 
greatly  expanded  is  obvious.  But  is  this  any  more  true  in  Con 
gress  than  in  a  State  legislature  ?  If  a  member  of  Congress  must 
have  an  appropriation  for  his  district,  so  a  member  of  a  legislature 
must  have  one  for  his  county.  And  if  one  will  overwhelm  the  na 
tional  treasury,  so  the  other  will  overwhelm  the  State  treasury.  Go 
where  we  will,  the  difficulty  is  the  same.  Allow  it  to  drive  us  from 
the  halls  of  Congress,  and  it  will,  just  as  easily,  drive  us  from  the 
State  legislatures.  Let  us,  then,  grapple  with  it,  and  test  its 
strength.  Let  us,  judging  of  the  future  by  the  past,  ascertain 
whether  there  may  not  be,  in  the  discretion  of  Congress,  a  suf 
ficient  power  to  limit  and  restrain  this  expansive  tendency  within 
reasonable  and  proper  bounds.  The  President  himself  values  the 
evidence  of  the  past.  He  tells  us  that  at  a  certain  point  of  our  his 
tory  more  than  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  had  been  applied  for 
to  make  improvements ;  and  this  he  does  to  prove  that  the  treasury 
would  be  overwhelmed  by  such  a  system.  Why  did  he  not  tell  us 
how  much  was  granted  ?  Would  not  that  have  been  better  evidence  ? 
Let  us  turn  to  it,  and  see  what  it  proves.  In  the  message  the  Presi 
dent  tells  us  that  "  during  the  four  succeeding  years  embraced  by 
the  administration  of  President  Adams,  the  power  not  only  to  ap 
propriate  money,  but  to  apply  it,  under  the  direction  and  authority 
of  the  General  Government,  as  well  to  the  construction  of  roads  as 
to  the  improvement  of  harbors  and  rivers,  was  fully  asserted  and 
exercised." 

This,  then,  was  the  period  of  greatest  enormity.  These,  if  any, 
must  have  been  the  days  of  the  two  hundred  millions.  And  how 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          125 

much  do  you  suppose  was  really  expended  for  improvements  during 
that  four  years  ?  Two  hundred  millions  f  One  hundred  ?  Fifty  ? 
Ten  ?  Five?  No,  sir ;  less  than  two  millions.  As  shown  by  authen 
tic  documents,  the  expenditures  on  improvements  during  1825, 1826, 
1827,  and  1828  amounted  to  one  million  eight  hundred  and  seventy- 
nine  thousand  six  hundred  and  twenty-seven  dollars  one  cent. 
These  four  years  were  the  period  of  Mr.  Adams's  administration, 
nearly  and  substantially.  This  fact  shows  that  when  the  power  to 
make  improvements  "  was  fully  asserted  and  exercised,"  the  Con 
gress  did  keep  within  reasonable  limits ;  and  what  has  been  done,  it 
seems  to  me,  can  be  done  again. 

Now  for  the  second  portion  of  the  message — namely,  that  the  bur 
dens  of  improvements  would  be  general,  while  their  benefits  would 
be  local  and  partial,  involving  an  obnoxious  inequality.  That  there 
is  some  degree  of  truth  in  this  position,  I  shall  not  deny.  No  com 
mercial  object  of  government  patronage  can  be  so  exclusively  gen 
eral  as  to  not  be  of  some  peculiar  local  advantage.  The  navy,  as  I 
understand  it,  was  established,  and  is  maintained  at  a  great  annual 
expense,  partly  to  be  ready  for  war  when  war  shall  come,  and  partly 
also,  and  perhaps  chiefly,  for  the  protection  of  our  commerce  on  the 
high  seas.  This  latter  object  is,  for  all  I  can  see,  in  principle  the 
same  as  internal  improvements.  The  driving  a  pirate  from  the  track 
of  commerce  on  the  broad  ocean,  and  the  removing  a  snag  from  its 
more  narrow  path  in  the  Mississippi  River,  cannot,  I  think,  be  dis 
tinguished  in  principle.  Each  is  done  to  save  life  and  property,  and 
for  nothing  else. 

The  navy,  then,  is  the  most  general  in  its  benefits  of  all  this  class 
of  objects  5  and  yet  even  the  navy  is  of  some  peculiar  advantage  to 
Charleston,  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  Boston,  beyond 
what  it  is  to  the  interior  towns  of  Illinois.  The  next  most  general 
object  I  can  think  of  would  be  improvements  on  the  Mississippi 
River  and  its  tributaries.  They  touch  thirteen  of  our  States — Penn 
sylvania,  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Ar 
kansas,  Missouri,  Illinois,  Indiana,  Ohio, Wisconsin,  and  Iowa.  Now 
I  suppose  it  will  not  be  denied  that  these  thirteen  States  are  a  little 
more  interested  in  improvements  on  that  great  river  than  are  the 
remaining  seventeen.  These  instances  of  the  navy  and  the  Missis 
sippi  River  show  clearly  that  there  is  something  of  local  advantage 
in  the  most  general  objects.  But  the  converse  is  also  true.  Nothing 
is  so  local  as  to  not  be  of  some  general  benefit.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal.  Considered  apart  from  its  effects, 
it  is  perfectly  local.  Every  inch  of  it  is  within  the  State  of  Illinois. 
That  canal  was  first  opened  for  business  last  April.  In  a  very  few 
days  we  were  all  gratified  to  learn,  among  other  things,  that  sugar 
had  been  carried  from  New  Orleans  through  this  canal  to  Buffalo 
in  New  York.  This  sugar  took  this  route,  doubtless,  because  it  was 
cheaper  than  the  old  route.  Supposing  benefit  of  the  reduction  in 
the  cost  of  carriage  to  be  shared  between  seller  and  buyer,  the  result 
is  that  the  New  Orleans  merchant  sold  his  sugar  a  little  dearer,  and 
the  people  of  Buffalo  sweetened  their  coffee  a  little  cheaper,  than 
before, —  a  benefit  resulting  from  the  canal,  not  to  Illinois,  where  the 


126          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

canal  is,  but  to  Louisiana  and  New  York,  where  it  is  not.  In  other 
transactions  Illinois  will,  of  course,  have  her  share,  and  perhaps  the 
larger  share  too,  of  the  benefits  of  the  canal ;  but  this  instance  of  the 
sugar  clearly  shows  that  the  benefits  of  an  improvement  are  by  no 
means  confined  to  the  particular  locality  of  the  improvement  itself. 

The  just  conclusion  from  all  this  is  that  if  the  nation  refuse  to 
make  improvements  of  the  more  general  kind  because  their  benefits 
may  be  somewhat  local,  a  State  may  for  the  same  reason  refuse  to 
make  an  improvement  of  a  local  kind  because  its  benefits  may  be 
somewhat  general.  A  State  may  well  say  to  the  nation,  "  If  you  will 
do  nothing  for  me,  I  will  do  nothing  for  you."  Thus  it  is  seen 
that  if  this  argument  of  "inequality"  is  sufficient  anywhere,  it  is 
sufficient  everywhere,  and  puts  an  end  to  improvements  altogether. 
I  hope  and  believe  that  if  both  the  nation  and  the  States  would,  in 
good  faith,  in  their  respective  spheres  do  what  they  could  in  the 
way  of  improvements,  what  of  inequality  might  be  produced  in  one 
place  might  be  compensated  in  another,  and  the  sum  of  the  whole 
might  not  be  very  unequal. 

But  suppose,  after  all,  there  should  be  some  degree  of  inequality. 
Inequality  is  certainly  never  to  be  embraced  for  its  own  sake;  but  is 
every  good  thing  to  be  discarded  which  may  be  inseparably  connected 
with  some  degree  of  it?  If  so,  we  must  discard  all  government. 
This  Capitol  is  built  at  the  public  expense,  for  the  public  benefit  j , 
but  does  any  one  doubt  that  it  is  of  some  peculiar  local  advantage  to 
the  property-holders  and  business  people  of  Washington  ?  Shall  we 
remove  it  for  this  reason?  And  if  so,  where  shall  we  set  it  down, 
and  be  free  from  the  difficulty?  To  make  sure  of  our  object,  shall 
we  locate  it  nowhere,  and  have  Congress  hereafter  to  hold  its  ses 
sions,  as  the  loafer  lodged,  "  in  spots  about"?  I  make  no  allusion 
to  the  present  President  when  I  say  there  are  few  stronger  cases  in 
this  world  of  "  burden  to  the  many  and  benefit  to  the  few,"  of  "  in 
equality,"  than  the  presidency  itself  is  by  some  thought  to  be.  An 
honest  laborer  digs  coal  at  about  seventy  cents  a  day,  while  the  Presi 
dent  digs  abstractions  at  about  seventy  dollars  a  day.  The  coal  is 
clearly  worth  more  than  the  abstractions,  and  yet  what  a  monstrous 
inequality  in  the  prices !  Does  the  President,  for  this  reason,  propose 
to  abolish  the  presidency  ?  He  does  not,  and  he  ought  not.  The  true 
rule,  in  determining  to  embrace  or  reject  anything,  is  not  whether  it 
have  any  evil  in  it,  but  whether  it  have  more  of  evil  than  of  good. 
There  are  few  things  wholly  evil  or  wholly  good.  Almost  every 
thing,  especially  of  government  policy,  is  an  inseparable  compound 
of  the  two;  so  that  our  best  judgment  of  the  preponderance  between 
them  is  continually  demanded.  On  this  principle  the  President,  his 
friends,  and  the  world  generally  act  on  most  subjects.  Why  not  ap 
ply  it,  then,  upon  this  question?  Why,  as  to  improvements,  magnify 
the  evil,  and  stoutly  refuse  to  see  any  good  in  them  ? 

Mr.  Chairman,  on  the  third  position  of  the  message — the  consti 
tutional  question  —  I  have  not  much  to  say.  Being  the  man  I  am, 
and  speaking  where  I  do,  I  feel  that  in  any  attempt  at  an  original 
constitutional  argument,  I  should  not  be,  and  ought  not  to  be,  lis 
tened  to  patiently.  The  ablest  and  the  best  of  men  have  gone  over 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          127 

the  whole  ground  long  ago.  I  shall  attempt  but  little  more  than  a 
brief  notice  of  what  some  of  them  have  said.  In  relation  to  Mr.  Jeffer 
son's  views,  I  read  from  Mr.  Folk's  veto  message: 

President  Jefferson,  in  his  message  to  Congress  in  1806,  recommended  an 
amendment  of  the  Constitution,  with  a  view  to  apply  an  anticipated  surplus 
in  the  Treasury  "  to  the  great  purposes  of  the  public  education,  roads,  rivers, 
canals,  and  such  other  objects  of  public  improvements  as  it  may  be  thought 
proper  to  add  to  the  constitutional  enumeration  of  the  federal  powers"  j  and 
he  adds:  "I  suppose  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  by  consent  of  the 
States,  necessary,  because  the  objects  now  recommended  are  not  among 
those  enumerated  in  the  Constitution,  and  to  which  it  permits  the  public 
moneys  to  be  applied."  In  1825,  he  repeated  in  his  published  letters  the 
opinion  that  no  such  power  has  been  conferred  upon  Congress. 

I  introduce  this  not  to  controvert  just  now  the  constitutional 
opinion,  but  to  show  that,  on  the  question  of  expediency,  Mr.  Jeffer 
son's  opinion  was  against  the  present  President — that  this  opinion 
of  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  one  branch  at  least,  is  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Polk 
like  McFingal's  gun  — "  bears  wide  and  kicks  the  owner  over." 

But  to  the  constitutional  question.  In  1826  Chancellor  Kent  first 
published  his  "  Commentaries"  on  American  law.  He  devoted  a  por 
tion  of  one  of  the  lectures  to  the  question  of  the  authority  of  Con 
gress  to  appropriate  public  moneys  for  internal  improvements.  He 
mentions  that  the  subject  had  never  been  brought  under  judicial 
consideration,  and  proceeds  to  give  a  brief  summary  of  the  discussion 
it  had  undergone  between  the  legislative  and  executive  branches  of 
the  government.  He  shows  that  the  legislative  branch  had  usually 
been  for,  and  the  executive  against,  the  power,  till  the  period  of  Mr. 
J.  Q.  Adams's  administration,  at  which  point  he  considers  the  execu 
tive  influence  as  withdrawn  from  opposition,  and  added  to  the  sup 
port  of  the  power.  In  1844  the  chancellor  published  a  new  edition 
of  his  "  Commentaries,"  in  which  he  adds  some  notes  of  what  had 
transpired  on  the  question  since  1826.  I  have  not  time  to  read  the 
original  text  on  the  notes  j  but  the  whole  may  be  found  on  page  267, 
and  the  two  or  three  following  pages,  of  the  first  volume  of  the  edi 
tion  of  1844.  As  to  what  Chancellor  Kent  seems  to  consider  the 
sum  of  the  whole,  I  read  from  one  of  the  notes : 

Mr.  Justice  Story,  in  his  commentaries  on  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  429^40,  and  again  pp.  519-538,  has  stated  at  large  the 
arguments  for  and  against  the  proposition  that  Congress  have  a  constitu 
tional  authority  to  lay  taxes,  and  to  apply  the  power  to  regulate  commerce 
as  a  means  directly  to  encourage  and  protect  domestic  manufactures;  and 
without  giving  any  opinion  of  his  own  on  the  contested  doctrine,  he  has  left 
the  reader  to  draw  his  own  conclusions.  I  should  think,  however,  from  the 
arguments  as  stated,  that  every  mind  which  has  taken  no  part  in  the  discus 
sion,  and  felt  no  prejudice  or  territorial  bias  on  either  side  of  the  question, 
would  deem  the  arguments  in  favor  of  the  Congressional  power  vastly 
superior. 

It  will  be  seen  that  in  this  extract  the  power  to  make  improve 
ments  is  not  directly  mentioned;  but  by  examining  the  context, 
both  of  Kent  and  Story,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  power  mentioned 


128          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

in  the  extract,  and  the  power  to  make  improvements,  are  regarded 
as  identical.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  many  great  and  good  men 
have  been  against  the  power;  but  it  is  insisted  that  quite  as  many, 
as  great  and  as  good,  have  been  for  it ;  and  it  is  shown  that,  on  a 
full  survey  of  the  whole,  Chancellor  Kent  was  of  opinion  that  the 
arguments  of  the  latter  were  vastly  superior.  This  is  but  the  opin 
ion  of  a  man  ;  but  who  was  that  man  ?  He  was  one  of  the  ablest 
and  most  learned  lawyers  of  his  age,  or  of  any  age.  It  is  no  dispar 
agement  to  Mr.  Polk,  nor  indeed  to  any  one  who  devotes  much  time 
to  politics,  to  be  placed  far  behind  Chancellor  Kent  as  a  lawyer. 
His  attitude  was  most  favorable  to  correct  conclusions.  He  wrote 
coolly,  and  in  retirement.  He  was  struggling  to  rear  a  durable 
monument  of  fame  ;  and  he  well  knew  that  truth  and  thoroughly 
sound  reasoning  were  the  only  sure  foundations.  Can  the  party 
opinion  of  a  party  President  on  a  law  question,  as  this  purely  is, 
be  at  all  compared  or  set  in  opposition  to  that  of  such  a  man,  in 
such  an  attitude,  as  Chancellor  Kent  1  This  constitutional  question 
will  probably  never  be  better  settled  than  it  is,  until  it  shall  pass 
under  judicial  consideration;  but  I  do  think  no  man  who  is  clear  on 
the  questions  of  expediency  need  feel  his  conscience  much  pricked 
upon  this. 

Mr.  Chairman,  the  President  seems  to  think  that  enough  may  be 
done,  in  the  way  of  improvements,  by  means  of  tonnage  duties  un 
der  State  authority,  with  the  consent  of  the  General  Government. 
Now  I  suppose  this  matter  of  tonnage  duties  is  well  enough  in  its 
own  sphere.  I  suppose  it  may  be  efficient,  and  perhaps  sufficient,  to 
make  slight  improvements  and  repairs  in  harbors  already  in  use 
and  not  much  out  of  repair.  But  if  I  have  any  correct  general  idea 
of  it,  it  must  be  wholly  inefficient  for  any  general  beneficent  pur 
poses  of  improvement.  I  know  very  little,  or  rather  nothing  at  all, 
of  the  practical  matter  of  levying  and  collecting  tonnage  duties; 
but  I  suppose  one  of  its  principles  must  be  to  lay  a  duty  for  the  im 
provement  of  any  particular  harbor  upon  the  tonnage  coming  into 
that  harbor;  to  do  otherwise — to  collect  money  in  one  harbor,  to  be 
expended  on  improvements  in  another — would  be  an  extremely 
aggravated  form  of  that  inequality  which  the  President  so  much 
deprecates.  If  I  be  right  in  this,  how  could  we  make  any  entirely 
new  improvement  by  means  of  tonnage  duties  ?  How  make  a  road, 
a  canal,  or  clear  a  greatly  obstructed  river  ?  The  idea  that  we  could 
involves  the  same  absurdity  as  the  Irish  bull  about  the  new  boots. 
"  I  shall  niver  git  ;em  on,"  says  Patrick,  "  till  I  wear  'em  a  day  or 
two,  and  stretch  'em  a  little."  We  shall  never  make  a  canal  by 
tonnage  duties  until  it  shall  already  have  been  made  awhile,  so  the 
tonnage  can  get  into  it. 

After  all,  the  President  concludes  that  possibly  there  may  be  some 
great  objects  of  improvement  which  cannot  be  effected  by  tonnage 
duties,  and  which  it  therefore  may  be  expedient  for  the  General  Gov 
ernment  to  take  in  hand.  Accordingly  he  suggests,  in  case  any  such 
be  discovered,  the  propriety  of  amending  the  Constitution.  Amend 
it  for  what  ?  If,  like  Mr.  Jefferson,  the  President  thought  improve 
ments  expedient,  but  not  constitutional,  it  would  be  natural  enough 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          129 

for  him  to  recommend  such  an  amendment.     But  hear  what  he  says 
in  this  very  message : 

In  view  of  these  portentous  consequences,  I  cannot  but  think  that  this 
course  of  legislation  should  be  arrested,  even  were  there  nothing  to  forbid 
it  in  the  fundamental  laws  of  our  Union. 

For  what,  then,  would  he  have  the  Constitution  amended  ?  With 
him  it  is  a  proposition  to  remove  one  impediment  merely  to  be  met 
by  others  which,  in  his  opinion,  cannot  be  removed, —  to  enable 
Congress  to  do  what,  in  his  opinion,  they  ought  not  to  do  if  they 
could. 

Here  Mr.  Meade  of  Virginia  inquired  if  Mr.  Lincoln  understood 
the  President  to  be  opposed,  on  grounds  of  expediency,  to  any  and 
every  improvement. 

Mr.  Lincoln  answered :  In  the  very  part  of  his  message  of  which 
I  am  speaking,  I  understand  him  as  giving  some  vague  expression 
in  favor  of  some  possible  objects  of  improvement;  but  in  doing  so 
I  understand  him  to  be  directly  on  the  teeth  of  his  own  arguments 
in  other  parts  of  it.  Neither  the  President  nor  any  one  can  possibly 
specify  an  improvement  which  shall  not  be  clearly  liable  to  one  or 
another  of  the  objections  he  has  urged  on  the  score  of  expediency. 
I  have  shown,  and  might  show  again,  that  no  work — no  object — 
can  be  so  general  as  to  dispense  its  benefits  with  precise  equality ; 
and  this  inequality  is  chief  among  the  "portentous  consequences" 
for  which  he  declares  that  improvements  should  be  arrested.  No, 
sir.  "When  the  President  intimates  that  something  in  the  way  of 
improvements  may  properly  be  done  by  the  General  Government, 
he  is  shrinking  from  the  conclusions  to  which  his  own  arguments 
would  force  him.  He  feels  that  the  improvements  of  this  broad 
and  goodly  land  are  a  mighty  interest ;  and  he  is  unwilling  to  con 
fess  to  the  people,  or  perhaps  to  himself,  that  he  has  built  an  ar 
gument  which,  when  pressed  to  its  conclusions,  entirely  annihilates 
this  interest. 

I  have  already  said  that  no  one  who  is  satisfied  of  the  expe 
diency  of  making  improvements  needs  be  much  uneasy  in  his  con 
science  about  its  constitutionality.  I  wish  now  to  submit  a  few 
remarks  on  the  general  proposition  of  amending  the  Constitution. 
As  a  general  rule,  I  think  we  would  much  better  let  it  alone. 
No  slight  occasion  should  tempt  us  to  touch  it.  Better  not  take 
the  first  step,  which  may  lead  to  a  habit  of  altering  it.  Better, 
rather,  habituate  ourselves  to  think  of  it  as  unalterable.  It  can 
scarcely  be  made  better  than  it  is.  New  provisions  would  intro 
duce  new  difficulties,  and  thus  create  and  increase  appetite  for 
further  change.  No,  sir;  let  it  stand  as  it  is.  New  hands  have 
never  touched  it.  The  men  who  made  it  have  done  their  work, 
and  have  passed  away.  Who  shall  improve  on  what  they  did? 

Mr.  Chairman,  for  the  purpose  of  reviewing  this  message  in  the 
least  possible  time,  as  well  as  for  the  sake  of  distinctness,  I  have 
analyzed  its  arguments  as  well  as  I  could,  and  reduced  them  to 
the  propositions  I  have  stated.  I  have  now  examined  them  in 
detail.  I  wish  to  detain  the  committee  only  a  little  while  longer 
VOL.  L— 9. 


130         ADDRESSES  AND  LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

with  some  general  remarks  upon  the  subject  of  improvements. 
That  the  subject  is  a  difficult  one,  cannot  be  denied.  Still  it  is 
no  more  difficult  in  Congress  than  in  the  State  legislatures,  in  the 
counties,  or  in  the  smallest  municipal  districts  which  anywhere  ex 
ist.  All  can  recur  to  instances  of  this  difficulty  in  the  case  of 
county  roads,  bridges,  and  the  like.  One  man  is  offended  because 
a  road  passes  over  his  land,  and  another  is  offended  because  it 
does  not  pass  over  his ;  one  is  dissatisfied  because  the  bridge  for 
which  he  is  taxed  crosses  the  river  on  a  different  road  from  that 
which  leads  from  his  house  to  town;  another  cannot  bear  that 
the  county  should  be  got  in  debt  for  these  same  roads  and 
bridges;  while  not  a  few  struggle  hard  to  have  roads  located 
over  their  lands,  and  then  stoutly  refuse  to  let  them  be  opened 
until  they  are  first  paid  the  damages.  Even  between  the  different 
wards  and  streets  of  towns  and  cities  we  find  this  same  wrangling 
and  difficulty.  Now  these  are  no  other  than  the  very  difficulties 
against  which,  and  out  of  which,  the  President  constructs  his  ob 
jections  of  "inequality,77  "speculation,"  and  "  crushing  the  trea 
sury."  There  is  but  a  single  alternative  about  them :  they  are 
sufficient,  or  they  are  not.  If  sufficient,  they  are  sufficient  out  of 
Congress  as  well  as  in  it,  and  there  is  the  end.  We  must  reject 
them  as  insufficient,  or  lie  down  and  do  nothing  by  any  author 
ity.  Then,  difficulty  though  there  be,  let  us  meet  and  encounter 
it.  "Attempt  the  end,  and  never  stand  to  doubt;  nothing  so 
hard,  but  search  will  find  it  out."  Determine  that  the  thing  can 
and  shall  be  done,  and  then  we  shall  find  the  way.  The  tendency 
to  undue  expansion  is  unquestionably  the  chief  difficulty. 

How  to  do  something,  and  still  not  do  too  much,  is  the  desidera 
tum.  Let  each  contribute  his  mite  in  the  way  of  suggestion.  The 
late  Silas  Wright,  in  a  letter  to  the  Chicago  convention,  contributed 
his,  which  was  worth  something;  and  I  now  contribute  mine,  which 
may  be  worth  nothing.  At  all  events,  it  will  mislead  nobody,  and 
therefore  will  do  no  harm.  I  would  not  borrow  money.  I  am 
against  an  overwhelming,  crushing  system.  Suppose  that,  at  each 
session,  Congress  shall  first  determine  how  much  money  can,  for  that 
year,  be  spared  for  improvements;  then  apportion  that  sum  to  the 
most  important  objects.  So  far  all  is  easy;  but  how  shall  we  de 
termine  which  are  the  most  important?  On  this  question  comes  the 
collision  of  interests.  I  shall  be  slow  to  acknowledge  that  your  har 
bor  or  your  river  is- more  important  than  mine,  and  vice  versa.  To 
clear  this  difficulty,  let  us  have  that  same  statistical  information 
which  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  [Mr.  Vinton]  suggested  at  the  be 
ginning  of  this  session.  In  that  information  we  shall  have  a  stern, 
unbending  basis  of  facts — a  basis  in  no  wise  subject  to  whim, 
caprice,  or  local  interest.  The  pre-limited  amount  of  means  will  save 
us  from  doing  too  much,  and  the  statistics  will  save  us  from  doing 
what  we  do  in  wrong  places.  Adopt  and  adhere  to  this  course,  and, 
it  seems  to  me,  the  difficulty  is  cleared. 

One  of  the  gentlemen  from  South  Carolina  [Mr.  Ehett]  very  much 
deprecates  these  statistics.  He  particularly  objects,  as  I  understand 
him,  to  counting  all  the  pigs  and  chickens  in  the  land.  I  do  not  per- 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          131 

ceive  much  force  in  the  objection.  It  is  true  that  if  everything  be 
enumerated,  a  portion  of  such  statistics  may  not  be  very  useful  to 
this  object.  Such  products  of  the  country  as  are  to  be  consumed 
where  they  are  produced  need  no  roads  or  rivers,  no  means  of  trans 
portation,  and  have  no  very  proper  connection  with  this  subject. 
The  surplus — that  which  is  produced  in  one  place  to  be  consumed 
in  another ;  the  capacity  of  each  locality  for  producing  a  greater  sur 
plus;  the  natural  means  of  transportation,  and  their  susceptibility 
of  improvement  j  the  hindrances,  delays,  and  losses  of  life  and  prop 
erty  during  transportation,  and  the  causes  of  each,  would  be  among 
the  most  valuable  statistics  in  this  connection.  From  these  it  would 
readily  appear  where  a  given  amount  of  expenditure  would  do  the 
most  good.  These  statistics  might  be  equally  accessible,  as  they 
would  be  equally  useful,  to  both  the  nation  and  the  States.  In  this 
way,  and  by  these  means,  let  the  nation  take  hold  of  the  larger  works, 
and  the  States  the  smaller  ones;  and  thus,  working  in  a  meeting  di 
rection,  discreetly,  but  steadily  and  firmly,  what  is  made  unequal  in 
one  place  may  be  equalized  in  another,  extravagance  avoided,  and 
the  whole  country  put  on  that  career  of  prosperity  which  shall  cor 
respond  with  its  extent  of  territory,  its  natural  resources,  and  the 
intelligence  and  enterprise  of  its  people. 


June  22,  1848. —  LETTER  TO  WILLIAM  H.  HERNDON. 

WASHINGTON,  June  22,  1848. 

Dear  William:  Last  night  I  was  attending  a  sort  of  caucus  of  the 
Whig  members,  held  in  relation  to  the  coming  presidential  election. 
The  whole  field  of  the  nation  was  scanned,  and  all  is  high  hope  and 
confidence.  Illinois  is  expected  to  better  her  condition  in  this  race. 
Under  these  circumstances,  judge  how  heartrending  it  was  to  come 
to  my  room  and  find  and  read  your  discouraging  letter  of  the  15th. 
We  have  made  no  gains,  but  have  lost  "  H.  R.  Robinson,  Turner, 
Campbell,  and  four  or  five  more."  Tell  Arney  to  reconsider,  if  he 
would  be  saved.  Baker  and  I  used  to  do  something,  but  I  think 
you  attach  more  importance  to  our  absence  than  is  just.  There  is 
another  cause.  In  1840,  for  instance,  we  had  two  senators  and  five 
representatives  in  Sangamon;  now  we  have  part  of  one  senator  and 
two  representatives.  With  quite  one  third  more  people  than  we  had 
then,  we  have  only  half  the  sort  of  offices  which  are  sought  by  men 
of  the  speaking  sort  of  talent.  This,  I  think,  is  the  chief  cause. 
Now,  as  to  the  young  men.  You  must  not  wait  to  be  brought  for 
ward  by  the  older  men.  For  instance,  do  you  suppose  that  I  should 
ever  have  got  into  notice  if  I  had  waited  to  be  hunted  up  and  pushed 
forward  by  older  men  ?  You  young  men  get  together  and  form  a 
"  Rough  and  Ready  Club,"  and  have  regular  meetings  and  speeches. 
Take  in  everybody  you  can  get.  Harrison  Grimsley,  L.  A.  Enos, 
Lee  Kimball,  and  C.  W.  Matheny  will  do  to  begin  the  thing ;  but  as 
you  go  along  gather  up  all  the  shrewd,  wild  boys  about  town, 
whether  just  of  age  or  a  little  under  age, —  Chris.  Logan,  Reddick 
Ridgely,  Lewis  Zwizler,  and  hundreds  such.  Let  every  one  play  the 


132         ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN 

part  he  can  play  best, —  some  speak,  some  sing,  and  all  "  holler." 
Your  meetings  will  be  of  evenings ;  the  older  men,  and  the  women, 
will  go  to  hear  yon ;  so  that  it  will  not  only  contribute  to  the  elec 
tion  of  "  Old  Zach,"  but  will  be  an  interesting  pastime,  and  improv 
ing  to  the  intellectual  faculties  of  all  engaged.  Don't  fail  to  do  this. 

You  ask  me  to  send  you  all  the  speeches  made  about  "  Old  Zach," 
the  war,  etc.  Now  this  makes  me  a  little  impatient.  I  have  regu 
larly  sent  you  the  "  Congressional  Giobe  "  and  "Appendix,"  and  you 
cannot  have  examined  them,  or  you  would  have  discovered  that  they 
contain  every  speech  made  by  every  man  in  both  houses  of  Congress, 
on  every  subject,  during  the  session.  Can  I  send  any  more?  Can 
I  send  speeches  that  nobody  has  made  ?  Thinking  it  would  be  most 
natural  that  the  newspapers  would  feel  interested  to  give  at  least 
some  of  the  speeches  to  their  readers,  I  at  the  beginning  of  the  ses 
sion  made  arrangements  to  have  one  copy  of  the  "  Globe  "  and  "Ap 
pendix  "  regularly  sent  to  each  Whig  paper  of  the  district.  And 
yet,  with  the  exception  of  my  own  little  speech,  which  was  pub 
lished  in  two  only  of  the  then  five,  now  four,  "Whig  papers,  I  do  not 
remember  having  seen  a  single  speech,  or  even  extract  from  one, 
in  any  single  one  of  those  papers.  With  equal  and  full  means  on 
both  sides,  I  will  venture  that  the  "  State  Register  "  has  thrown  be 
fore  its  readers  more  of  Locofoco  speeches  in  a  month  than  all 
the  Whig  papers  of  the  district  have  done  of  Whig  speeches  during 
the  session. 

If  you  wish  a  full  understanding  of  the  war,  I  repeat  what  I 
believe  I  said  to  you  in  a  letter  once  before,  that  the  whole,  or 
nearly  so,  is  to  be  found  in  the  speech  of  Dixon  of  Connecticut. 
This  I  sent  you  in  pamphlet  as  well  as  in  the  "Globe."  Examine 
and  study  every  sentence  of  that  speech  thoroughly,  and  you  will 
understand  the  whole  subject.  You  ask  how  Congress  came  to  de 
clare  that  war  had  existed  by  the  act  of  Mexico.  Is  it  possible  you 
don't  understand  that  yet  ?  You  have  at  least  twenty  speeches  in 
your  possession  that  fully  explain  it.  I  will,  however,  try  it  once 
more.  The  news  reached  Washington  of  the  commencement  of  hos 
tilities  on  the  Rio  Grande,  and  of  the  great  peril  of  General  Taylor's 
army.  Everybody,  Whigs  and  Democrats,  was  for  sending  them  aid, 
in  men  and  money.  It  was  necessary  to  pass  a  bill  for  this.  The 
Locos  had  a  majority  in  both  houses,  and  they  brought  in  a  bill  with 
a  preamble  saying:  Whereas,  War  exists  by  the  act  of  Mexico, 
therefore  we  send  General  Taylor  money.  The  Whigs  moved  to 
strike  out  the  preamble,  so  that  they  could  vote  to  send  the  men  and 
money,  without  saying  anything  about  how  the  war  commenced ; 
but  being  in  the  minority,  they  were  voted  down,  and  the  preamble 
was  retained.  Then,  on  the  passage  of  the  bill,  the  question  came 
upon  them,  Shall  we  vote  for  preamble  and  bill  together,  or  against 
both  together  ?  They  did  not  want  to  vote  against  sending  help  to 
General  Taylor,  and  therefore  they  voted  for  both  together.  Is 
there  any  difficulty  in  understanding  this  ?  Even  my  little  speech 
shows  how  this  was  ;  and  if  you  will  go  to  the  library,  you  may  get 
the  "Journal"  of  1845-46,  in  which  you  will  find  the  whole  for 
yourself. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN          133 

We  have  nothing  published  yet  with  special  reference  to  the 
Taylor  race ;  but  we  soon  will  have,  and  then  I  will  send  them  to 
everybody.  I  made  an  internal-improvement  speech  day  before  yes 
terday,  which  I  shall  send  home  as  soon  as  I  can  get  it  written  out 
and  printed, — and  which  I  suppose  nobody  will  read. 

Your  friend  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 

June  27,  1848. — LETTER  TO  HORACE  GREELEY. 

WASHINGTON,  June  27,  1848. 

Friend  Greeley :  In  the  "  Tribune  "of  yesterday  I  discovered  a  lit 
tle  editorial  paragraph  in  relation  to  Colonel  Wentworth  of  Illinois, 
in  which,  in  relation  to  the  boundary  of  Texas,  you  say:  "  All  Whigs 
and  many  Democrats  having  ever  contended  it  stopped  at  the 
Nueces."  Now  this  is  a  mistake  which  I  dislike  to  see  go  uncorrected 
in  a  leading  Whig  paper.  Since  I  have  been  here,  I  know  a  large 
majority  of  such  Whigs  of  the  House  of  Representatives  as  have 
spoken  on  the  question  have  not  taken  that  position.  Their  position, 
and  in  my  opinion  the  true  position,  is  that  the  boundary  of  Texas 
extended  just  so  far  as  American  settlements  taking  part  in  her  revo 
lution  extended 5  and  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  those  settlements  did 
extend,  at  one  or  two  points,  beyond  the  Nueces,  but  not  anywhere 
near  the  Rio  Grande  at  any  point.  The  "stupendous  desert"  be 
tween  the  valleys  of  those  two  rivers,  and  not  either  river,  has  been 
insisted  on  by  the  Whigs  as  the  true  boundary. 

Will  you  look  at  this  ?  By  putting  us  in  the  position  of  insisting 
on  the  line  of  the  Nueces,  you  put  us  in  a  position  which,  in  my 
opinion,  we  cannot  maintain,  and  which  therefore  gives  the  Demo 
crats  an  advantage  of  us.  If  the  degree  of  arrogance  is  not  too  great, 
may  I  ask  you  to  examine  what  I  said  on  this  very  point  in  the 
printed  speech  I  send  you.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

June  28,  1848. —  REMARKS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

Discussion  as  to  salary  of  judge  of  western  Virginia. — Wishing 
to  increase  it  from  $1800  to  $2500. 

Mr.  Lincoln  said  he  felt  unwilling  to  be  either  unjust  or  ungener 
ous,  and  he  wanted  to  understand  the  real  case  of  this  judicial  offi 
cer.  The  gentleman  from  Virginia  had  stated  that  he  had  to  hold 
eleven  courts.  Now  everybody  knew  that  it  was  not  the  habit  of 
the  district  judges  of  the  United  States  in  other  States  to  hold  any 
thing  like  that  number  of  courts ;  and  he  therefore  took  it  for 
granted  that  this  must  happen  under  a  peculiar  law  which  required 
that  large  number  of  courts  to  be  holden  every  year;  and  these 
laws,  he  further  supposed,  were  passed  at  the  request  of  the  people 
of  that  judicial  district.  It  came,  then,  to  this:  that  the  people  in 
the  western  district  of  Virginia  had  got  eleven  courts  to  be  held 
among  them  in  one  year,  for  their  own  accommodation  •  and  being 


134         ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

thus  better  accommodated  than  their  neighbors  elsewhere,  they 
wanted  their  judge  to  be  a  little  better  paid.  In  Illinois  there  had 
been,  until  the  present  season,  but  one  district  court  held  in  the  year. 
There  were  now  to  be  two.  Could  it  be  that  the  western  district  of 
Virginia  furnished  more  business  for  a  judge  than  the  whole  State 
of  Illinois? 

[July  1?]  1848.— FRAGMENT. 

The  following  paper  was  written  by  Lincoln  in  1848  as  being  what 
he  thought  General  Taylor  ought  to  say: 

The  question  of  a  national  bank  is  at  rest.  Were  I  President,  I 
should  not  urge  its  reagitation  upon  Congress ;  but  should  Congress 
see  fit  to  pass  an  act  to  establish  such  an  institution,  I  should  not 
arrest  it  by  the  veto,  unless  I  should  consider  it  subject  to  some  con 
stitutional  objection  from  which  I  believe  the  two  former  banks  to 
have  been  free. 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  national  debt  created  by  the  war  renders 
a  modification  of  the  existing  tariff  indispensable;  and  when  it  shall 
be  modified  I  should  be  pleased  to  see  it  adjusted  with  a  due  refer 
ence  to  the  protection  of  our  home  industry.  The  particulars,  it  ap 
pears  to  me,  must  and  should  be  left  to  the  untrammeled  discretion 
of  Congress. 

As  to  the  Mexican  war,  I  still  think  the  defensive  line  policy  the 
best  to  terminate  it.  In  a  final  treaty  of  peace,  we  shall  probably 
be  under  a  sort  of  necessity  of  taking  some  territory ;  but  it  is  my 
desire  that  we  shall  not  acquire  any  extending  so  far  south  as  to 
enlarge  and  aggravate  the  distracting  question  of  slavery.  Should 
I  come  into  the  presidency  before  these  questions  shall  be  settled,  I 
should  act  in  relation  to  them  in  accordance  with  the  views  here 
expressed. 

Finally,  were  I  President,  I  should  desire  the  legislation  of  the 
country  to  rest  with  Congress,  uninfluenced  by  the  executive  in  its 
origin  or  progress,  and  undisturbed  by  the  veto  unless  in  very 
special  and  clear  cases. 


July  10,  1848.— LETTER  TO  WILLIAM  H.  HERNDON. 

WASHINGTON,  July  10,  1848. 

Dear  William :  Your  letter  covering  the  newspaper  slips  was  re 
ceived  last  night.  The  subject  of  that  letter  is  exceedingly  painful 
to  me  5  and  I  cannot  but  think  there  is  some  mistake  in  your  im 
pression  of  the  motives  of  the  old  men.  I  suppose  I  am  now  one 
of  the  old  men ;  and  I  declare,  on  my  veracity,  which  I  think  is  good 
with  you,  that  nothing  could  afford  me  more  satisfaction  than  to 
learn  that  you  and  others  of  my  young  friends  at  home  are  doing 
battle  in  the  contest,  and  endearing  themselves  to  the  people,  and 
taking  a  stand  far  above  any  I  have  ever  been  able  to  reach  in  their 
admiration.  I  cannot  conceive  that  other  old  men  feel  differently. 
Of  course  I  cannot  demonstrate  what  I  say ;  but  I  was  young  once, 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          135 

and  I  am  sure  I  was  never  ungenerously  thrust  back.  I  hardly 
know  what  to  say.  The  way  for  a  young  man  to  rise  is  to  improve 
himself  every  way  he  can,  never  suspecting  that  anybody  wishes  to 
hinder  him.  Allow  me  to  assure  you  that  suspicion  and  jealousy 
never  did  help  any  man  in  any  situation.  There  may  sometimes  be 
ungenerous  attempts  to  keep  a  young  man  down ;  and  they  will 
succeed,  too,  if  he  allows  his  mind  to  be  diverted  from  its  true  channel 
to  brood  over  the  attempted  injury.  Cast  about,  and  see  if  this 
feeling  has  not  injured  every  person  you  have  ever  known  to  fall 
into  it. 

Now,  in  what  I  have  said,  I  am  sure  you  will  suspect  nothing  but 
sincere  friendship.  I  would  save  you  from  a  fatal  error.  You  have 
been  a  laborious,  studious  young  man.  You  are  far  better  informed 
on  almost  all  subjects  than  I  have  ever  been.  You  cannot  fail  in 
any  laudable  object,  unless  you  allow  your  mind  to  be  improperly 
directed.  I  have  somewhat  the  advantage  of  you  in  the  world's  ex 
perience,  merely  by  being  older ;  and  it  is  this  that  induces  me  to 
advise.  You  still  seem  to  be  a  little  mistaken  about  the  "  Congres 
sional  Globe"  and  "Appendix.'7  They  contain  all  of  the  speeches 
that  are  published  in  any  way.  My  speech  and  Dayton's  speech, 
which  you  say  you  got  in  pamphlet  form,  are  both,  word  for  word, 
in  the  "  Appendix.'7  I  repeat  again,  all  are  there. 

Your  friend,  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 

July  27,  1848. — SPEECH  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  HOUSE  OF 
REPRESENTATIVES. 

General  Taylor  and  the  Veto. 

Mr.  Speaker,  our  Democratic  friends  seem  to  be  in  great  distress 
because  they  think  our  candidate  for  the  presidency  don7t  suit  us. 
Most  of  them  cannot  find  out  that  General  Taylor  has  any  principles 
at  all ;  some,  however,  have  discovered  that  he  has  one,  but  that  one 
is  entirely  wrong.  This  one  principle  is  his  position  on  the  veto 
power.  The  gentleman  from  Tennessee  [Mr.  Stanton]  who  has  just 
taken  his  seat,  indeed,  has  said  there  is  very  little,  if  any,  difference 
on  this  question  between  General  Taylor  and  all  the  presidents ;  and 
he  seems  to  think  it  sufficient  detraction  from  General  Taylor7s  posi 
tion  on  it  that  it  has  nothing  new  in  it.  But  all  others  whom  I  have 
heard  speak  assail  it  furiously.  A  new  member  from  Kentucky 
[Mr.  Clark],  of  very  considerable  ability,  was  in  particular  concerned 
about  it.  He  thought  it  altogether  novel  and  unprecedented  for  a 
president  or  a  presidential  candidate  to  think  of  approving  bills 
whose  constitutionality  may  not  be  entirely  clear  to  his  own  mind. 
He  thinks  the  ark  of  our  safety  is  gone  unless  presidents  shall 
always  veto  such  bills  as  in  their  judgment  may  be  of  doubtful  con 
stitutionality.  However  clear  Congress  may  be  on  their  authority 
to  pass  any  particular  act,  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky  thinks  the 
President  must  veto  it  if  he  has  doubts  about  it.  Now  I  have 
neither  time  nor  inclination  to  argue  with  the  gentleman  on  the 
veto  power  as  an  original  question  ;  but  I  wish  to  show  that  General 


136         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Taylor,  and  not  he,  agrees  with  the  earlier  statesmen  011  this  ques 
tion.  When  the  bill  chartering  the  first  Bank  of  the  United  States 
passed  Congress,  its  constitutionality  was  questioned.  Mr.  Madison, 
then  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  as  well  as  others,  had  opposed 
it  on  that  ground.  General  Washington,  as  President,  was  called 
on  to  approve  or  reject  it.  He  sought  and  obtained  on  the  con 
stitutionality  question  the  separate  written  opinions  of  Jefferson, 
Hamilton,  and  Edmund  Randolph, — they  then  being  respectively 
Secretary  of  State,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  Attorney-General. 
Hamilton's  opinion  was  for  the  power  •  while  Randolph's  and  Jeffer 
son's  were  both  against  it.  Mr.  Jefferson,  after  giving  his  opinion 
deciding  only  against  the  constitutionality  of  the  bill,  closes  his  letter 
with  the  paragraph  which  I  now  read : 

It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  unless  the  President's  mind,  on  a  view 
of  everything  which  is  urged  for  and  against  this  bill,  is  tolerably  clear 
that  it  is  unauthorized  by  the  Constitution, — if  the  pro  and  con.  hang  so  even 
as  to  balance  his  judgment, —  a  just  respect  for  the  wisdom  of  the  legisla 
ture  would  naturally  decide  the  balance  in  favor  of  their  opinion.  It  is 
chiefly  for  cases  where  they  are  clearly  misled  by  error,  ambition,  or  interest, 
that  the  Constitution  has  placed  a  check  in  the  negative  of  the  President. 

February  15,  1791.  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

General  Taylor's  opinion,  as  expressed  in  his  Allison  letter,  is  as 
I  now  read : 

The  power  given  by  the  veto  is  a  high  conservative  power  j  but,  in  my 
opinion,  should  never  be  exercised  except  in  cases  of  clear  violation  of  the 
Constitution,  or  manifest  haste  and  want  of  consideration  by  Congress. 

It  is  here  seen  that,  in  Mr.  Jefferson's  opinion,  if  on  the  constitu 
tionality  of  any  given  bill  the  President  doubts,  he  is  not  to  veto  it, 
as  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky  would  have  him  do,  but  is  to 
defer  to  Congress  and  approve  it.  And  if  we  compare  the  opinion 
of  Jefferson  and  Taylor,  as  expressed  in  these  paragraphs,  we  shall 
find  them  more  exactly  alike  than  we  can  often  find  any  two  expres 
sions  having  any  literal  difference.  None  but  interested  faultfinders, 
I  think,  can  discover  any  substantial  variation. 

Tat/lor  on  Measures  of  Policy. 

But  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  are  unanimously  agreed  that 
General  Taylor  has  no  other  principles.  They  are  in  utter  darkness 
as  to  his  opinions  on  any  of  the  questions  of  policy  which  occupy 
the  public  attention.  But  is  there  any  doubt  as  to  what  he  will  do 
on  the  prominent  questions  if  elected  ?  Not  the  least.  It  is  not  pos 
sible  to  know  what  he  will  or  would  do  in  every  imaginable  case, 
because  many  questions  have  passed  away,  and  others  doubtless  will 
arise  which  none  of  us  have  yet  thought  of ;  but  on  the  prominent 
questions  of  currency,  tariff,  internal  improvements,  and  Wilmot 
proviso,  General  Taylor's  course  is  at  least  as  well  defined  as  is  Gen 
eral  Cass's.  Wiry?  in  their  eagerness  to  get  at  General  Taylor,  sev 
eral  Democratic  members  here  have  desired  to  know  whether,  in 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          137 

case  of  his  election,  a  bankrupt  law  is  to  be  established.  Can  they 
tell  us  General  Cass's  opinion  on  this  question  ?  [Some  member  an 
swered,  "  He  is  against  it.'7]  Aye,  how  do  you  know  he  is  ?  There 
is  nothing  about  it  in  the  platform,  nor  elsewhere,  that  I  have  seen. 
If  the  gentleman  knows  of  anything  which  I  do  not,  he  can  show  it. 
But  to  return.  General  Taylor,  in  his  Allison  letter,  says : 

Upon  the  subject  of  the  tariff,  the  currency,  the  improvement  of  our 
great  highways,  rivers,  lakes,  and  harbors,  the  will  of  the  people,  as  ex 
pressed  through  their  representatives  in  Congress,  ought  to  be  respected 
and  carried  out  by  the  executive.  ' 

Now  this  is  the  whole  matter.  In  substance,  it  is  this.  The  peo 
ple  say  to  General  Taylor,  "  If  you  are  elected,  shall  we  have  a  na 
tional  bank?"  He  answers,  "Your  will,  gentlemen,  not  mine." 
"What  about  the  tariff?"  "Say  yourselves."  "Shall  our  rivers 
and  harbors  be  improved?"  "Just  as  you  please.  If  you  desire  a 
bank,  an  alteration  of  the  tariff,  internal  improvements,  any  or  all, 
I  will  not  hinder  you.  If  you  do  not  desire  them,  I  will  not  attempt 
to  force  them  on  you.  Send  up  your  members  of  Congress  from 
the  various  districts,  with  opinions  according  to  your  own,  and  if 
they  are  for  these  measures,  or  any  of  them,  I  shall  have  nothing  to 
oppose;  if  they  are  not  for  them,  I  shall  not,  by  any  appliances 
whatever,  attempt  to  dragoon  them  into  their  adoption."  Now  can 
there  be  any  difficulty  in  understanding  this  ?  To  you  Democrats 
it  may  not  seem  like  principle ;  but  surely  you  cannot  fail  to  perceive 
the  position  plainly  enough.  The  distinction  between  it  and  the 
position  of  your  candidate  is  broad  and  obvious ;  and  I  admit  you 
have  a  clear  right  to  show  it  is  wrong  if  you  can ;  but  you  have  no 
right  to  pretend  you  cannot  see  it  at  all.  We  see  it,  and  to  us  it 
appears  like  principle,  and  the  best  sort  of  principle  at  that — the 
principle  of  allowing  the  people  to  do  as  they  please  with  their  own 
business.  My  friend  from  Indiana  [C.  B.  Smith]  has  aptly  asked, 
"  Are  you  willing  to  trust  the  people  ? "  Some  of  you  answered  sub 
stantially,  "  We  are  willing  to  trust  the  people ;  but  the  President 
is  as  much  the  representative  of  the  people  as  Congress."  In  a  cer 
tain  sense,  and  to  a  certain  extent,  he  is  the  representative  of  the 
people.  He  is  elected  by  them,  as  well  as  Congress  is ;  but  can  he, 
in  the  nature  of  things,  know  the  wants  of  the  people  as  well  as 
three  hundred  other  men,  coming  from  all  the  various  localities  of 
the  nation "?  If  so,  where  is  the  propriety  of  having  a  Congress  ? 
That  the  Constitution  gives  the  President  a  negative  on  legisla 
tion,  all  know ;  but  that  this  negative  should  be  so  combined  with 
platforms  and  other  appliances  as  to  enable  him,  and  in  fact  al 
most  compel  him,  to  take  the  whole  of  legislation  into  his  own 
hands,  is  what  we  object  to,  is  what  General  Taylor  objects  to, 
and  is  what  constitutes  the  broad  distinction  between  you  and  us. 
To  thus  transfer  legislation  is  clearly  to  take  it  from  those  who  un 
derstand  with  minuteness  the  interests  of  the  people,  and  give  it 
to  one  who  does  not  and  cannot  so  well  understand  it.  I  understand 
your  idea  that  if  a  presidential  candidate  avow  his  opinion  upon  a 
given  question,  or  rather  upon  all  questions,  and  the  people,  with 


138         ADDRESSES  AND  LETTERS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

full  knowledge  of  this,  elect  him,  they  thereby  distinctly  approve 
all  those  opinions.  By  means  of  it,  measures  are  adopted  or  rejected 
contrary  to  the  wishes  of  the  whole  of  one  party,  and  often  nearly 
half  of  the  other.  Three,  four,  or  half  a  dozen  questions  are  promi 
nent  at  a  given  time ;  the  party  selects  its  candidate,  and  he  takes 
his  position  on  each  of  these  questions.  On  all  but  one  his  positions 
have  already  been  indorsed  at  former  elections,  and  his  party  fully 
committed  to  them ;  but  that  one  is  new,  and  a  large  portion  of 
them  are  against  it.  But  what  are  they  to  do?  The  whole  was 
strung  together ;  and  they  must  take  all,  or  reject  all.  They  cannot 
take  what  they  like,  and  leave  the  rest.  What  they  are  already 
committed  to  being  the  majority,  they  shut  their  eyes,  and  gulp  the 
whole.  Next  election,  still  another  is  introduced  in  the  same  way. 
If  we  run  our  eyes  along  the  line  of  the  past,  we  shall  see  that  al 
most  if  not  quite  all  the  articles  of  the  present  Democratic  creed 
have  been  at  first  forced  upon  the  party  in  this  very  way.  And  just 
now,  and  just  so,  opposition  to  internal  improvements  is  to  be  estab 
lished  if  General  Cass  shall  be  elected.  Almost  half  the  Democrats 
here  are  for  improvements  j  but  they  will  vote  for  Cass,  and  if  he 
succeeds,  their  vote  will  have  aided  in  closing  the  doors  against  im 
provements.  Now  this  is  a  process  which  we  think  is  wrong.  We 
prefer  a  candidate  who,  like  General  Taylor,  will  allow  the  people 
to  have  their  own  way,  regardless  of  his  private  opinions ;  and  I 
should  think  the  internal-improvement  Democrats,  at  least,  ought 
to  prefer  such  a  candidate.  He  would  force  nothing  on  them  which 
they  don't  want,  and  he  would  allow  them  to  have  improvements 
which  their  own  candidate,  if  elected,  will  not. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  said  General  Taylor's  position  is  as  well  de 
fined  as  is  that  of  General  Cass.  In  saying  this,  I  admit  I  do  not 
certainly  know  what  he  would  do  on  the  Wilmot  proviso.  I  am  a 
Northern  man,  or  rather  a  Western  free-State  man,  with  a  constitu 
ency  I  believe  to  be,  and  with  personal  feelings  I  know  to  be,  against 
the  extension  of  slavery.  As  such,  and  with  what  information  I 
have,  I  hope  and  believe  General  Taylor,  if  elected,  would  not  veto 
the  proviso.  But  I  do  not  know  it.  Yet  if  I  knew  he  would,  I  still 
would  vote  for  him.  I  should  do  so  because,  in  my  judgment,  his 
election  alone  can  defeat  General  Cass ;  and  because,  should  slavery 
thereby  go  to  the  territory  we  now  have,  just  so  much  will  certainly 
happen  by  the  election  of  Cass,  and,  in  addition  a  course  of  policy 
leading  to  new  wars,  new  acquisitions  of  territory  and  still  further 
extensions  of  slavery.  One  of  the  two  is  to  be  President.  Which 
is  preferable  ? 

But  there  is  as  much  doubt  of  Cass  on  improvements  as  there  is 
of  Taylor  on  the  proviso.  I  have  no  doubt  myself  of  General  Cass 
on  this  question;  but  I  know  the  Democrats  differ  among  them 
selves  as  to  his  position.  My  internal-improvement  colleague  [Mr. 
Wentworth]  stated  on  this  floor  the  other  day  that  he  was  satisfied 
Cass  was  for  improvements,  because  he  had  voted  for  all  the  bills  that 
he  [Mr.  Wentworth]  had.  So  far  so  good.  But  Mr.  Polk  vetoed 
some  of  these  very  bills.  The  Baltimore  convention  passed  a  set  of 
resolutions,  among  other  things,  approving  these  vetoes,  and  Gen- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          139 

eral  Cass  declares,  in  his  letter  accepting  the  nomination,  that  he  has 
carefully  read  these  resolutions,  and  that  he  adheres  to  them  as  firmly 
as  he  approves  them  cordially.  In  other  words,  General  Cass  voted 
for  the  bills,  and  thinks  the  "President  did  right  to  veto  them ;  and 
his  friends  here  are  amiable  enough  to  consider  him  as  being  on  one 
side  or  the  other,  just  as  one  or  the  other  may  correspond  with  their 
own  respective  inclinations.  My  colleague  admits  that  the  platform 
declares  against  the  constitutionality  of  a  general  system  of  im 
provements  j  and  that  General  Cass  indorses  the  platform  ;  but  he 
still  thinks  General  Cass  is  in  favor  of  some  sort  of  improvements. 
"Well,  what  are  they?  As  he  is  against  general  objects,  those  he  is 
for  must  be  particular  and  local.  Now  this  is  taking  the  subject 
precisely  by  the  wrong  end.  Particularity — expending  the  money 
of  the  whole  people  for  an  object  which  will  benefit  only  a  portion 
of  them — is  the  greatest  real  objection  to  improvements,  and  has 
been  so  held  by  General  Jackson,  Mr.  Polk,  and  all  others,  I  believe, 
till  now.  But  now,  behold,  the  objects  most  general — nearest  free 
from  this  objection — are  to  be  rejected,  while  those  most  liable  to 
it  are  to  be  embraced.  To  return:  I  cannot  help  believing  that 
General  Cass,  when  he  wrote  his  letter  of  acceptance,  well  under 
stood  he  was  to  be  claimed  by  the  advocates  of  both  sides  of  this 
question,  and  that  he  then  closed  the  door  against  all  further  expres 
sions  of  opinion  purposely  to  retain  the  benefits  of  that  double  posi 
tion.  His  subsequent  equivocation  at  Cleveland,  to  my  mind,  proves 
such  to  have  been  the  case. 

One  word  more,  and  I  shall  have  done  with  this  branch  of  the  sub 
ject.  You  Democrats,  and  your  candidate,  in  the  main  are  in  favor 
of  laying  down  in  advance  a  platform — a  set  of  party  positions— 
as  a  unit,  and  then  of  forcing  the  people,  by  every  sort  of  appli 
ance,  to  ratify  them,  however  unpalatable  some  of  them  may  be. 
We  and  our  candidate  are  in  favor  of  making  presidential  elec 
tions,  and  the  legislation  of  the  country  distinct  matters ;  so  that 
the  people  can  elect  whom  they  please,  and  afterward  legislate  just 
as  they  please,  without  any  hindrance,  save  only  so  much  as  may 
guard  against  infractions  of  the  Constitution,  undue  haste,  and 
want  of  consideration.  The  difference  between  us  is  clear  as  noon 
day.  That  we  are  right  we  cannot  doubt.  We  hold  the  true  Re 
publican  position.  In  leaving  the  people's  business  in  their  hands, 
we  cannot  be  wrong.  We  are  willing,  and  even  anxious,  to  go  to 
the  people  on  this  issue. 

Old  Horses  and  Military  Coat-tails. 

But  I  suppose  I  cannot  reasonably  hope  to  convince  you  that  we 
have  any  principles.  The  most  I  can  expect  is  to  assure  you  that 
we  think  we  have,  and  are  quite  contented  with  them.  The  other 
day  one  of  the  gentlemen  from  Georgia  [Mr.  Iverson],  an  eloquent 
man,  and  a  man  of  learning,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  not  being  learned 
myself,  came  down  upon  us  astonishingly.  He  spoke  in  what  the 
"Baltimore  American"  calls  the  " scathing  and  withering  style." 
At  the  end  of  his  second  severe  flash  I  was  struck  blind,  and  found 


140         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

myself  feeling  with  my  fingers  for  an  assurance  of  my  continued  ex 
istence.  A  little  of  the  bone  was  left,  and  I  gradually  revived.  He 
eulogized  Mr.  Clay  in  high  and  beautiful  terms,  and  then  declared 
that  we  had  deserted  all  our  principles,  and  had  turned  Henry  Clay 
out,  like  an  old  horse,  to  root.  This  is  terribly  severe.  It  cannot 
be  answered  by  argument — at  least  I  cannot  so  answer  it.  I  merely 
wish  to  ask  the  gentleman  if  the  Whigs  are  the  only  party  he  can 
think  of  who  sometimes  turn  old  horses  out  to  root.  Is  not  a  cer 
tain  Martin  Van  Buren  an  old  horse  which  your  own  party  have 
turned  out  to  root?  and  is  he  not  rooting  a  little  to  your  discom 
fort  about  now?  But  in  not  nominating  Mr.  Clay  we  deserted 
our  principles,  you  say.  Ah  !  In  what  ?  Tell  us,  ye  men  of  prin 
ciple,  what  principle  we  violated.  We  say  you  did  violate  principle 
in  discarding  Van  Buren,  and  we  can  tell  you  how.  You  vio 
lated  the  primary,  the  cardinal,  the  one  great  living  principle  of  all 
democratic  representative  government — the  principle  that  the  rep 
resentative  is  bound  to  carry  out  the  known  will  of  his  constituents. 
A  large  majority  of  the  Baltimore  convention  of  1844  were,  by  their 
constituents,  instructed  to  procure  Van  Buren's  nomination  if  they 
could.  In  violation — in  utter  glaring  contempt — of  this,  you  re 
jected  him — rejected  him,  as  the  gentleman  from  New- York  [Mr. 
Birdsall]  the  other  day  expressly  admitted,  for  availability — that 
same  "  general  availability"  which  you  charge  upon  us,  and  daily 
chew  over  here,  as  something  exceedingly  odious  and  unprincipled. 
But  the  gentleman  from  Georgia  [Mr.  Iverson]  gave  us  a  second 
speech  yesterday,  all  well  considered  and  put  down  in  writing,  in 
which  Van  Bureu  was  scathed  and  withered  a  "  few  "  for  his  present 
position  and  movements.  I  cannot  remember  the  gentleman's  pre 
cise  language  j  but  I  do  remember  he  put  Van  Buren  down,  down, 
till  he  got  him  where  he  was  finally  to  "  stink  "  and  "  rot." 

Mr.  Speaker,  it  is  no  business  or  inclination  of  mine  to  defend 
Martin  Van  Buren  in  the  war  of  extermination  now  waging  between 
him  and  his  old  admirers.  I  say,  "  Devil  take  the  hindmost" — and 
the  foremost.  But  there  is  no  mistaking  the  origin  of  the  breach  j 
and  if  the  curse  of  "  stinking"  and  "  rotting  "  is  to  fall  on  the  first 
and  greatest  violators  of  principle  in  the  matter,  I  disinterestedly 
suggest  that  the  gentleman  from  Georgia  and  his  present  co-workers 
are  bound  to  take  it  upon  themselves.  But  the  gentleman  from 
Georgia  further  says  we  have  deserted  all  our  principles,  and  taken 
shelter  under  General  Taylor's  military  coat-tail,  and  he  seems  to 
think  this  is  exceedingly  degrading.  Well,  as  his  faith  is,  so  be  it 
unto  him.  But  can  he  remember  no  other  military  coat-tail  under 
which  a  certain  other  party  have  been  sheltering  for  near  a  quarter 
of  a  century  ?  Has  he  no  acquaintance  with  the  ample  military  coat- 
tail  of  General  Jackson  ?  Does  he  not  know  that  his  own  party  have 
run  the  five  last  presidential  races  under  that  coat-tail  ?  And  that 
they  are  now  running  the  sixth  under  the  same  cover  ?  Yes,  sir,  that 
coat-tail  was  used  not  only  for  General  Jackson  himself,  but  has 
been  clung  to,  with  the  grip  of  death,  by  every  Democratic  candidate 
since.  You  have  never  ventured,  and"  dare  not  now  venture,  from 
under  it.  Your  campaign  papers  have  constantly  been  "  Old  Hick- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          141 

ories,"  with  rude  likenesses  of  the  old  general  upon  them  ;  hickory 
poles  and  hickory  brooms  your  never-ending  emblems ;  Mr.  Polk 
himself  was  "  Young  Hickory,"  "  Little  Hickory/7  or  something  so ; 
and  even  now  your  campaign  paper  here  is  proclaiming  that  Cass  and 
Butler  are  of  the  true  "  Hickory  stripe."  Now,  sir,  you  dare  not 
give  it  up.  Like  a  horde  of  hungry  ticks  you  have  stuck  to  the 
tail  of  the  Hermitage  lion  to  the  end  of  his  life ;  and  you  are  still 
sticking  to  it,  and  drawing  a  loathsome  sustenance  from  it,  after  he 
is  dead.  A  fellow  once  advertised  that  he  had  made  a  discovery  by 
which  he  could  make  a  new  man  out  of  an  old  one,  and  have  enough 
of  the  stuff  left  to  make  a  little  yellow  dog.  Just  such  a  discovery 
has  General  Jackson's  popularity  been  to  you.  You  not  only  twice 
made  President  of  him  out  of  it,  but  you  have  had  enough  of  the 
stuff  left  to  make  Presidents  of  several  comparatively  small  men 
since ;  and  it  is  your  chief  reliance  now  to  make  still  another. 

Mr.  Speaker,  old  horses  and  military  coat-tails,  or  tails  of  any 
sort,  are  not  figures  of  speech  such  as  I  would  be  the  first  to  intro 
duce  into  discussions  here ;  but  as  the  gentleman  from  Georgia  has 
thought  fit  to  introduce  them,  he  and  you  are  welcome  to  all  you 
have  made,  or  can  make  by  them.  If  you  have  any  more  old  horses, 
trot  them  out ;  any  more  tails,  just  cock  them  and  come  at  us.  I 
repeat,  I  would  not  introduce  this  mode  of  discussion  here  ;  but  I 
wish  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  to  understand  that  the  use  of  de 
grading  figures  is  a  game  at  which  they  may  not  find  themselves 
able  to  take  all  the  winnings.  ["  We  give  it  up ! "]  Aye,  you  give 
it  up,  and  well  you  may  j  but  for  a  very  different  reason  from  that 
which  you  would  have  us  understand.  The  point — the  power  to 
hurt — of  all  figures  consists  in  the  truthfulness  of  their  application  j 
and,  understanding  this,  you  may  well  give  it  up.  They  are  weapons 
which  hit  you,  but  miss  us. 

Military  Tail  of  the  Great  MicMgander. 

But  in  my  hurry  I  was  very  near  closing  this  subject  of  mili 
tary  tails  before  I  was  done  with  it.  There  is  one  entire  article  of 
the  sort  I  have  not  discussed  yet, — I  mean  the  military  tail  you 
Democrats  are  now  engaged  in  dovetailing  into  the  great  Michi- 
gander.  Yes,  sir;  all  his  biographies  (and  they  are  legion)  have 
him  in  hand,  tying  him  to  a  military  tail,  like  so  many  mischiev 
ous  boys  tying  a  dog  to  a  bladder  of  beans.  True  the  material  they 
have  is  very  limited,  but  they  drive  at  it  might  and  main.  He  in- 
vaded  Canada  without  resistance,  and  he  ow^vaded  it  without  pur 
suit.  As  he  did  both  under  orders,  I  suppose  there  was  to  him 
neither  credit  nor  discredit  in  them ;  but  they  constitute  a  large  part 
of  the  tail.  He  was  not  at  Hull's  surrender,  but  he  was  close  by  j 
he  was  volunteer  aid  to  General  Harrison  on  the  day  of  the  battle 
of  the  Thames ;  and  as  you  said  in  1840  Harrison  was  picking 
huckleberries  two  miles  off  while  the  battle  was  fought,  I  suppose 
it  is  a  just  conclusion  with  you  to  say  Cass  was  aiding  Harrison  to 
pick  huckleberries.  This  is  about  all,  except  the  mooted  question 
of  the  broken  sword.  Some  authors  say  he  broke  it,  some  say  he 


142         ADDKESSES   AND  LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

threw  it  away,  and  some  others,  who  ought  to  know,  say  nothing 
about  it.  Perhaps  it  would  be  a  fair  historical  compromise  to  say, 
if  he  did  not  break  it,  he  did  not  do  anything  else  with  it. 

By  the  way,  Mr.  Speaker,  did  you  know  I  am  a  military  hero? 
Yes,  sir;  in  the  days  of  the  Black  Hawk  war  I  fought,  bled,  and 
came  away.  Speaking  of  General  Cass's  career  reminds  me  of  my 
own.  I  was  not  at  Stillman's  defeat,  but  I  was  about  as  near  it  as 
Cass  was  to  Hull's  surrender;  and,  like  him,  I  saw  the  place  very 
soon  afterward.  It  is  quite  certain  I  did  not  break  my  sword,  for 
I  had  none  to  break  5  but  I  bent  a  musket  pretty  badly  on  one  occa 
sion.  If  Cass  broke  his  sword,  the  idea  is  he  broke  it  in  desperation  • 
I  bent  the  musket  by  accident.  If  General  Cass  went  in  advance  of 
me  in  picking  huckleberries,  I  guess  I  surpassed  him  in  charges 
upon  the  wild  onions.  If  he  saw  any  live,  fighting  Indians,  it  was 
more  than  I  did ;  but  I  had  a  good  many  bloody  struggles  with  the 
mosquitoes,  and  although  I  never  fainted  from  the  loss  of  blood,  I 
can  truly  say  I  was  often  very  hungry.  Mr.  Speaker,  if  I  should 
ever  conclude  to  doff  whatever  our  Democratic  friends  may  suppose 
there  is  of  black-cockade  federalism  about  me,  and  therefore  they 
shall  take  me  up  as  their  candidate  for  the  presidency,  I  protest  they 
shall  not  make  fun  of  me,  as  they  have  of  General  Cass,  by  attempt 
ing  to  write  me  into  a  military  hero. 

Cass  on  the  Wilmot  Proviso. 

While  I  have  General  Cass  in  hand,  I  wish  to  say  a  word  about 
his  political  principles.  As  a  specimen,  I  take  the  record  of  his 
progress  in  the  Wilmot  proviso.  In  the  Washington  "Union"  of 
March  2,  1847,  there  is  a  report  of  a  speech  of  General  Cass,  made 
the  day  before  in  the  Senate,  on  the  Wilmot  proviso,  during  the  de 
livery  of  which  Mr.  Miller  of  New  Jersey  is  reported  to  have  inter 
rupted  him  as  follows,  to  wit : 

Mr.  Miller  expressed  his  great  surprise  at  the  change  in  the  sentiments  of 
the  senator  from  Michigan,  who  had  been  regarded  as  the  great  champion 
of  freedom  in  the  Northwest,  of  which  he  was  a  distinguished  ornament. 
Last  year  the  senator  from  Michigan  was  understood  to  be  decidedly  in 
favor  of  the  Wilmot  proviso ;  and  as  no  reason  had  been  stated  for  the 
change,  he  [Mr.  Miller]  could  not  refrain  from  the  expression  of  his  ex 
treme  surprise. 

To  this  General  Cass  is  reported  to  have  replied  as  follows,  to  wit  : 

Mr.  Cass  said  that  the  course  of  the  senator  from  New  Jersey  was  most 
extraordinary.  Last  year  he  [Mr.  Cass]  should  have  voted  for  the  proposi 
tion,  had  it  come  up.  But  circumstances  had  altogether  changed.  The 
honorable  senator  then  read  several  passages  from  the  remarks,  as  given 
above,  which  he  had  committed  to  writing,  in  order  to  refute  such  a  charge 
as  that  of  the  senator  from  New  Jersey. 

In  the  "  remarks  above  reduced  to  writing  "  is  one  numbered  four, 
as  follows,  to  wit : 

Fourth.  Legislation  now  would  be  wholly  inoperative,  because  no  ter 
ritory  hereafter  to  be  acquired  can  be  governed  without  an  act  of  Congress 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          143 

providing  for  its  government ;  and  such  an  act,  on  its  passage,  would  open 
the  whole  subject,  and  leave  the  Congress  called  on  to  pass  it  free  to  exer 
cise  its  own  discretion,  entirely  uncontrolled  by  any  declaration  found  on 
the  statute-book. 

In  "Niles's  Register/'  Vol.  LXXIIL,  p.  293,  there. is  a  letter  of 

General   Cass  to  Nicholson,  of  Nashville,  Tennessee,  dated 

December  24,  1847,  from  which  the  following  are  correct  extracts : 

The  Wilmot  proviso  has  been  before  the  country  some  time.  It  has 
been  repeatedly  discussed  in  Congress  and  by  the  public  press.  I  am 
strongly  impressed  with  the  opinion  that  a  great  change  has  been  going  on 
in  the  public  mind  upon  this  subject, — in  my  own  as  well  as  others', —  and 
that  doubts  are  resolving  themselves  into  convictions  that  the  principle  it 
involves  should  be  kept  out  of  the  national  legislature,  and  left  to  the  peo 
ple  of  the  confederacy  in  their  respective  local  governments.  .  .  .  Briefly, 
then,  I  am  opposed  to  the  exercise  of  any  jurisdiction  by  Congress  over 
this  matter ;  and  I  am  in  favor  of  leaving  the  people  of  any  territory  which 
may  be  hereafter  acquired  the  right  to  regulate  it  themselves,  under  the 
general  principles  of  the  Constitution.  Because — 

First.  I  do  not  see  in  the  Constitution  any  grant  of  the  requisite  power 
to  Congress  ;  and  I  am  not  disposed  to  extend  a  doubtful  precedent  be 
yond  its  necessity, — the  establishment  of  territorial  governments  when 
needed, — leaving  to  the** inhabitants  all  the  right  compatible  with  the  re 
lations  they  bear  to  the  confederation. 

These  extracts  show  that  in  1846  General  Cass  was  for  the  pro 
viso  at  once;  that  in  March,  1847,  he  was  still  for  it,  but  not  just 
then;  and  that  in  December,  1847,  he  was  against  it  altogether. 
This  is  a  true  index  to  the  whole  man.  When  the  question  was 
raised  in  1846,  he  was  in  a  blustering  hurry  to  take  ground  for  it. 
He  sought  to  be  in  advance,  and  to  avoid  the  uninteresting  position 
of  a  mere  follower ;  but  soon  he  began  to  see  glimpses  of  the  great 
Democratic  ox-goad  waving  in  his  face,  and  to  hear  indistinctly  a 
voice  saying,  "  Back  !  Back,  sir  !  Back  a  little ! "  He  shakes  his 
head,  and  bats  his  eyes,  and  blunders  back  to  his  position  of  March, 
1847 ;  but  still  the  goad  waves,  and  the  voice  grows  more  distinct 
and  sharper  still,  "  Back,  sir !  Back,  I  say !  Further  back  ! " 
and  back  he  goes  to  the  position  of  December,  1847,  at  which  the 
goad  is  still,  and  the  voice  soothingly  says,  "  So  !  Stand  at  that ! n 

Have  no  fears,  gentlemen,  of  your  candidate.  He  exactly  suits 
you,  and  we  congratulate  you  upon  it.  However  much  you  may  be 
distressed  about  our  candidate,  you  have  all  cause  to  be  contented 
and  happy  with  your  own.  If  elected,  he  may  not  maintain  all,  or 
even  any  of  his  positions  previously  taken;  but  he  will  be  sure 
to  do  whatever  the  party  exigency  for  the  time  being  may  require  ; 
and  that  is  precisely  what  you  want.  He  and  Van  Buren  are  the 
same  "  manner  of  men  " ;  and,  like  Van  Buren,  he  will  never  desert 
you  till  you  first  desert  him. 

Cass  on  Working  and  Eating. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  adopt  the  suggestion  of  a  friend,  that  General 
Cass  is  a  general  of  splendidly  successful  charges — charges  to  be 


144         ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

sure,  not  upon  the  public  enemy,  but  upon  the  public  treasury.  He 
was  Governor  of  Michigan  Territory,  and  ex-officio  Superintendent 
of  Indian  Affairs,  from  the  9th  of  October,  1813,  till  the  31st  of 
July,  1831  —  a  period  of  seventeen  years,  nine  months,  and  twenty- 
two  days.  During  this  period  he  received  from  the  United  States 
treasury,  for  personal  services  and  personal  expenses,  the  aggregate 
sum  of  ninety-six  thousand  and  twenty-eight  dollars,  being  an  aver 
age  of  fourteen  dollars  and  seventy-nine  cents  per  day  for  every  day 
of  the  time.  This  large  sum  was  reached  by  assuming  that  he  was 
doing  service  at  several  different  places,  and  in  several  different 
capacities  in  the  same  place,  all  at  the  same  time.  By  a  correct 
analysis  of  his  accounts  during  that  period,  the  following  proposi 
tions  may  be  deduced : 

First.  He  was  paid  in  three  different  capacities  during  the  whole 
of  the  time  j  that  is  to  say — (1)  As  governor's  salary  at  the  rate  per 
year  of  $2000.  (2)  As  estimated  for  office  rent,  clerk  hire,  fuel,  etc., 
in  superintendence  of  Indian  affairs  in  Michigan,  at  the  rate  per 
year  of  $1500.  (3)  As  compensation  and  expenses  for  various  mis 
cellaneous  items  of  Indian  service  out  of  Michigan,  an  average  per 
year  of  $625. 

Second.  During  part  of  the  time — that  is^from  the  9th  of  Octo 
ber,  1813,  to  the  29th  of  May,  1822— he  was  paid  in  four  different 
capacities ;  that  is  to  say,  the  three  as  above,  and,  in  addition  thereto, 
the  commutation  of  ten  rations  per  day,  amounting  per  year  to  $730. 

Third.  During  another  part  of  the  time — that  is,  from  the  be 
ginning  of  1822  to  the  31st  of  July,  1831 — he  was  also  paid  in  four 
different  capacities ;  that  is  to  say,  the  first  three,  as  above  (the  ra 
tions  being  dropped  after  the  29th  of  May,  1822),  and,  in  addition 
thereto,  for  superintending  Indian  Agencies  at  Piqua,  Ohio ;  Fort 
Wayne,  Indiana ;  and  Chicago,  Illinois,  at  the  rate  per  year  of  $1500. 
It  should  be  observed  here  that  the  last  item,  commencing  at  the 
beginning  of  1822,  and  the  item  of  rations,  ending  on  the  29th  of 
May,  1822,  lap  on  each  other  during  so  much  of  the  time  as  lies 
between  those  two  dates. 

Fourth.  Stiy.  another  part  of  the  time — that  is,  from  the  31st  of 
October,  1821,  to  the  29th  of  May,  1822— he  was  paid  in  six  different 
capacities ;  that  is  to  say,  the  three  first,  as  above ;  the  item  of  ra 
tions,  as  above ;  and,  in  addition  thereto,  another  item  of  ten  rations 
per  day  while  at  Washington  settling  his  accounts,  being  at  the  rate 
per  year  of  $730 ;  and  also  an  allowance  for  expenses  traveling  to 
and  from  Washington,  and  while  there,  of  $1022,  being  at  the  rate 
per  year  of  $1793. 

Fifth.  And  yet  during  the  little  portion  of  the  time  which  lies 
between  the  1st  of  January,  1822,  and  the  29th  of  May,  1822,  he  was 
paid  in  seven  different  capacities ;  that  is  to  say,  the  six  last  men 
tioned,  and  also,  at  the  rate  of  $1500  per  year,  for  the  Piqua,  Fort 
Wayne,  and  Chicago  service,  as  mentioned  above. 

These  accounts  have  already  been  discussed  some  here ;  but  when 
we  are  amongst  them,  as  when  we  are  in  the  Patent  Office,  we  must 
peep  about  a  good  deal  before  we  can  see  all  the  curiosities.  I  shall 
not  be  tedious  with  them.  As  to  the  large  item  of  $1500  per  year — 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          145 

amounting  in  the  aggregate  to  $26,715 — for  office  rent,  clerk  hire, 
fuel,  etc.,  I  barely  wish  to  remark  that  so  far  as  I  can  discover  in 
the  public  documents,  there  is  no  evidence,  by  word  or  inference, 
either  from  any  disinterested  witness  or  of  General  Cass  himself, 
that  he  ever  rented  or  kept  a  separate  office,  ever  hired  or  kept  a 
clerk,  or  even  used  any  extra  amount  of  fuel,  etc.,  in  consequence  of 
his  Indian  services.  Indeed,  General  Cass's  entire  silence  in  regard 
to  these  items,  in  his  two  long  letters  urging  his  claims  upon  the 
government,  is,  to  my  mind,  almost  conclusive  that  no  such  claims 
had  any  real  existence. 

But  I  have  introduced  General  Cass's  accounts  here  chiefly  to  show 
the  wonderful  physical  capacities  of  the  man.  They  show  that  he 
not  only  did  the  labor  of  several  men  at  the  same  time,  but  that  he 
often  did  it  at  several  places,  many  hundreds  of  miles  apart,  at  the 
same  time.  And  at  eating,  too,  his  capacities  are  shown  to  be  quite 
as  wonderful.  From  October,  1821,  to  May,  1822,  he  eat  ten  rations 
a  day  in  Michigan,  ten  rations  a  day  here  in  Washington,  and  near 
five  dollars'  worth  a  day  on  the  road  between  the  two  places  !  And 
then  there  is  an  important  discovery  in  his  example — the  art  of  being 
paid  for  what  one  eats,  instead  of  having  to  pay  for  it.  Hereafter 
if  any  nice  young  man  should  owe  a  bill  which  he  cannot  pay  in  any 
other  way,  he  can  just  board  it  out.  Mr.  Speaker,  we  have  all  heard 
of  the  animal  standing  in  doubt  between  two  stacks  of  hay  and  starv 
ing  to  death.  The  like  of  that  would  never  happen  to  General  Cass. 
Place  the  stacks  a  thousand  miles  apart,  he  would  stand  stock-still 
midway  between  them,  and  eat  them  both  at  once,  and  the  green 
grass  along  the  line  would  be  apt  to  suffer  some,  too,  at  the  same 
time.  By  all  means  make  him  President,  gentlemen.  He  will  feed 
you  bounteously — if — if  there  is  any  left  after  he  shall  have  helped 
himself. 

The  Whigs  and  the  War. 

But,  as  General  Taylor  is,  par  excellence,  the  hero  of  the  Mexican 
War,  and  as  you  Democrats  say  we  Whigs  have  always  opposed  the 
war,  you  think  it  must  be  very  awkward  and  embarrassing  for  us 
to  go  for  General  Taylor.  The  declaration  that  we  have  always 
opposed  the  war  is  true  or  false,  according  as  one  may  understand 
the  term  "  oppose  the  war."  If  to  say  "  the  war  was  unnecessarily 
and  unconstitutionally  commenced  by  the  President"  be  opposing 
the  war,  then  the  Whigs  have  very  generally  opposed  it.  Whenever 
they  have  spoken  at  all,  they  have  said  this ;  and  they  have  said  it 
on  what  has  appeared  good  reason  to  them.  The  marching  an  army 
into  the  midst  of  a  peaceful  Mexican  settlement,  frightening  the  in 
habitants  away,  leaving  their  growing  crops  and  other  property  to 
destruction,  to  you  may  appear  a  perfectly  amiable,  peaceful,  unpro- 
voking  procedure :  but  it  does  not  appear  so  to  us.  So  to  call  such 
an  act,  to  us  appears  no  other  than  a  naked,  impudent  absurdity, 
and  we  speak  of  it  accordingly.  But  if,  when  the  war  had  begun, 
and  had  become  the  cause  of  the  country,  the  giving  of  our  money  and 
our  blood,  in  common  with  yours,  was  support  of  the  war, "then 
it  is  not  true  that  we  have  always  opposed  the  war.  With  few 
VOL.  I.— 10. 


146          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

individual  exceptions,  you  have  constantly  had  our  votes  here  for 
all  the  necessary  supplies.  And,  more  than  this,  you  have  had 
the  services,  the  blood,  and  the  lives  of  our  political  brethren  in 
every  trial  and  on  every  field.  The  beardless  boy  and  the  ma 
ture  man,  the  humble  and  the  distinguished — you  have  had  them. 
Through  suifering  and  death,  by  disease  and  in  battle,  they  have  en 
dured  and  fought  and  fell  with  you.  Clay  and  Webster  each  gave 
a  son,  never  to  be  returned.  From  the  State  of  my  own  residence, 
besides  other  worthy  but  less  known  Whig  names,  we  sent  Marshall, 
Morrison,  Baker,  and  Hardin ;  they  all  fought,  and  one  fell,  and  in 
the  fall  of  that  one  we  lost  our  best  Whig  man.  Nor  were  the 
Whigs  few  in  number,  or  laggard  in  the  day  of  danger.  In  that 
fearful,  bloody,  breathless  struggle  at  Buen a  Vista,  where  each  man's 
hard  task  was  to  beat  back  five  foes  or  die  himself,  of  the  five  high 
officers  who  perished,  four  were  Whigs. 

In  speaking  of  this,  I  mean  no  odious  comparison  between  the 
lion-hearted  Whigs  and  the  Democrats  who  fought  there.  On  other 
occasions,  and  among  the  lower  officers  and  privates  on  that  occa 
sion,  I  doubt  not  the  proportion  was  different.  I  wish  to  do  jus 
tice  to  all.  I  think  of  all  those  brave  men  as  Americans,  in  whose 
proud  fame,  as  an  American,  I  too  have  a  share.  Many  of  them, 
Whigs  and  Democrats,  are  my  constituents  and  personal  friends; 
and  I  thank  them, —  more  than  thank  them, —  one  and  all,  for 
the  high  imperishable  honor  they  have  conferred  on  our  common 
State. 

But  the  distinction  between  the  cause  of  the  President  in  begin 
ning  the  war,  and  the  cause  of  the  country  after  it  was  begun,  is  a  dis 
tinction  which  you  cannot  perceive.  To  you  the  President  and  the 
country  seem  to  be  all  one.  You  are  interested  to  see  no  distinction 
between  them ;  and  I  venture  to  suggest  that  probably  your  interest 
blinds  you  a  little.  We  see  the  distinction,  as  we  think,  clearly 
enough ;  and  our  friends  who  have  fought  in  the  war  have  no  dif 
ficulty  in  seeing  it  also.  What  those  who  have  fallen  would  say, 
were  they  alive  and  here,  of  course  we  can  never  know ;  but  with 
those  who  have  returned  there  is  no  difficulty.  Colonel  Haskell  and 
Major  Gaines,  members  here,  both  fought  in  the  war,  and  one1  of 
them  underwent  extraordinary  perils  and  hardships  j  still  they,  like 
all  other  Whigs  here,  vote,  on  the  record,  that  the  war  was  unneces 
sarily  and  unconstitutionally  commenced  by  the  President.  And 
even  General  Taylor  himself,  the  noblest  Roman  of  them  all,  has 
declared  that  as  a  citizen,  and  particularly  as  a  soldier,  it  is  suffi 
cient  for  him  to  know  that  his  country  is  at  war  with  a  foreign 
nation,  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  bring  it  to  a  speedy  and  honorable 
termination  by  the  most  vigorous  and  energetic  operations,  without 
inquiry  about  its  justice,  or  anything  else  connected  with  it. 

Mr.  Speaker,  let  our  Democratic  friends  be  comforted  with  the  as 
surance  that  we  are  content  with  our  position,  content  with  our  com 
pany,  and  content  with  our  candidate  ;  and  that  although  they,  in 
their  generous  sympathy,  think  we  ought  to  be  miserable,  we  really 
are  not,  and  that  they  may  dismiss  the  great  anxiety  they  have  on 
our  account. 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF  ABKAHAM  LINCOLN          147 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  see  I  have  but  three  minutes  left,  and  this  forces 
me  to  throw  out  one  whole  branch  of  my  subject.  A  single  word 
on  still  another.  The  Democrats  are  keen  enough  to  frequently  re 
mind  us  that  we  have  some  dissensions  in  our  ranks.  Our  good 
friend  from  Baltimore  immediately  before  me  [Mr.  McLaneJ  ex 
pressed  some  doubt  the  other  day  as  to  which  branch  of  our  party 
General  Taylor  would  ultimately*fall  into  the  hands  of.  That  was  a 
new  idea  to  me.  I  knew  we  had  dissenters,  but  I  did  not  know  they 
were  trying  to  get  our  candidate  away  from  us.  I  would  like  to  say 
a  word  to  our  dissenters,  but  I  have  not  the  time.  Some  such  we 
certainly  have;  have  you  none,  gentlemen  Democrats?  Is  it  all 
union  and  harmony  in  your  ranks?  no  bickerings  ?  no  divisions? 
If  there  be  doubt  as  to  which  of  our  divisions  will  get  our  candi 
date,  is  there  no  doubt  as  to  which  of  your  candidates  will  get  your 
party  ? 

Divided  Gangs  of  Hogs  ! 

I  have  heard  some  things  from  New  York ;  and  if  they  are  true, 
one  might  well  say  of  your  party  there,  as  a  drunken  fellow  once 
said  when  he  heard  the  reading  of  an  indictment  for  hog-stealing. 
The  clerk  read  on  till  he  got  to  and  through  the  words,  "  did  steal, 
take,  and  carry  away  ten  boars,  ten  sows,  ten  shoats,  and  ten  pigs," 
at  which  he  exclaimed,  "  Well,  by  golly,  that  is  the  most  equally 
divided  gang  of  hogs  I  ever  did  hear  of!"  If  there  is  any  other 

fang  of  hogs  more  equally  divided  than  the  Democrats  of  New 
rork  are  about  this  time,  I  have  not  heard  of  it. 


December  24,  1848. — LETTER  TO  THOMAS  LINCOLN. 

WASHINGTON,  December  24,  1848. 

My  dear  Father :  Your  letter  of  the  7th  was  received  night  be 
fore  last.  I  very  cheerfully  send  you  the  twenty  dollars,  which 
sum  you  say  is  necessary  to  save  your  land  from  sale.  It  is  singu 
lar  that  you  should  have  forgotten  a  judgment  against  you  ;  and  it 
is  more  singular  that  the  plaintiff  should  have  let  you  forget  it  so 
long,  particularly  as  I  suppose  you  always  had  property  enough  to 
satisfy  a  judgment  of  that  amount.  Before  you  pay  it,  it  would  be 
well  to  be  sure  you  have  not  paid,  or  at  least  that  you  cannot  prove 
that  you  have  paid  it. 

Give  my  love  to  mother  and  all  the  connections.  Affectionately 
your  son,  A.  LINCOLN. 

January  16,  1849. —  BILL  TO  ABOLISH  SLAVERY  IN  THE  DISTRICT 

OF  COLUMBIA. 

On  January  16, 1849,  Mr.  Lincoln  moved  the  following  amendment 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  in  Congress,  instructing  the  proper 
committee  to  report  a  bill  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  with  the  consent  of  the  voters  of  the  District,  and  with 
compensation  to  owners: 


148          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Besolved,  That  the  Committee  on  the  District  of  Columbia  be  instructed 
to  report  a  bill  in  substance  as  follows : 

Sec.  1.  Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the 
United  States,  in  Congress  assembled,  That  no  person  not  now  within  the 
District  of  Columbia,  nor  now  owned  by  any  person  or  persons  now  resi 
dent  within  it,  nor  hereafter  born  within  it,  shall  ever  be  held  in  slavery 
within  said  District. 

Sec.  2.  That  no  person  now  within  said  District,  or  now  owned  by  any 
person  or  persons  now  resident  within  the  same,  or  hereafter  born  within 
it,  shall  ever  be  held  in  slavery  without  the  limits  of  said  District :  Provided, 
That  officers  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  being  citizens  of  the 
slaveholding  States,  coming  into  said  District  on  public  business,  and  re 
maining  only  so  long  as  may  be  reasonably  necessary  for  that  object,  may 
be  attended  into  and  out  of  said  District,  and  while  there,  by  the  necessary 
servants  of  themselves  and  their  families,  without  their  right  to  hold  such 
servants  in  service  being  thereby  impaired. 

Sec.  3.  That  all  children  born  of  slave  mothers  within  said  District,  on 
or  after  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  eighteen  hundred 
and  fifty,  shall  be  free ;  but  shall  be  reasonably  supported  and  educated  by 
the  respective  owners  of  their  mothers,  or  by  their  heirs  or  representatives, 
and  shall  owe  reasonable  service  as  apprentices  to  such  owners,  heirs,  or 
representatives,  until  they  respectively  arrive  at  the  age  of  -  —  years;  when 
they  shall  be  entirely  free ;  and  the  municipal  authorities  of  Washington 
and  Georgetown,  within  their  respective  jurisdictional  limits,  are  hereby 
empowered  and  required  to  make  all  suitable  and  necessary  provision  for 
enforcing  obedience  to  this  section,  on  the  part  of  both  masters  and  ap 
prentices. 

Sec.  4.  That  all  persons  now  within  this  District,  lawfully  held  as  slaves, 
or  now  owned  by  any  person  or  persons  now  resident  within  said  District, 
shall  remain  such  at  the  will  of  their  respective  owners,  their  heirs,  and  legal 
representatives :  Provided,  That  such  owner,  or  his  legal  representative, 
may  at  any  time  receive  from  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States  the  full 
value  of  his  or  her  slave,  of  the  class  in  this  section  mentioned,  upon  which 
such  slave  shall  be  forthwith  and  forever  free  :  And  provided  further,  That 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  the  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury  shall  be  a  board  for  determining  the  value  of  such 
slaves  as  their  owners  may  desire  to  emancipate  under  this  section,  and  whose 
duty  it  shall  be  to  hold  a  session  for  the  purpose  on  the  first  Monday  of  each 
calendar  month,  to  receive  all  applications,  and,  on  satisfactory  evidence  in 
each  case  that  the  person  presented  for  valuation  is  a  slave,  and  of  the  class 
in  this  section  mentioned,  and  is  owned  by  the  applicant,  shall  value  such 
slave  at  his  or  her  full  cash  value,  and  give  to  the  applicant  an  order  on  the 
Treasury  for  the  amount,  and  also  to  such  slave  a  certificate  of  freedom. 

Sec.  5.  That  the  municipal  authorities  of  Washington  and  Georgetown, 
within  their  respective  jurisdictional  limits,  are  hereby  empowered  and  re 
quired  to  provide  active  and  efficient  means  to  arrest  and  deliver  up  to  their 
owners  all  fugitive  slaves  escaping  into  said  District. 

Sec.  6.  That  the  election  officers  within  said  District  of  Columbia  are 
hereby  empowered  and  required  to  open  polls,  at  all  the  usual  places  of 
holding  elections,  on  the  first  Monday  of  April  next,  and  receive  the  vote 
of  every  free  white  male  citizen  above  the  age  of  twenty-one  years,  having 
resided  within  said  District  for  the  period  of  one  year  or  more  next  preced 
ing  the  time  of  such  voting  for  or  against  this  act,  to  proceed  in  taking  said 
votes,  in  all  respects  not  herein  specified,  as  at  elections  under  the  muni 
cipal  laws,  and  with  as  little  delay  as  possible  to  transmit  correct  statements 
of  the  votes  so  cast  to  the  President  of  the  United  States  j  and  it  shall  be  the 
duty  of  the  President  to  canvass  said  votes  immediately,  and  if  a  majority  of 


ADDKESSES    AND   LETTEKS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          149 

them  be  found  to  be  for  this  act,  to  forthwith  issue  his  proclamation  giving 
notice  of  the  fact ;  and  this  act  shall  only  be  in  full  force  and  effect  on  and 
after  the  day  of  such  proclamation. 

Sec.  7.  That  involuntary  servitude  for  the  punishment  of  crime,  whereof 
the  party  shall  have  been  duly  convicted,  shall  in  no  wise  be  prohibited  by 
this  act. 

Sec.  8.  That  for  all  the  purposes  of  this  act,  the  jurisdictional  limits  of 
Washington  are  extended  to  all  parts  of  the  District  of  Columbia  not  now 
included  within  the  present  limits  of  Georgetown. 


February  2,  1849. — LETTER  TO  SCHOOLER. 

WASHINGTON,  February  2,  1849. 

Friend  Schooler:  In  these  days  of  Cabinet  making,  we  out  West 
are  awake  as  well  as  others.  The  accompanying  article  is  from 
the  "  Illinois  Journal/'  our  leading  Whig  paper ;  and  while  it  ex 
presses  what  all  the  Whigs  of  the  legislatures  of  Illinois,  Iowa,  and 
Wisconsin  have  expressed, — a  preference  for  Colonel  Baker, — I 
think  it  is  fair  and  magnanimous  to  the  other  Western  aspirants ; 
and,  on  the  whole,  shows  by  sound  argument  that  the  West  is  not 
only  entitled  to,  but  is  in  need  of,  one  member  of  the  Cabinet.  De 
siring  to  turn  public  attention  in  some  measure  to  this  point,  I  shall 
be  obliged  if  you  will  give  the  article  a  place  in  your  paper,  with  or 
without  comments,  according  to  your  own  sense  of  propriety. 

Our  acquaintance,  though  short,  has  been  very  cordial,  and  I 
therefore  venture  to  hope  you  will  not  consider  my  request  pre 
sumptuous,  whether  you  shall  or  shall  not  think  proper  to  grant  it. 
This  I  intend  as  private  and  confidential.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


February  13,  1849. — REMARKS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

On  the  Bill  Granting  Lands  to  the  States  to  Make  Railroads  and  Canals. 

Mr.  Lincoln  said  he  had  not  risen  for  the  purpose  of  making  a 
speech,  but  only  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  some  of  the  objections 
to  the  bill.  If  he  understood  those  objections,  the  first  was  that 
if  the  bill  were  to  become  a  law,  it  would  be  used  to  lock  large  por 
tions  of  the  public  lands  from  sale,  without  at  last  effecting  the 
ostensible  object  of  the  bill — the  construction  of  railroads  in  the  new 
States ;  and  secondly,  that  Congress  would  be  forced  to  the  aban 
donment  of  large  portions  of  the  public  lands  to  the  States  for  which 
they  might  be  reserved,  without  their  paying  for  them.  This  he 
understood  to  be  the  substance  of  the  objections  of  the  gentleman 
from  Ohio  to  the  passage  of  the  bill. 

If  he  could  get  the  attention  of  the  House  for  a  few  minutes,  he 
would  ask  gentlemen  to  tell  us  what  motive  could  induce  any  State 
legislature,  or  individual,  or  company  of  individuals,  of  the  new 
States,  to  expend  money  in  surveying  roads  which  they  might  know 


150          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

they  could  not  make  ?  [A  voice :  They  are  not  required  to  make 
the  road.] 

Mr.  Lincoln  continued :  That  was  not  the  case  he  was  making. 
What  motive  would  tempt  any  set  of  men  to  go  into  an  extensive 
survey  of  a  railroad  which  they  did  not  intend  to  make?  What 
good  would  it  do  ?  Did  men  act  without  motive  ?  Did  business 
men  commonly  go  into  an  expenditure  of  money  which  could  be  of 
no  account  to  them  ?  He  generally  found  that  men  who  have  money 
were  disposed  to  hold  on  to  it,  unless  they  could  see  something  to 
be  made  by  its  investment.  He  could  not  see  what  motive  of  ad 
vantage  to  the  new  States  could  be  subserved  by  merely  keeping 
the  public  lands  out  of  market,  and  preventing  their  settlement. 
As  far  as  he  could  see,  the  new  States  were  wholly  without  any 
motive  to  do  such  a  thing.  This,  then,  he  took  to  be  a  good  answer 
to  the  first  objection. 

In  relation  to  the  fact  assumed,  that  after  a  while,  the  new  States 
having  got  hold  of  the  public  lands  to  a  certain  extent,  they  would 
turn  round  and  compel  Congress  to  relinquish  all  claim  to  them,  he 
had  a  word  to  say,  by  way  of  recurring  to  the  history  of  the  past. 
When  was  the  time  to  come  (he  asked)  when  the  States  in  which 
the  public  lands  were  situated  would  compose  a  majority  of  the 
representation  in  Congress,  or  anything  like  it?  A  majority  of 
Representatives  would  very  soon  reside  west  of  the  mountains,  he 
admitted  ;  but  would  they  all  come  from  States  in  which  the  public 
lands  were  situated  ?  They  certainly  would  not ;  for,  as  these  West 
ern  States  grew  strong  in  Congress,  the  public  lands  passed  away 
from  them,  and  they  got  on  the  other  side  of  the  question ;  and 
the  gentleman  from  Ohio  [Mr.  Vinton]  was  an  example  attesting 
that  fact. 

Mr.  Vinton  interrupted  here  to  say  that  he  had  stood  on  this 
question  just  where  he  was  now,  for  five  and  twenty  years. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  making  an  argument  for  the  purpose  of  con 
victing  the  gentleman  of  any  impropriety  at  all.  He  was  speaking 
of  a  fact  in  history,  of  which  his  State  was  an  example.  He  was 
referring  to  a  plain  principle  in  the  nature  of  things.  The  State  of 
Ohio  had  now  grown  to  be  a  giant.  She  had  a  large  delegation  on 
that  floor ;  but  was  she  now  in  favor  of  granting  lands  to  the  new 
States,  as  she  used  to  be  ?  The  New^  England  States,  New  York,  and 
the  Old  Thirteen  were  all  rather  quiet  upon  the  subject  ;  and  it  was 
seen  just  now  that  a  member  from  one  of  the  new  States  was  the 
first  man  to  rise  up  in  opposition.  And  so  it  would  be  with  the  his 
tory  of  this  question  for  the  future.  There  never  would  come  a 
time  when  the  people  residing  in  the  States  embracing  the  public 
lands  would  have  the  entire  control  of  this  subject ;  and  so  it  was  a 
matter  of  certainty  that  Congress  would  never  do  more  in  this 
respect  than  what  would  be  dictated  by  a  just  liberality.  The  ap 
prehension,  therefore,  that  the  public  lands  were  in  danger  of  being 
wrested  from  the  General  Government  by  the  strength  of  the  dele 
gation  in  Congress  from  the  new  States,  was  utterly  futile.  There 
never  could  be  such  a  thing.  If  we  take  these  lands  (said  he)  it  will 
not  be  without  your  consent.  We  can  never  outnumber  you.  The 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          151 

result  is  that  all  fear  of  the  new  States  turning  against  the  right  of 
Congress  to  the  public  domain  must  be  effectually  quelled,  as  those 
who  are  opposed  to  that  interest  must  always  hold  a  vast  majority 
here,  and  they  will  never  surrender  the  whole  or  any  part  of  the 
public  lands  unless  they  themselves  choose  to  do  so.  That  was  all 
he  desired  to  say. 

February  20,  1849. — LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

February  20,  1849. 

My  dear  Speed :  .  .  .  I  am  flattered  to  learn  that  Mr.  Crittenden 
has  any  recollection  of  me  which  is  not  unfavorable ;  and  for  the 
manifestation  of  your  kindness  toward  me  I  sincerely  thank  you. 
Still  there  is  nothing  about  me  to  authorize  me  to  think  of  a  first- 
class  office,  and  a  second-class  one  would  not  compensate  my  being 
sneered  at  by  others  who  want  it  for  themselves.  I  believe  that,  so 
far  as  the  Whigs  in  Congress  are  concerned,  I  could  have  the  Gen 
eral  Land  Office  almost  by  common  consent;  but  then  Sweet  and 
Don  Morrison  and  Browning  and  Cyrus  Edwards  all  want  it,  and 
what  is  worse,  while  I  think  I  could  easily  take  it  myself,  I  fear  I 
shall  have  trouble  to  get  it  for  any  other  man  in  Illinois.  The  rea 
son  is  that  McGaughey,  an  Indiana  ex-member  of  Congress,  is  here 
after  it,  and  being  personally  known,  he  will  be  hard  to  beat  by  any 
one  who  is  not.  .  .  . 

March  9,  1849. —  LETTER  TO  THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY. 

WASHINGTON,  March  9,  1849. 
HON.  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY. 

Dear  Sir :  Colonel  E.  D.  Baker  and  myself  are  the  only  Whig 
members  of  Congress  from  Illinois — I  of  the  Thirtieth,  and  he  of 
the  Thirty-first.  We  have  reason  to  think  the  Whigs  of  that  State 
hold  us  responsible,  to  some  extent,  for  the  appointments  which 
may  be  made  of  our  citizens.  We  do  not  know  you  personally ;  and 
our  efforts  to  see  you  have,  so  far,  been  unavailing.  I  therefore 
hope  I  am  not  obtrusive  in  saying  in  this  way,  for  him  and  myself, 
that  when  a  citizen  of  Illinois  is  to  be  appointed  in  your  depart 
ment,  to  an  office  either  in  or  out  of  the  State,  we  most  respectfully 
ask  to  be  heard.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

March  10,  1849. — LETTER  TO  THE  SECRETARY  OF  STATE. 

WASHINGTON,  March  10,  1849. 
HON.  SECRETARY  OF  STATE. 

Sir:  There  are  several  applicants  for  the  office  of  United  States 
Marshal  for  the  District  of  Illinois,  among  the  most  prominent  of 

whom  are  Benjamin  Bond,  Esq.,  of  Carlyle,  and Thomas,  Esq., 

of  Galena.  Mr.  Bond  I  know  to  be  personally  every  way  worthy  of 
the  office ;  and  he  is  very  numerously  and  most  respectably  recom- 


152          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

mended.    His  papers  I  send  to  you  ;  and  I  solicit  for  his  claims  a 
full  and  fair  consideration. 

Having  said  this  much,  I  add  that  in  my  individual  judgment  the 
appointment  of  Mr.  Thomas  would  be  the  better. 

Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINCOLN. 

(Indorsed  on  Mr.  Bond's  papers.) 

In  this  and  the  accompanying  envelop  are  the  recommendations 
of  about  two  hundred  good  citizens  of  all  parts  of  Illinois,  that  Ben 
jamin  Bond  be  appointed  marshal  for  that  district.  They  include 
the  names  of  nearly  all  our  Whigs  who  now  are,  or  have  ever  been, 
members  of  the  State  legislature,  besides  forty-six  of  the  Demo 
cratic  members  of  the  present  legislature,  and  many  other  good 
citizens.  I  add  that  from  personal  knowledge  I  consider  Mr.  Bond 
every  way  worthy  of  the  office,  and  qualified  to  fill  it.  Holding  the 
individual  opinion  that  the  appointment  of  a  different  gentleman 
would  be  better,  I  ask  especial  attention  and  consideration  for  his 
claims,  and  for  the  opinions  expressed  in  his  favor  by  those  over 
whom  I  can  claim  no  superiority. 

A.  LINCOLN. 

April  7,  1849. — LETTER  TO  THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  INTERIOR. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  April  7, 1849. 
HON.  SECRETARY  OF  THE  HOME  DEPARTMENT. 

Dear  Sir :  I  recommend  that  Walter  Davis  be  appointed  Receiver 
of  the  Land  Office  at  this  place,  whenever  there  shall  be  a  vacancy. 
I  cannot  say  that  Mr.  Hern  don,  the  present  incumbent,  has  failed  in 
the  proper  discharge  of  any  of  the  duties  of  the  office.  He  is  a  very 
warm  partizan,  and  openly  and  actively  opposed  to  the  election  of 
General  Taylor.  I  also  understand  that  since  General  Taylor's  elec 
tion,  he  has  received  a  reappointment  from  Mr.  Polk,  his  old  com 
mission  not  having  expired.  Whether  this  is  true  the  records  of  the 
department  will  show.  I  may  add  that  the  Whigs  here  almost  uni 
versally  desire  his  removal. 

I  give  no  opinion  of  my  own,  but  state  the  facts,  and  express  the 
hope  that  the  department  will  act  in  this  as  in  all  other  cases  on 
some  proper  general  rule.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

P.  S.  The  land  district  to  which  this  office  belongs  is  very  nearly 
if  not  entirely  within  my  district ;  so  that  Colonel  Baker,  the  other 
Whig  representative,  claims  no  voice  in  the  appointment. 

A.  L. 

April  7,  1849. — LETTER  TO  THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  INTERIOR. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  April  7,  1849. 
HON.  SECRETARY  OF  THE  HOME  DEPARTMENT. 

Dear  Sir:  I  recommend  that  Turner  R.  King,  now  of  Pekin,  Illi 
nois,  be  appointed  Register  of  the  Land  Office  at  this  place  when 
ever  there  shall  be  a  vacancy. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          153 

I  do  not  know  that  Mr.  Barret,  the  present  incumbent,  has  failed 
in  the  proper  discharge  of  any  of  his  duties  in  the  office.  He  is  a 
decided  partizan,  and  openly  and  actively  opposed  the  election  of 
General  Taylor.  I  understand,  too,  that  since  the  election  of  Gen 
eral  Taylor,  Mr.  Barret  has  received  a  reappointment  from  Mr.  Polk, 
his  old  commission  not  having  expired.  Whether  this  be  true,  the 
records  of  the  Department  will  show. 

Whether  he  should  be  removed  I  give  no  opinion,  but  merely  ex 
press  the  wish  that  the  Department  may  act  upon  some  proper  gen 
eral  rule,  and  that  Mr.  Barret's  case  may  not  be  made  an  exception 
to  it.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

P.  S.  The  land  district  to  which  this  office  belongs  is  very  nearly 
if  not  entirely  within  my  district;  so  that  Colonel  Baker,  the  other 
Whig  representative,  claims  no  voice  in  the  appointment. 

A.  L. 

April  7,  1849. —  LETTER  TO  THE  POSTMASTER-GENERAL. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  April  7,  1849. 
HON.  POSTMASTER-GENERAL. 

Dear  Sir :  I  recommend  that  Abner  Y.  Ellis  be  appointed  post 
master  at  this  place,  whenever  there  shall  be  a  vacancy.  J.  R.  Diller, 
the  present  incumbent,  I  cannot  say  has  failed  in  the  proper  dis 
charge  of  any  of  the  duties  of  the  office.  He,  however,  has  been  an 
active  partizan  in  opposition  to  us. 

Located  at  the  seat  of  government  of  the  State,  he  has  been,  for 
part  if  not  the  whole  of  the  time  he  has  held  the  office,  a  member  of 
the  Democratic  State  Central  Committee,  signing  his  name  to  their 
addresses  and  manifestos ;  and  has  been,  as  I  understand,  reappointed 
by  Mr.  Polk  since  General  Taylor's  election.  These  are  the  facts  of 
the  case  as  I  understand  them,  and  I  give  no  opinion  of  mine  as  to 
whether  he  should  or  should  not  be  removed.  My  wish  is  that  the 
Department  may  adopt  some  proper  general  rule  for  such  cases,  and 
that  Mr.  Diller  may  not  be  made  an  exception  to  it,  one  way  or  the 
other.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

P.  S.  This  office,  with  its  delivery,  is  entirely  within  my  district ; 
so  that  Colonel  Baker,  the  other  Whig  representative,  claims  no 
voice  in  the  appointment. 

L. 

April  7,  1849. — LETTER  TO  W.  B.  WARREN  AND  OTHERS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  April  7,  1849. 

Gentlemen:  In  answer  to  your  note  concerning  the  General  Land 
Office  I  have  to  say  that,  if  the  office  could  be  secured  to  Illinois  by 
my  consent  to  accept  it,  and  not  otherwise,  I  give  that  consent. 
Some  months  since  I  gave  my  word  to  secure  the  appointment  to 
that  office  of  Mr.  Cyrus  Edwards,  if  in  my  power,  in  case  of  a  vacancy ; 


154          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

and  more  recently  I  stipulated  with  Colonel  Baker  that  if  Mr.  Ed 
wards  and  Colonel  J.  L.  D.  Morrison  could  arrange  with  each  other 
for  one  of  them  to  withdraw,  we  would  jointly  recommend  the  other. 
In  relation  to  these  pledges,  I  must  not  only  be  chaste,  but  above 
suspicion.  If  the  office  shall  be  tendered  to  me,  I  must  be  permitted 
to  say :  "  Give  it  to  Mr.  Edwards  or,  if  so  agreed  by  them,  to  Colonel 
Morrison,  and  I  decline  it;  if  not,  I  accept."  With  this  under 
standing  you  are  at  liberty  to  procure  me  the  offer  of  the  appoint 
ment  if  you  can;  and  I  shall  feel  complimented  by  your  effort,  and 
still  more  by  its  success.  It  should  not  be  overlooked  that  Colonel 
Baker's  position  entitles  him  to  a  large  share  of  control  in  this  mat 
ter;  however,  one  of  your  number,  Colonel  Warren,  knows  that 
Baker  has  at  all  times  been  ready  to  recommend  me,  if  I  would  con 
sent.  It  must  also  be  understood  that  if  at  any  time  previous  to  an 
appointment  being  made  I  shall  learn  that  Mr.  Edwards  and  Colo 
nel  Morrison  have  agreed,  I  shall  at  once  carry  out  my  stipulation 
with  Colonel  Baker  as  above  stated.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

April  7,  1849. —  LETTER  TO  THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  INTERIOR. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  April  7, 1849. 
HON.  SECRETARY  OF  THE  HOME  DEPARTMENT, 

Dear  Sir :  I  recommend  that  William  Butler  be  appointed  Pen 
sion  Agent  for  the  Illinois  agency,  when  the  place  shall  be  vacant. 
Mr.  Hurst,  the  present  incumbent,  I  believe  has  performed  the  du 
ties  very  well.  He  is  a  decided  partizan,  and,  I  believe,  expects  to 
be  removed.  Whether  he  shall,  I  submit  to  the  Department.  This 
office  is  not  confined  to  my  district,  but  pertains  to  the  whole  State ; 
so  that  Colonel  Baker  has  an  equal  right  with  myself  to  be  heard 
concerning  it. 

However,  the  office  is  located  here ;  and  I  think  it  is  not  probable 
that  any  one  would  desire  to  remove  from  a  distance  to  take  it. 
Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINCOLN. 


April  25,  1849 -r— LETTER  TO  THOMPSON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  April  25,  1849. 

Dear  Thompson :  A  tirade  is  still  kept  up  against  me  here  for  rec 
ommending  T.  R.  King.  This  morning  it  is  openly  avowed  that  my 
supposed  influence  at  Washington  shall  be  broken  down  generally, 
and  King's  prospects  defeated  in  particular.  Now,  what  I  have 
done  in  this  matter  I  have  done  at  the  request  of  you  and  some 
other  friends  in  Tazewell ;  and  I  therefore  ask  you  to  either  admit 
it  is  wrong,  or  come  forward  and  sustain  me.  If  the  truth  will  per 
mit,  I  propose  that  you  sustain  me  in  the  following  manner :  copy 
the  inclosed  scrap  in  your  own  handwriting,  and  get  everybody  (not 
three  or  four,  but  three  or  four  hundred)  to  sign  it,  and  then  send 
it  to  me.  Also  have  six,  eight,  or  ten  of  our  best-known  Whig 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          155 

friends  there  to  write  to  me  individual  letters,  stating  the  truth  in 
this  matter  as  they  understand  it.  Don't  neglect  or  delay  in  the 
matter.  I  understand  information  of  an  indictment  having  been 
found  against  him  about  three  years  ago,  for  gaming  or  keeping  a 
gaming-house,  has  been  sent  to  the  Department.  I  shall  try  to  take 
care  of  it  at  the  Department  till  your  action  can  be  had  and  for 
warded  on.  Yours,  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

April  25,  1849. —  LETTER  TO  J.  M.  LUCAS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  April  25, 1849. 
J.  M.  LUCAS,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir:  Your  letter  of  the  15th  is  just  received.  Like  you,  I 
fear  the  Land  Office  is  not  going  as  it  should;  but  I  know  nothing 
I  can  do.  In  my  letter  written  three  days  ago,  I  told  you  the  De 
partment  understands  my  wishes.  As  to  Butterfield,  he  is  my  per 
sonal  friend,  and  is  qualified  to  do  the  duties  of  the  office ;  but  of 
the  quite  one  hundred  Illinoisans  equally  well  qualified,  I  do  not 
know  one  with  less  claims  to  it.  In  the  first  place,  what  you  say 
about  Lisle  Smith  is  the  first  intimation  I  have  had  of  any  one  man 
in  Illinois  desiring  Butterfield  to  have  any  office.  Now,  I  think  if 
anything  be  given  the  State,  it  should  be  so  given  as  to  gratify  our 
friends,  and  to  stimulate  them  to  future  exertions.  As  to  Mr.  Clay 
having  recommended  him,  that  is  quid  pro  quo.  He  fought  for  Mr. 
Clay  against  General  Taylor  to  the  bitter  end,  as  I  understand ;  and 
I  do  not  believe  I  misunderstand.  Lisle  Smith,  too,  was  a  Clay  del 
egate  at  Philadelphia,  and  against  my  most  earnest  entreaties  took 
the  lead  in  filling  two  vacancies  from  my  own  district  with  Clay 
men.  It  will  now  mortify  me  deeply  if  General  Taylor's  adminis 
tration  shall  trample  all  my  wishes  in  the  dust  merely  to  gratify 
these  men.  'Yours,  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

May  [1  ?],  1849. — INDORSEMENT  CONCERNING  ORVILLE  PADDOCK. 

I  have  already  recommended  "W.  S.  Wallace  for  Pension  Agent  at 
this  place.  It  is,  however,  due  the  truth  to  say  that  Orville  Pad 
dock,  above  recommended,  is  every  way  qualified  for  the  office,  and 
that  the  persons  recommending  him  are  of  our  business  men  and 
best  Whig  citizens. 


May  10,  1849. — LETTER  TO  THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  INTERIOR. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  May  10,  1849. 
HON.  SECRETARY  OF  THE  INTERIOR. 

Dear  Sir :  I  regret  troubling  you  so  often  in  relation  to  the  land 
offices  here,  but  I  hope  you  will  perceive  the  necessity  of  it,  and  ex 
cuse  me.  On  the  7th  of  April  I  wrote  you  recommending  Turner 
R.  King  for  Register,  and  Walter  Davis  for  Receiver.  Subsequently 


156          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

I  wrote  you  that,  for  a  private  reason,  I  had  concluded  to  transpose 
them.  That  private  reason  was  the  request  of  an  old  personal  friend 
who  himself  desired  to  be  Receiver,  but  whom  I  felt  it  my  duty  to 
refuse  a  recommendation.  He  said  if  I  would  transpose  King  and 
Davis  he  would  be  satisfied.  I  thought  it  a  whim,  but,  anxious  to 
oblige  him,  I  consented.  Immediately  he  commenced  an  assault 
upon  King's  character,  intending,  as  I  suppose,  to  defeat  his  ap 
pointment,  and  thereby  secure  another  chance  for  himself.  This 
double  offense  of  bad  faith  to  me  and  slander  upon  a  good  man  is 
so  totally  outrageous  that  I  now  ask  to  have  King  and  Davis  placed 
as  I  originally  recommended, —  that  is,  King  for  Register  and  Davis 
for  Receiver. 

An  effort  is  being  made  now  to  have  Mr.  Barret,  the  present  Reg 
ister,  retained.  I  have  already  said  he  has  done  the  duties  of  the  office 
well,  and  I  now  add  he  is  a  gentleman  in  the  true  sense.  Still,  he 
submits  to  be  the  instrument  of  his  party  to  injure  us.  His  high 
character  enables  him  to  do  it  more  effectually.  Last  year  he  pre 
sided  at  the  convention  which  nominated  the  Democratic  candidate 
for  Congress  in  this  district,  and  afterward  ran  for  the  State  Senate 
himself,  not  desiring  the  seat,  but  avowedly  to  aid  and  strengthen 
his  party.  He  made  speech  after  speech  with  a  degree  of  fierceness 
and  coarseness  against  General  Taylor  not  quite  consistent  with  his 
habitually  gentlemanly  deportment.  At  least  one  (and  I  think  more) 
of  those  who  are  now  trying  to  have  him  retained  was  himself  an 
applicant  for  this  very  office,  and,  failing  to  get  my  recommendation, 
now  takes  this  turn. 

In  writing  you  a  third  time  in  relation  to  these  offices,  I  stated 
that  I  supposed  charges  had  been  forwarded  to  you  against  King, 
and  that  I  would  inquire  into  the  truth  of  them.  I  now  send  you 
herewith  what  I  suppose  will  be  an  ample  defense  against  any  such 
charges.  I  ask  attention  to  all  the  papers,  but  particularly  to  the 
letters  of  Mr.  David  Mack,  and  the  paper  with  the  long  list  of  names. 
There  is  no  mistake  about  King's  being  a  good  man.  After  the  un 
just  assault  upon  him,  and  considering  the  just  claims  of  Tazewell 
County,  as  indicated  in  the  letters  I  inclose  you,  it  would  in  my 
opinion  be  injustice,  and  withal  a  blunder,  not  to  appoint  him,  at 
least  as  soon  as  any  one  is  appointed  to  either  of  the  offices  here. 
Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINCOLN. 


May  18,  1849. — LETTER  TO  DUFF  GREEN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  May  18,  1849. 

Dear  General:  I  learn  from  Washington  that  a  man  by  the  name 
of  Butterfield  will  probably  be  appointed  Commissioner  of  the  Gen 
eral  Land  Office.  This  ought  not  to  be.  That  is  about  the  only 
crumb  of  patronage  which  Illinois  expects ;  and  I  am  sure  the  mass 
of  General  Taylor's  friends  here  would  quite  as  lief  see  it  go  east  of 
the  Alleghanies,  or  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  as  into  that  man's 
hands.  They  are  already  sore  on  the  subject  of  his  getting  office. 
In  the  great  contest  of  1840  he  was  not  seen  or  heard  of ;  but  when 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          157 

the  victory  came,  three  or  four  old  drones,  including  him,  got  all  the 
valuable  offices,  through  what  influence  no  one  has  yet  been  able  to 
tell.  I  believe  the  only  time  he  has  been  very  active  was  last  spring 
a  year  ago,  in  opposition  to  General  Taylor's  nomination. 

Now,  cannot  you  get  the  ear  of  General  Taylor!  Ewing  is  for 
Butterfield,  and  therefore  he  must  be  avoided.  Preston,  I  think,  will 
favor  you.  Mr.  Edwards  has  written  me  offering  to  decline,  but  I 
advised  him  not  to  do  so.  Some  kind  friends  think  I  ought  to  be  an 
applicant,  but  I  am  for  Mr.  Edwards.  Try  to  defeat  Butterfield,  and 
in  doing  so  use  Mr.  Edwards,  J.  L.  D.  Morrison,  or  myself,  whichever 
you  can  to  best  advantage.  Write  me,  and  let  this  be  confidential. 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


May  25,  1849. — LETTER  TO  E.  EMBREE. 
Confidential. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  May  25, 1849. 
HON.  E.  EMBREE. 

Dear  Sir  :  I  am  about  to  ask  a  favor  of  you, —  one  which  I  hope 
will  not  cost  you  much.  I  understand  the  General  Land  Office  is 
about  to  be  given  to  Illinois,  and  that  Mr.  Ewing  desires  Justin 
Butterfield,  of  Chicago,  to  be  the  man.  I  give  you  my  word,  the 
appointment  of  Mr.  Butterfield  will  be  an  egregious  political  blunder. 
It  will  give  offense  to  the  whole  Whig  party  here,  and  be  worse 
than  a  dead  loss  to  the  administration  of  so  much  of  its  patronage. 
Now,  if  you  can  conscientiously  do  so,  I  wish  you  to  write  General 
Taylor  at  once,  saying  that  either  I,  or  the  man  I  recommend,  should 
in  your  opinion  be  appointed  to  that  office,  if  any  one  from  Illinois 
shall  be.  I  restrict  my  request  to  Illinois  because  you  may  have  a 
man  from  your  own  State,  and  I  do  not  ask  to  interfere  with  that. 
Your  friend  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 


June  5,  1849. — LETTER  TO  WILLIAM  H.  HERNDON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  June  5,  1849. 

Dear  William  :  Your  two  letters  were  received  last  night.  I  have 
a  great  many  letters  to  write,  and  so  cannot  write  very  long  ones. 
There  must  be  some  mistake  about  Walter  Davis  saying  I  promised 
him  the  post-office.  I  did  not  so  promise  him.  I  did  tell  him  that 
if  the  distribution  of  the  offices  should  fall  into  my  hands,  he  should 
have  something ;  and  if  I  shall  be  convinced  he  has  said  any  more 
than  this,  I  shall  be  disappointed.  I  said  this  much  to  him  because, 
as  I  understand,  he  is  of  good  character,  is  one  of  the  young  men,  is 
of  the  mechanics,  and  always  faithful  and  never  troublesome;  a 
Whig,  and  is  poor,  with  the  support  of  a  widow  mother  thrown  al 
most  exclusively  on  him  by  the  death  of  his  brother.  If  these 


158          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

are  wrong  reasons,  then  I  have  been  wrong;  but  I  have  certainly 
not  been  selfish  in  it,  because  in  my  greatest  need  of  friends  he  was 
against  me,  and  for  Baker.  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 
P.  S.    Let  the  above  be  confidential. 


June  5,  1849. — LETTER  ASKING  A  RECOMMENDATION. 

NOTE. —  In  the  files  are  a  considerable  number  of  replies  transmitting  in 
dorsements,  and  reporting  information  on  the  progress  of  the  contest  be 
tween  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Justin  Butterfield  for  this  appointment. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  June  5,  1849. 

Dear  Sir :  Would  you  as  soon  I  should  have  the  General  Land 
Office  as  any  other  Illinoisan  ?  If  you  would,  write  me  to  that  effect 
at  Washington,  where  I  shall  be  soon.  No  time  to  lose. 

Yours  in  haste,  A.  LINCOLN. 


June  8,  1849. —  LETTER  TO  NATHANIEL  POPE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  June  8,  1849. 
HON.  N.  POPE. 

Dear  Sir ;  I  do  not  know  that  it  would,  but  I  can  well  enough 
conceive  it  might,  embarrass  you  to  now  give  a  letter  recommending 
me  for  the  General  Land  Office.  Could  you  not,  however,  without 
embarrassment  or  any  impropriety,  so  far  vindicate  the  truth  of 
history  as  to  briefly  state  to  me,  in  a  letter,  what  you  did  say  to  me 
last  spring,  on  my  arrival  here  from  Washington,  in  relation  to  my 
becoming  an  applicant  for  that  office  ?  Having  at  last  concluded  to 
be  an  applicant,  I  have  thought  it  is  perhaps  due  me  to  be  enabled 
to  show  the  influences  which  brought  me  to  the  conclusion,  and  of 
which  influences  the  wishes  and  opinions  you  expressed  were  not 
the  least.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

September  [12  ?],  1849. —  RESOLUTIONS  OF  SYMPATHY  WITH  THE 
CAUSE  OF  HUNGARIAN  FREEDOM. 

At  a  meeting  to  express  sympathy  with  the  cause  of  Hungarian 
Freedom,  Dr.  Todd,  Thos.  Lewis,  Hon.  A.  Lincoln,  and  Wm.  Car 
penter  were  appointed  a  committee  to  present  appropriate  resolu 
tions,  which  reported  through  Hon.  A.  Lincoln  the  following : 

Resolved,  That  in  their  present  glorious  struggle  for  liberty,  the 
Hungarians  command  our  highest  admiration  and  have  our  warmest 
sympathy. 

Resolved,  That  they  have  our  most  ardent  prayers  for  their  speedy 
triumph  and  final  success. 

Resolved,  That  the  Government  of  the  United  States  should  ac 
knowledge  the  independence  of  Hungary  as  a  nation  of  freemen  at 


ADDRESSES   AND    LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  159 

the  very  earliest  moment  consistent  with  our  amicable  relations  with 
the  government  against  which  they  are  contending. 

Resolved,  That  in  the  opinion  of  this  meeting,  the  immediate  ac 
knowledgment  of  the  independence  of  Hungary  by  our  government 
is  due  from  American  freemen  to  their  struggling  brethren,  to  the 
general  cause  of  republican  liberty,  and  not  violative  of  the  just 
rights  of  any  nation  or  people. 


September  27,  1849. — LETTER  TO  JOHN  ADDISON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  September  27,  1849. 
JOHN  ADDISON,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir  :  Your  letter  is  received.  I  cannot  but  be  grateful  to 
you  and  all  other  friends  who  have  interested  themselves  in  having 
the  governorship  of  Oregon  offered  to  me ;  but  on  as  much  reflec 
tion  as  I  have  had  time  to  give  the  subject,  I  cannot  consent  to  ac 
cept  it.  I  have  an  ever  abiding  wish  to  serve  you ;  but  as  to  the 
secretaryship,  I  have  already  recommended  our  friend  Simeon 
Francis,  of  the  "  Journal."  Please  present  my  respects  to  G.  T.  M. 
Davis  generally,  and  my  thanks  especially  for  his  kindness  in  the 
Oregon  matter.  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


November  21,  1849. — LETTER  TO  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE 
"CHICAGO  JOURNAL." 

SPRINGFIELD,  November  21,  1849. 
EDITOR  OF  THE  "  CHICAGO  JOURNAL." 

Dear  Sir :  Some  person,  probably  yourself,  has  sent  me  the  num 
ber  of  your  paper  containing  an  extract  of  a  supposed  speech  of  Mr. 
Linder,  together  with  your  editorial  comments.  As  my  name  is 
mentioned  both  in  the  speech  and  in  the  comments,  and  as  my  at 
tention  is  directed  to  the  article  by  a  special  mark  in  the  paper  sent 
me,  it  is  perhaps  expected  that  I  should  take  some  notice  of  it.  I 
have  to  say,  then,  that  I  was  absent  from  before  the  commencement 
till  after  the  close  of  the  late  session  of  the  legislature,  and  that  the 
fact  of  such  a  speech  having  been  delivered  never  came  to  my  know 
ledge  till  I  saw  a  notice  of  your  article  in  the  "  Illinois  Journal,"  one 
day  before  your  paper  reached  me.  Had  the  intention  of  any  Whig 
to  deliver  such  a  speech  been  known  to  me,  I  should,  to  the  utmost 
of  my  ability,  have  endeavored  to  prevent  it.  When  Mr.  Butterfield 
was  appointed  Commissioner  of  the  Land  Office,  I  expected  him  to 
be  an  able  and  faithful  officer,  and  nothing  has  since  come  to  my 
knowledge  disappointing  that  expectation.  As  to  Mr.  Ewing,  his 
position  has  been  one  of  great  difficulty.  I  believe  him,  too,  to  be 
an  able  and  faithful  officer.  A  more  intimate  acquaintance  with 
him  would  probably  change  the  views  of  most  of  those  who  have 
complained  of  him.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


160          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

In  the  Illinois  legislature,  Mr.  Linder  said : 

.  .  .  He  should  speak  not  as  a  disappointed  politician,  but  as  an  inde 
pendent  working  Whig,  who  had  never  applied  for  an  office  in  his  life  j 
and  the  individual  of  whom  he  desired  to  speak  was  the  Hon.  Thomas  Sw 
ing,  of  Ohio,  minister  of  the  Home  Department, —  a  man  who  was  unsuited 
to  wield  the  immense  patronage  placed  in  his  hands,  from  the  fact  that  he 
was  hostile  to  all  that  was  popular,  having  no  sympathies  with  the  people, 
and  the  people  no  sympathies  with  him  j  the  man  who  disposed  of  the  of 
fices  and  honors  at  his  disposal  more  like  a  prince  than  the  minister  and  ser 
vant  of  a  republican  people.  I  speak  plainly,  sir,  for  I  want  what  I  say  to  be 
published,  that  it  may  reach  the  individual  for  whom  it  is  intended, — the 
man  who  could  disregard  the  almost  unanimous  wish  of  the  people  —  the 
Whig  people  of  Illinois, —  and  overlook  the  claims  of  such  men  as  Lincoln, 
Edwards,  and  Morrison,  and  appoint  a  man  known  as  an  anti-war  fed 
eralist  of  1812,  and  one  who  avails  himself  of  every  opportunity  to  express 
his  contempt  of  the  people  —  a  man  who  could  not,  as  against  any  one  of 
his  competitors,  have  obtained  one  twentieth  of  the  votes  of  Illinois.  (I  re 
fer,  sir,  to  Justin  Butterfield,  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office.) 
Such  a  man  as  Ewing  has  no  right  to  rule  the  cabinet  of  a  republican  pres 
ident.  He  is  universally  odious,  and  stinks  in  the  nostrils  of  the  nation. 
He  is  as  a  lump  of  ice,  an  unfeeling,  unsympathizing  aristocrat,  a  rough, 
imperious,  uncouth,  and  unamiable  man.  Such  a  minister,  in  a  four  years' 
administration,  would  ruin  the  popularity  of  forty  presidents  and  as  many 
heroes.  Sir,  is  it  wonderful  that  the  popular  elections  are  turning  against 
us  ?  I  am  not  at  all  surprised  at  it.  If  General  Taylor  retains  him  two 
years  longer  in  his  cabinet,  he  will  find  himself  without  a  corporal's  guard 
in  the  popular  branch  of  our  national  legislature. 

December  15,  1849. — LETTER  TO  . 


SPRINGFIELD,  December  15,  1849. 
-,  Esq. 


Dear  Sir :  On  my  return  from  Kentucky,  I  found  your  letter  of 
the  7th  of  November,  and  have  delayed  answering  it  till  now,  for  the 
reason  I  now  briefly  state.  From  the  beginning  of  our  acquain 
tance  I  have  felt  the  greatest  kindness  for  you,  and  had  supposed  it 
was  reciprocated  on  your  part.  Last  summer,  under  circumstances 
which  I  mentioned  to  you,  I  was  painfully  constrained  to  withhold  a 
recommendation  which  you  desired,  and  shortly  afterward  I  learned, 
in  such  a  way  as  to  believe  it,  that  you  were  indulging  in  open  abuse 
of  me.  Of  course  my  feelings  were  wounded.  On  receiving  your 
last  letter,  the  question  occurred  whether  you  were  attempting  to  use 
me  at  the  same  time  you  would  injure  me,  or  whether  you  might 
not  have  been  misrepresented  to  me.  If  the  former,  I  ought  not  to 
answer  you;  if  the  latter,  I  ought;  and  so  I  have  remained  in  sus 
pense.  I  now  inclose  you  the  letter,  which  you  may  use  if  you  see  fit. 

Yours,  etc.,  A.  LINCOLN. 

February  23,  1850. — LETTER  TO  JOHN  D.  JOHNSTON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  February  23,  1850. 

Dear  Brother :  Your  letter  about  a  mail  contract  was  received 
yesterday.  I  have  made  out  a  bid  for  you  at  $120,  guaranteed  it 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          161 

myself,  got  our  P.  M.  here  to  certify  it,  and  send  it  on.  Your  former 
letter,  concerning  some  man's  claim  for  a  pension,  was  also  received. 
I  had  the  claim  examined  by  those  who  are  practised  in  such  matters, 
and  they  decide  he  cannot  get  a  pension. 

As  you  make  no  mention  of  it,  I  suppose  you  had  not  learned  that 
we  lost  our  little  boy.  He  was  sick  fifteen  days,  and  died  in  the 
morning  of  the  first  day  of  this  month.  It  was  not  our  first,  but  our 
second  child.  We  miss  him  very  much.  Your  brother,  in  haste, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

To  JOHN  D.  JOHNSTON. 

June  3,  1850. —  RESOLUTIONS  ON  THE  DEATH  OF 
JUDGE  NATHANIEL  POPE. 

Circuit  and  District  Court  of  the  U.  S.  in  and  for  the  State  and 
District  of  Illinois.  Monday,  June  3,  1850. 

...  On  the  opening  of  the  Court  this  morning,  the  Hon.  A. 
Lincoln,  a  member  of  the  Bar  of  this  Court,  suggested  the  death  of 
the  Hon.  Nathaniel  Pope,  late  a  judge  of  this  Court,  since  the  ad 
journment  of  the  last  term ;  whereupon,  in  token  of  respect  for  the 
memory  of  the  deceased,  it  is  ordered  that  the  Court  do  now  adjourn 
until  to-morrow  morning  at  ten  o'clock.  .  .  . 

The  Hon.  Stephen  T.  Logan,  the  Hon.  Norman  H.  Purple,  the 
Hon.  David  L.  Gregg,  the  Hon.  A.  Lincoln,  and  George  W.  Meeker, 
Esq.,  were  appointed  a  Committee  to  prepare  resolutions.  .  .  . 
Whereupon,  the  Hon.  Stephen  T.  Logan,  in  behalf  of  the  Commit 
tee,  presented  the  following  preamble  and  resolutions : 

Whereas  the  Hon.  Nathaniel  Pope,  District  Judge  of  the  United  States 
Court  for  the  District  of  Illinois,  having  departed  this  life  during  the  last 
vacation  of  said  Court,  and  the  members  of  the  bar  of  said  Court  enter 
taining  the  highest  veneration  for  his  memory,  a  profound  respect  for  his 
ability,  great  experience,  and  learning  as  a  Judge,  and  cherishing  for  his 
many  virtues,  public  and  private,  his  earnest  simplicity  of  character  and 
unostentatious  deportment  both  in  his  public  and  private  relations,  the 
most  lively  and  affectionate  recollections,  have 

Resolved,  That  as  a  manifestation  of  their  deep  sense  of  the  loss  which 
has  been  sustained  in  his  death,  they  will  wear  the  usual  badge  of  mourn 
ing  during  the  residue  of  the  term. 

Resolved,  That  the  Chairman  communicate  to  the  family  of  the  deceased 
a  copy  o£  these  proceedings,  with  an  assurance  of  our  sincere  condolence 
on  account  of  their  heavy  bereavement. 

Resolved,  That  the  Hon.  A.  Williams,  District  Attorney  of  this  Court,  be 
requested  in  behalf  of  the  meeting  to  present  these  proceedings  to  the  Cir 
cuit  Court,  and  respectfully  to  ask  that  they  may  be  entered  on  the  records. 
E.  N.  POWELL,  Sec'y.  SAMUEL  H.  TREAT,  OWn. 

[July  1,  1850?]. — FRAGMENT.    NOTES  FOE  A  LECTURE. 

Niagara  Falls !     By  what  mysterious  power  is  it  that  millions 
and  millions  are  drawn  from  all  parts  of  the  world  to  gaze  upon 
Niagara  Falls  ?    There  is  no  mystery  about  the  thing  itself.    Every 
VOL.  I.— 11. 


162          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

effect  is  just  as  any  intelligent  man,  knowing  the  causes,  would 
anticipate  without  seeing  it.  If  the  water  moving  onward  in  a  great 
river  reaches  a  point  where  there  is  a  perpendicular  jog  of  a  hun 
dred  feet  in  descent  in  the  bottom  of  the  river,  it  is  plain  the  water 
will  have  a  violent  and  continuous  plunge  at  that  point.  It  is  also 
plain,  the  water,  thus  plunging,  will  foam  and  roar,  and  send  up  a 
mist  continuously,  in  which  last,  during  sunshine,  there  will  be  per 
petual  rainbows.  The  mere  physical  of  Niagara  Falls  is  only  this. 
Yet  this  is  really  a  very  small  part  of  that  world's  wonder.  Its 
power  to  excite  reflection  and  emotion  is  its  great  charm.  The  geol 
ogist  will  demonstrate  that  the  plunge,  or  fall,  was  once  at  Lake 
Ontario,  and  has  worn  its  way  back  to  its  present  position ;  he  will 
ascertain  how  fast  it  is  wearing  now,  and  so  get  a  basis  for  deter 
mining  how  long  it  has  been  wearing  back  from  Lake  Ontario,  and 
finally  demonstrate  by  it  that  this  world  is  at  least  fourteen  thousand 
years  old.  A  philosopher  of  a  slightly  different  turn  will  say,  ''Ni 
agara  Falls  is  only  the  lip  of  the  basin  out  of  which  pours  all  the 
surplus  water  which  rains  down  on  two  or  three  hundred  thousand 
square  miles  of  the  earth's  surface."  He  will  estimate  with  approx 
imate  accuracy  that  five  hundred  thousand  tons  of  water  fall  with 
their  full  weight  a  distance  of  a  hundred  feet  each  minute — thus  ex 
erting  a  force  equal  to  the  lifting  of  the  same  weight,  through  the 
same  space,  in  the  same  time.  And  then  the  further  reflection  comes 
that  this  vast  amount  of  water,  constantly  pounding  down,  is  sup 
plied  by  an  equal  amount  constantly  lifted  up,  by  the  sun;  and  still 
he  says,  "  If  this  much  is  lifted  up  for  this  one  space  of  two  or  three 
hundred  thousand  square  miles,  an  equal  amount  must  be  lifted  up 
for  every  other  equal  space  "  j  and  he  is  overwhelmed  in  the  contem 
plation  of  the  vast  power  the  sun  is  constantly  exerting  in  the  quiet 
noiseless  operation  of  lifting  water  up  to  be  rained  down  again. 

But  still  there  is  more.  It  calls  up  the  indefinite  past.  When 
Columbus  first  sought  this  continent — when  Christ  suffered  on  the 
cross — when  Moses  led  Israel  through  the  Red  Sea — nay,  even 
when  Adam  first  came  from  the  hand  of  his  Maker :  then,  as  now, 
Niagara  was  roaring  here.  The  eyes  of  that  species  of  extinct  giants 
whose  bones  fill  the  mounds  of  America  have  gazed  on  Niagara,  as 
ours  do  now.  Contemporary  with  the  first  race  of  men,  and  older 
than  the  first  man,  Niagara  is  strong  and  fresh  to-day  as  ten  thou 
sand  years  ago.  The  Mammoth  and  Mastodon,  so  long  dead  that 
fragments  of  their  monstrous  bones  alone  testify  that  they  ever 
lived,  have  gazed  on  Niagara — in  that  long,  long  time  never  still 
for  a  single  moment  [never  dried],  never  froze,  never  slept,  never 
rested. 

[July  1,  1850?] — FRAGMENT.    NOTES  FOR  LAW  LECTURE. 

I  am  not  an  accomplished  lawyer.  I  find  quite  as  much  material 
for  a  lecture  in  those  points  wherein  I  have  failed,  as  in  those 
wherein  I  have  been  moderately  successful.  The  leading  rule  for 
the  lawyer,  as  for  the  man  of  every  other  calling,  is  diligence.  Leave 
nothing  for  to-morrow  which  can  be  done  to-day.  Never  let  your 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          163 

correspondence  fall  behind.  Whatever  piece  of  business  you  have 
in  hand,  before  stopping,  do  all  the  labor  pertaining  to  it  which 
can  then  be  done.  When  you  bring  a  common-law  suit,  if  you  have 
the  facts  for  doing  so,  write  the  declaration  at  once.  If  a  law  point 
be  involved,  examine  the  books,  and  note  the  authority  you  rely  on 
upon  the  declaration  itself,  where  you  are  sure  to  find  it  when 
wanted.  The  same  of  defenses  and  pleas.  In  business  not  likely 
to  be  litigated, — ordinary  collection  cases,  foreclosures,  partitions, 
and  the  like, — make  all  examinations  of  titles,  and  note  them,  and 
even  draft  orders  and  decrees  in  advance.  This  course  has  a 
triple  advantage ;  it  avoids  omissions  and  neglect,  saves  your  labor 
when  once  done,  performs  the  labor  out  of  court  when  you  have 
leisure,  rather  than  in  court  when  you  have  not.  Extemporaneous 
speaking  should  be  practised  and  cultivated.  It  is  the  lawyer's  avenue 
to  the  public.  However  able  and  faithful  he  may  be  in  other  re 
spects,  people  are  slow  to  bring  him  business  if  he  cannot  make  a 
speech.  And  yet  there  is  not  a  more  fatal  error  to  young  lawyers 
than  relying  too  much  on  speech-making.  If  any  one,  upon  his 
rare  powers  of  speaking,  shall  claim  an  exemption  from  the  drudgery 
of  the  law,  his  case  is  a  failure  in  advance. 

Discourage  litigation.  Persuade  your  neighbors  to  compromise 
whenever  you  can.  Point  out  to  them  how  the  nominal  winner  is 
often  a  real  loser — in  fees,  expenses,  and  waste  of  time.  As  a  peace 
maker  the  lawyer  has  a  superior  opportunity  of  being  a  good  man. 
There  will  still  be  business  enough. 

Never  stir  up  litigation.  A  worse  man  can  scarcely  be  found  than 
one  who  does  this.  Who  can  be  more  nearly  a  fiend  than  he  who 
habitually  overhauls  the  register  of  deeds  in  search  of  defects  in 
titles,  whereon  to  stir  up  strife,  and  put  money  in  his  pocket  J?  A 
moral  tone  ought  to  be  infused  into  the  profession  which  should 
drive  such  men  out  of  it. 

The  matter  of  fees  is  important,  far  beyond  the  mere  question  of 
bread  and  butter  involved.  Properly  attended  to,  fuller  justice  is 
done  to  both  lawyer  and  client.  An  exorbitant  fee  should  never  be 
claimed.  As  a  general  rule  never  take  your  whole  fee  in  advance, 
nor  any  more  than  a  small  retainer.  When  fully  paid  beforehand, 
you  are  more  than  a  common  mortal  if  you  can  feel  the  same  in 
terest  in  the  case,  as  if  something  was  still  in  prospect  for  you,  as 
well  as  for  your  client.  And  when  you  lack  interest  in  the  case  the 
job  will  very  likely  lack  skill  and  diligence  in  the  performance. 
Settle  the  amount  of  fee  and  take  a  note  in  advance.  Then  you  will 
feel  that  you  are  working  for  something,  and  you  are  sure  to  do 
your  work  faithfully  and  well.  Never  sell  a  fee  note — at  least  not 
before  the  consideration  service  is  performed.  It  leads  to  negli 
gence  and  dishonesty — negligence  by  losing  interest  in  the  case, 
and  dishonesty  in  refusing  to  refund  when  you  have  allowed  the 
consideration  to  fail. 

There  is  a  vague  popular  belief  that  lawyers  are  necessarily  dis 
honest.  I  say  vague,  because  when  we  consider  to  what  extent 
confidence  and  honors  are  reposed  in  and  conferred  upon  lawyers 
by  the  people,  it  appears  improbable  that  their  impression  of  dis- 


164          ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

honesty  is  very  distinct  and  vivid.  Yet  the  impression  is  common, 
almost  universal.  Let  no  young  man  choosing  the  law  for  a  call 
ing  for  a  moment  yield  to  the  popular  belief — resolve  to  be  honest 
at  all  events ;  and  if  in  your  own  judgment  you  cannot  be  an  honest 
lawyer,  resolve  to  be  honest  without  being  a  lawyer.  Choose  some 
other  occupation,  rather  than  one  in  the  choosing  of  which  you  do, 
in  advance,  consent  to  be  a  knave. 


January  [2  ?],  1851. — LETTER  TO  JOHN  D.  JOHNSTON. 

January  2,  1851. 

Dear  Johnston:  Your  request  for  eighty  dollars  I  do  not  think  it 
best  to  comply  with  now.  At  the  various  times  when  I  have  helped 
you  a  little  you  have  said  to  me,  "  We  can  get  along  very  well  now  " ; 
but  in  a  very  short  time  I  find  you  in  the  same  difficulty  again. 
Now,  this  can  only  happen  by  some  defect  in  your  conduct.  What 
that  defect  is,  I  think  I  know.  You  are  not  lazy,  and  still  you  are 
an  idler.  I  doubt  whether,  since  I  saw  you,  you  have  done  a  good 
whole  day's  work  in  any  one  day.  You  do  not  very  much  dislike  to 
work,  and  still  you  do  not  work  much,  merely  because  it  does  not 
seem  to  you  that  you  could  get  much  for  it.  This  habit  of  uselessly 
wasting  time  is  the  whole  difficulty;  it  is  vastly  important  to  you, 
and  still  more  so  to  your  children,  that  you  should  break  the  habit. 
It  is  more  important  to  them,  because  they  have  longer  to  live,  and 
can  keep  out  of  an  idle  habit  before  they  are  in  it,  easier  than  they 
can  get  out  after  they  are  in. 

You  are  now  in  need  of  some  money,  and  what  I  propose  is,  that 
you  shall  go  to  work,  tl  tooth  and  nail,"  for  somebody  who  will  give 
you  money  for  it.  Let  father  and  your  boys  take  charge  of  your 
things  at  home,  prepare  for  a  crop,  and  make  the  crop,  and  you  go 
to  work  for  the  best  money  wages,  or  in  discharge  of  any  debt  you 
owe,  that  you  can  get ;  and,  to  secure  you  a  fair  reward  for  your  la 
bor,  I  now  promise  you,  that  for  every  dollar  you  will,  between  this 
and  the  first  of  May,  get  for  your  own  labor,  either  in  money  or  as 
your  own  indebtedness,  I  will  then  give  you  one  other  dollar.  By 
this,  if  you  hire  yourself  at  ten  dollars  a  month,  from  me  you  will 
get  ten  more,  making  twenty  dollars  a  month  for  your  work.  In 
this  I  do  not  mean  you  shall  go  off  to  St.  Louis,  or  the  lead  mines, 
or  the  gold  mines  in  California,  but  I  mean  for  you  to  go  at  it  for 
the  best  wages  you  can  get  close  to  home  in  Coles  County.  Now,  if 
you  will  do  this,  you  will  be  soon  out  of  debt,  and,  what  is  better, 
you  will  have  a  habit  that  will  keep  you  from  getting  in  debt  again. 
But,  if  I  should  now  clear  you  out  of  debt,  next  year  you  would  be 
just  as  deep  in  as  ever.  You  say  you  would  almost  give  your  place 
in  heaven  for  seventy  or  eighty  dollars.  Then  you  value  your  place 
in  heaven  very  cheap,  for  I  am  sure  you  can,  with  the  offer  I  make, 
get  the  seventy  or  eighty  dollars  for  four  or  five  months'  work. 
You  say  if  I  will  furnish  you  the  money  you  will  deed  me  the  land, 
and,  if  you  don't  pay  the  money  back,  you  will  deliver  possession. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          165 

Nonsense !  If  you  can't  now  live  with  the  land,  how  will  you  then 
live  without  itf  You  have  always  been  kind  to  me,  and  I  do  not 
mean  to  be  unkind  to  you.  On  the  contrary,  if  you  will  but  follow 
my  advice,  you  will  find  it  worth  more  than  eighty  times  eighty 
dollars  to  you.  Affectionately  your  brother, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


January  12,  1851. —  LETTER  TO  JOHN  D.  JOHNSTON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  January  12,  1851. 

Dear  Brother :  On  the  day  before  yesterday  I  received  a  letter 
from  Harriet,  written  at  Greenup.  She  says  she  has  just  returned 
from  your  house,  and  that  father  is  very  low  and  will  hardly  re 
cover/  She  also  says  you  have  written  me  two  letters,  and  that  al 
though  you  do  not  expect  me  to  come  now,  you  wonder  that  I  do 
not  write. 

I  received  both  your  letters,  and  although  I  have  not  answered 
them,  it  is  not  because  I  have  forgotten  them,  or  been  uninterested 
about  them,  but  because  it  appeared  to  me  that  I  could  write  nothing 
which  would  do  any  good.  You  already  know  I  desire  that  neither 
father  nor  mother  shall  be  in  want  of  any  comfort,  either  in  health 
or  sickness,  while  they  live  ;  and  I  feel  sure  you  have  not  failed  to 
use  my  name,  if  necessary,  to  procure  a  doctor,  or  anything  else  for 
father  in  his  present  sickness.  My  business  is  such  that  I  could 
hardly  leave  home  now,  if  it  was  not  as  it  is,  that  my  own  wife  is 
sick-a-bed.  (It  is  a  case  of  baby-sickness,  and  I  suppose  is  not  dan 
gerous.)  I  sincerely  hope  father  may  recover  his  health,  but  at  all 
events,  tell  him  to  remember  to  call  upon  and  confide  in  our  great 
and  good  and  merciful  Maker,  who  will  not  turn  away  from  him  in 
any  extremity.  He  notes  the  fall  of  a  sparrow,  and  numbers  the 
hairs  of  our  heads,  and  He  will  not  forget  the  dying  man  who  puts 
his  trust  in  Him.  Say  to  him  that  if  we  could  meet  now  it  is  doubt 
ful  whether  it  would  not  be  more  painful  than  pleasant,  but  that  if  it 
be  his  lot  to  go  now,  he  will  soon  have  a  joyous  meeting  with  many 
loved  ones  gone  before,  and  where  the  rest  of  us,  through  the  help 
of  God,  hope  ere  long  to  join  them. 

Write  to  me  again  when  you  receive  this.    Affectionately, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


August  31, 1851. — LETTER  TO  JOHN  D.  JOHNSTON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  August  31, 1851. 

Dear  Brother :  Inclosed  is  the  deed  for  the  land.  We  are  all  well, 
and  have  nothing  in  the  way  of  news.  We  have  had  no  cholera  here 
for  about  two  weeks.  Give  my  love  to  all,  and  especially  to  mother. 

Yours,  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


166          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

November  4,  1851. — LETTER  TO  JOHN  D.  JOHNSTON. 

SHELBYVILLE;  November  4,  1851. 

Dear  Brother :  When  I  came  into  Charleston  day  before  yesterday, 
I  learned  that  you  are  anxious  to  sell  the  land  where  you  live  and 
move  to  Missouri.  I  have  been  thinking  of  this  ever  since,  and  can 
not  but  think  such  a  notion  is  utterly  foolish.  What  can  you  do  in 
Missouri  better  than  here  ?  Is  the  land  any  richer?  Can  you  there, 
any  more  than  here,  raise  corn  and  wheat  and  oats  without  work  ? 
Will  anybody  there,  any  more  than  here,  do  your  work  for  you?  If 
you  intend  to  go  to  work,  there  is  no  better  place  than  right  where  you 
are ;  if  you  do  not  intend  to  go  to  work,  you  cannot  get  along  anywhere. 
Squirming  and  crawling  about  from  place  to  place  can  do  no  good. 
You  have  raised  no  crop  this  year ;  and  what  you  really  want  is  to 
sell  the  land,  get  the  money,  and  spend  it.  Part  with  the  land  you 
have,  and,  my  life  upon  it,  you  will  never  after  own  a  spot  big  enough 
to  bury  you  in.  Half  you  will  get  for  the  land  you  will  spend  in 
moving  to  Missouri,  and  the  other  half  you  will  eat,  drink,  and  wear 
out,  and  no  foot  of  land  will  be  bought.  Now,  I  feel  it  my  duty  to 
have  no  hand  in  such  a  piece  of  foolery.  I  feel  that  it  is  so  even  on 
your  own  account,  and  particularly  on  mother's  account.  The  east 
ern  forty  acres  I  intend  to  keep  for  mother  while  she  lives ;  if  you 
will  not  cultivate  it,  it  will  rent  for  enough  to  support  her — at  least, 
it  will  rent  for  something.  Her  dower  in  the  other  two  forties  she 
can  let  you  have,  and  no  thanks  to  me.  Now,  do  not  misunderstand 
this  letter  j  I  do  not  write  it  in  any  unkindness.  I  write  it  in  order, 
if  possible,  to  get  you  to  face  the  truth,  which  truth  is,  you  are  desti 
tute  because  you  have  idled  away  all  your  time.  Your  thousand  pre 
tenses  for  not  getting  along  better  are  all  nonsense;  they  deceive 
nobody  but  yourself.  Go  to  work  is  the  only  cure  for  your  case. 

A  word  to  mother.  Chapman  tells  me  he  wants  you  to  go  and  live 
with  him.  If  I  were  you  I  would  try  it  awhile.  If  you  get  tired  of 
it  (as  I  think  you  will  not),  you  can  return  to  your  own  home. 
Chapman  feels  very  kindly  to  you,  and  I  have  no  doubt  he  will  make 
your  situation  very  pleasant.  Sincerely  your  son, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


November  9,  1851. — LETTER  TO  JOHN  D.  JOHNSTON. 

SHELBYVILLE,  November  9, 1851. 

Dear  Brother :  When  I  wrote  you  before,  I  had  not  received  your 
letter.  I  still  think  as  I  did,  but  if  the  land  can  be  sold  so  that  I  get 
three  hundred  dollars  to  put  to  interest  for  mother,  I  will  not  object, 
if  she  does  not.  But  before  I  will  make  a  deed,  the  money  must  be 
had,  or  secured  beyond  all  doubt,  at  ten  per  cent. 

As  to  Abram,  I  do  not  want  him,  on  my  own  account  j  but  I  un 
derstand  he  wants  to  live  with  me,  so  that  he  can  go  to  school  and 
get  a  fair  start  in  the  world,  which  I  very  much  wish  him  to  have. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          167 

When  I  reach  home,  if  I  can  make  it  convenient  to  take,  I  will  take 
him,  provided  there  is  no  mistake  between  us  as  to  the  object  and 
terms  of  my  taking  him.  In  haste,  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

December  [4?],  1851.— CALL  FOR  WHIG  CONVENTION. 
To  the  Whigs  of  Illinois. 

The  Whigs  of  the  State  of  Illinois  are  respectfully  requested  to 
meet  in  convention  at  Springfield,  on  the  fourth  Monday  of  Decem 
ber  next,  to  take  into  consideration  such  action  as  upon  consultation 
and  deliberation  may  be  deemed  necessary,  proper,  and  effective 
for  the  best  interests  of  the  party,  and  to  secure  a  more  thorough 
organization  of  the  Whig  party  at  an  early  day. 

(Signed) 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,      ISAAC  HARDY,  O.  H.  BROWNING, 

J.  T.  STUART,  HORACE  MILLER,          C.  W.  CRAIG, 

J.  C.  CONKLING,  E.  B.  WASHBURNE,       J.  L.  WILSON, 

H.  O.  MERRIMAN,         HENRY  WATTERMAN,    B.  G.  WHEELER, 
GEO.  W.  MEEKER,        EZRA  GRIFFITH,  H.  D.  RISLEY, 

J.  O.  NORTON,  SAMUEL  HALLER,          LEVI  DAVIS, 

CHURCHILL  COFFING,   JOSEPH  T.  ECCLES,       B.  S.  EDWARDS, 
JOSEPH  GILLESPIE,       JAS.  W.  SINGLETON,     And  many  others. 


July  16,  1852. — EULOGY  ON  HENRY  CLAY  DELIVERED  IN  THE  STATE 
HOUSE  AT  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS. 

On  the  fourth  day  of  July,  1776,  the  people  of  a  few  feeble  and 
oppressed  colonies  of  Great  Britain,  inhabiting  a  portion  of  the 
Atlantic  coast  of  North  America,  publicly  declared  their  national 
independence,  and  made  their  appeal  to  the  justice  of  their  cause 
and  to  the  God  of  battles  for  the  maintenance  of  that  declaration. 
That  people  were  few  in  number  and  without  resources,  save  only 
their  wise  heads  and  stout  hearts,  Within  the  first  year  of  that 
declared  independence,  and  while  its  maintenance  was  yet  proble 
matical, — while  the  bloody  struggle  between  those  resolute  rebels 
and  their  haughty  would-be  masters  was  still  waging, —  of  undis 
tinguished  parents  and  in  an  obscure  district  of  one  of  those  col 
onies  Henry  Clay  was  born.  The  infant  nation  and  the  infant  child 
began  the  race  of  life  together.  For  three  quarters  of  a  century 
they  have  traveled  hand  in  hand.  They  have  been  companions 
ever.  The  nation  has  passed  its  perils,  and  it  is  free,  prosperous, 
and  powerful.  The  child  has  reached  his  manhood,  his  middle  age, 
his  old  age,  and  is  dead.  In  all  that  has  concerned  the  nation  the 
man  ever  sympathized ;  and  now  the  nation  mourns  the  man. 

The  day  after  his  death  one  of  the  public  journals,  opposed  to 
him  politically,  held  the  following  pathetic  and  beautiful  language, 
which  I  adopt  partly  because  such  high  and  exclusive  eulogy, 
originating  with  a  political  friend,  might  offend  good  taste,  but 


168          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

chiefly  because  I  could  not  in  any  language  of  my  own  so  well 
express  my  thoughts: 

Alas  !  who  can  realize  that  Henry  Clay  is  dead  !  Who  can  realize  that 
never  again  that  majestic  form  shall  rise  in  the  council-chambers  of  his  coun 
try  to  beat  back  the  storms  of  anarchy  which  may  threaten,  or  pour  the 
oil  of  peace  upon  the  troubled  billows  as  they  rage  and  menace  around  ? 
Who  can  realize  that  the  workings  of  that  mighty  mind  have  ceased,  that 
the  throbbings  of  that  gallant  heart  are  stilled,  that  the  mighty  sweep  of 
that  graceful  arm  will  be  felt  no  more,  and  the  magic  of  that  eloquent 
tongue,  which  spake  as  spake  no  other  tongue  besides,  is  hushed — hushed 
for  ever !  Who  can  realize  that  freedom's  champion,  the  champion  of  a 
civilized  world  and  of  all  tongues  and  kindreds  of  people,  has  indeed  fallen  1 
Alas,  in  those  dark  hours  of  peril  and  dread  which  our  land  has  experi 
enced,  and  which  she  may  be  called  to  experience  again,  to  whom  now  may 
her  people  look  up  for  that  counsel  and  advice  which  only  wisdom  and 
experience  and  patriotism  can  give,  and  which  only  the  undoubting  con 
fidence  of  a  nation  will  receive  ?  Perchance  in  the  whole  circle  of  the 
great  and  gifted  of  our  land  there  remains  but  one  on  whose  shoulders  the 
mighty  mantle  of  the  departed  statesman  may  fall;  one  who  while  we 
now  write  is  doubtless  pouring  his  tears  over  the  bier  of  his  brother  and 
friend  —  brother,  friend,  ever,  yet  in  political  sentiment  as  far  apart  as 
party  could  make  them.  Ah,  it  is  at  times  like  these  that  the  petty  dis 
tinctions  of  mere  party  disappear.  We  see  only  the  great,  the  grand,  the 
noble  features  of  the  departed  statesman  ;  and  we  do  not  even  beg  permis 
sion  to  bow  at  his  feet  and  mingle  our  tears  with  those  who  have  ever  been 
his  political  adherents  —  we  do  [not]  beg  this  permission,  we  claim  it  as  a 
right,  though  we  feel  it  as  a  privilege.  Henry  Clay  belonged  to  his  country— 
to  the  world ;  mere  party  cannot  claim  men  like  him.  His  career  has  been 
national,  his  fame  has  filled  the  earth,  his  memory  will  endure  to  the  last 
syllable  of  recorded  time. 

Henry  Clay  is  dead!  He  breathed  his  last  on  yesterday,  at  twenty 
minutes  after  eleven,  in  his  chamber  at  Washington.  To  those  who  fol 
lowed  his  lead  in  public  affairs,,  it  more  appropriately  belongs  to  pronounce 
his  eulogy  and  pay  specific  honors  to  the  memory  of  the  illustrious  dead. 
But  all  Americans  may  show  the  grief  which  his  death  inspires,  for  his 
character  and  fame  are  national  property.  As  on  a  question  of  liberty  he 
knew  no  North,  no  South,  no  East,  no  West,  but  only  the  Union  which  held 
them  all  in  its  sacred  circle,  so  now  his  countrymen  will  know  no  grief  that 
is  not  as  wide-spread  as  the  bounds  of  the  confederacy.  The  career  of 
Henry  Clay  was  a  public  career.  From  his  youth  he  has  been  devoted  to 
the  public  service,  at  a  period,  too,  in  the  world's  history  justly  regarded  as 
a  remarkable  era  in  human  affairs.  He  witnessed  in  the  beginning  the 
throes  of  the  French  Revolution.  He  saw  the  rise  and  fall  of  Napoleon. 
He  was  called  upon  to  legislate  for  America,  and  direct  her  policy  when  all 
Europe  was  the  battle-field  of  contending  dynasties,  and  when  the  struggle 
for  supremacy  imperiled  the  rights  of  all  neutral  nations.  His  voice  spoke 
war  and  peace  in  the  contest  with  Great  Britain. 

When  Greece  rose  against  the  Turks  and  struck  for  liberty,  his  name  was 
mingled  with  the  battle-cry  of  freedom.  When  South  America  threw  off  the 
thraldom  of  Spain,  his  speeches  were  read  at  the  head  of  her  armies  by 
Bolivar.  His  name  has  been,  and  will  continue  to  be,  hallowed  in  two  hemi 
spheres,  for  it  is 

"  One  of  the  few,  the  immortal  names 
That  were  not  born  to  die !  " 

To  the  ardent  patriot  and  profound  statesman,  he  added  a  quality  pos 
sessed  by  few  of  the  gifted  on  earth.  His  eloquence  has  not  been  surpassed. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          169 

In  the  effective  power  to  move  the  heart  of  man,  Clay  was  without  an  equal, 
and  the  heaven -born  endowment^  in  the  spirit  of  its  origin,  has  been  most 
conspicuously  exhibited  against  intestine  feud.  On  at  least  three  impor 
tant  occasions  he  has  quelled  our  civil  commotions  by  a  power  and  influ 
ence  which  belonged  to  no  other  statesman  of  his  age  and  times.  And  in 
our  last  internal  discord,  when  this  Union  trembled  to  its  center,  in  old  age 
he  left  the  shades  of  private  life,  and  gave  the  death-blow  to  fraternal 
strife,  with  the  vigor  of  his  earlier  years,  in  a  series  of  senatorial  efforts 
which  in  themselves  would  bring  immortality  by  challenging  comparison 
with  the  efforts  of  any  statesman  in  any  age.  He  exorcised  the  demon 
which  possessed  the  body  politic,  and  gave  peace  to  a  distracted  land.  Alas ! 
the  achievement  cost  him  his  life.  He  sank  day  by  day  to  the  tomb  —  his 
pale  but  noble  brow  bound  with  a  triple  wreath,  put  there  by  a  grateful 
country.  May  his  ashes  rest  in  peace,  while  his  spirit  goes  to  take  its  sta 
tion  among  the  great  and  good  men  who  preceded  him. 

While  it  is  customary  and  proper  upon  occasions  like  the  present 
to  give  a  brief  sketch  of  the  life  of  the  deceased,  in  the  case  of  Mr. 
Clay  it  is  less  necessary  than  most  others ;  for  Ms  biography  has 
been  written  and  rewritten,  and  read  and  reread,  for  the  last  twenty- 
five  years ;  so  that,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  of  the  latest  inci 
dents  of  his  life,  all  is  as  well  known  as  it  can  be.  The  short  sketch 
which  I  give  is,  therefore,  merely  to  maintain  the  connection  of  this 
discourse. 

Henry  Clay  was  born  on  the  twelfth  day  of  April,  1777,  in  Han 
over  County,  Virginia.  Of  his  father,  who  died  in  the  fourth  or 
fifth  year  of  Henry's  age,  little  seems  to  be  known,  except  that  he 
was  a  respectable  man  and  a  preacher  of  the  Baptist  persuasion. 
Mr.  Clay's  education  to  the  end  of  life  was  comparatively  lim 
ited.  I  say  "to  the  end  of  life/7  because  I  have  understood  that 
from  time  to  time  he  added  something  to  his  education  during 
the  greater  part  of  his  whole  life.  Mr.  Clay's  lack  of  a  more  per 
fect  early  education,  however  it  may  be  regretted  generally,  teaches 
at  least  one  profitable  lesson :  it  teaches  that  in  this  country  one 
can  scarcely  be  so  poor  but  that,  if  lie  will,  he  can  acquire  sufficient 
education  to  get  through  the  world  respectably.  In  his  twenty- 
third  year  Mr.  Clay  was  licensed  to  practise  law,  and  emigrated  to 
Lexington,  Kentucky.  Here  he  commenced  and  continued  the  prac 
tice  till  the  year  1803,  when  he  was  first  elected  to  the  Kentucky 
legislature.  By  successive  elections  he  was  continued  in  the  legis- 
ture  till  the  latter  part  of  1806,  when  he  was  elected  to  fill  a  vacancy 
of  a  single  session  in  the  United  States  Senate.  In  1807  he  was 
again  elected  to  the  Kentucky  House  of  Representatives,  and  by  that 
body  chosen  Speaker.  In  1808  he  was  reflected  to  the  same  body. 
In  1809  he  was  again  chosen  to  fill  a  vacancy  of  two  years  in  the 
United  States  Senate.  In  1811  he  was  elected  to  the  United  States 
House  of  Representatives,  and  on  the  first  day  of  taking  his  seat  in 
that  body  he  was  chosen  its  Speaker.  In  1813  he  was  again  elected 
Speaker.  Early  in  1814,  being  the  period  of  our  last  British  war,  Mr. 
Clay  was  sent  as  commissioner,  with  others,  to  negotiate  a  treaty  of 
peace,  which  treaty  was  concluded  in  the  latter  part  of  the  same 
year.  On  his  return  from  Europe  he  was  again  elected  to  the  lower 
branch  of  Congress,  and  on  taking  his  seat  in  December,  1815,  was 


170          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

called  to  his  old  post — the  Speaker's  chair,  a  position  in  which  he 
was  retained  by  successive  elections,  with  one  brief  intermission,  till 
the  inauguration  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  in  March,  1825.  He  was 
then  appointed  Secretary  of  State,  and  occupied  that  important  sta 
tion  till  the  inauguration  of  General  Jackson,  in  March,  1829.  After 
this  he  returned  to  Kentucky,  resumed  the  practice  of  law,  and  con 
tinued  it  till  the  autumn  of  1831,  when  he  was  by  the  legislature  of 
Kentucky  again  placed  in  the  United.  States  Senate.  By  a  reelec 
tion  he  was  continued  in  the  Senate  till  he  resigned  his  seat  and  re 
tired,  in  March,  1848.  In  December,  1849,  he  again  took  his  seat  in 
the  Senate,  which  he  again  resigned  only  a  few  months  before  his 
death. 

By  the  foregoing  it  is  perceived  that  the  period  from  the  begin 
ning  of  Mr.  Clay's  official  life  in  1803  to  the  end  of  1852  is  but  one 
year  short  of  half  a  century,  and  that  the  sum  of  all  the  intervals 
in  it  will  not  amount  to  ten  years.  But  mere  duration  of  time  in 
office  constitutes  the  smallest  part  of  Mr.  Clay's  history.  Throughout 
that  long  period  he  has  constantly  been  the  most  loved  and  most  im 
plicitly  followed  by  friends,  and  the  most  dreaded  by  opponents,  of 
all  living  American  politicians.  In  all  the  great  questions  which 
have  agitated  the  country,  and  particularly  in  those  fearful  crises, 
the  Missouri  question,  the  nullification  question,  and  the  late  slavery 
question,  as  connected  with  the  newly  acquired  territory,  involving 
and  endangering  the  stability  of  the  Union,  his  has  been  the  leading 
and  most  conspicuous  part.  In  1824  he  was  first  a  candidate  for  the 
Presidency,  and  was  defeated;  and  although  he  was  successively 
defeated  for  the  same  office  in  1832  and  in  1844,  there  has  never  been 
a  moment  since  1824  till  after  1848  when  a  very  large  portion  of  the 
American  people  did  not  cling  to  him  with  an  enthusiastic  hope  and 
purpose  of  still  elevating  him  to  the  Presidency.  With  other  men, 
to  be  defeated  was  to  be  forgotten ;  but  with  him  defeat  was  but  a 
trifling  incident,  neither  changing  him  nor  the  world's  estimate  of 
him.  Even  those  of  both  political  parties  who  have  been  preferred 
to  him  for  the  highest  office  have  run  far  briefer  courses  than  he, 
and  left  him  still  shining  high  in  the  heavens  of  the  political  world. 
Jackson,  Van  Buren,  Harrison,  Polk,  and  Taylor  all  rose  after,  and 
set  long  before  him.  The  spell — the  long- enduring  spell — with 
which  the  souls  of  men  were  bound  to  him  is  a  miracle.  Who  can 
compass  it  ?  It  is  probably  true  he  owed  his  preeminence  to  no  one 
quality,  but  to  a  fortunate  combination  of  several.  He  was  surpass 
ingly  eloquent ;  but  many  eloquent  men  fail  utterly,  and  they  are 
not,  as  a  class,  generally  successful.  His  judgment  was  excellent: 
but  many  men  of  good  judgment  live  and  die  unnoticed.  His  will 
was  indomitable;  but  this  quality  often  secures  to  its  owner  nothing 
better  than  a  character  for  useless  obstinacy.  These,  then,  were  Mr. 
Clay's  leading  qualities.  No  one  of  them  is  very  uncommon ;  but  all 
together  are  rarely  combined  in  a  single  individual,  and  this  is  prob 
ably  the  reason  why  such  men  as  Henry  Clay  are  so  rare  in  the  world. 

Mr.  Clay's  eloquence  did  not  consist,  as  many  fine  specimens  of 
eloquence  do,  of  types  and  figures,  of  antithesis  and  elegant  ar 
rangement  of  words  and  sentences,  but  rather  of  that  deeply  earnest 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          171 

and  impassioned  tone  and  manner  which  can  proceed  only  from 
great  sincerity,  and  a  thorough  conviction  in  the  speaker  of  the 
justice  and  importance  of  his  cause.  This  it  is  that  truly  touches 
the  chords  of  sympathy ;  and  those  who  heard  Mr.  Clay  never  failed 
to  be  moved  by  it,  or  ever  afterward  forgot  the  impression.  All 
his  efforts  were  made  for  practical  effect.  He  never  spoke  merely 
to  be  heard.  He  never  delivered  a  Fourth  of  July  oration,  or  a 
eulogy  on  an  occasion  like  this.  As  a  politician  or  statesman,  no 
one  was  so  habitually  careful  to  avoid  all  sectional  ground.  What 
ever  he  did  he  did  for  the  whole  country.  In  the  construction  of  his 
measures,  he  ever  carefully  surveyed  every  part  of  the  field,  and 
duly  weighed  every  conflicting  interest.  Feeling  as  he  did,  and  as 
the  truth  .surely  is,  that  the  world's  best  hope  depended  on  the  con 
tinued  Union  of  these  States,  he  was  ever  jealous  of  and  watchful 
for  whatever  might  have  the  slightest  tendency  to  separate  them. 

Mr.  Clay's  predominant  sentiment,  from  first  to  last,  was  a  deep 
devotion  to  the  cause  of  human  liberty — a  strong  sympathy  with 
the  oppressed  everywhere,  and  an  ardent  wish  for  their  elevation. 
With  him  this  was  a  primary  and  all-controlling  passion.  Sub 
sidiary  to  this  was  the  conduct  of  his  whole  life.  He  loved  his 
country  partly  because  it  was  his  own  country,  and  mostly  because 
it  was  a  free  country ;  and  he  burned  with  a  zeal  for  its  advance 
ment,  prosperity,  and  glory,  because  he  saw  in  such  the  advance 
ment,  prosperity,  and  glory  of  human  liberty,  human  right,  and 
human  nature.  He  desired  the  prosperity  of  his  countrymen,  partly 
because  they  were  his  countrymen,  but  chiefly  to  show  to  the  world 
that  free  men  could  be  prosperous. 

That  his  views  and  measures  were  always  the  wisest  needs  not  to 
be  affirmed;  nor  should  it  be  on  this  occasion,  where  so  many 
thinking  differently  join  in  doing  honor  to  his  memory.  A  free 
people  in  times  of  peace  and  quiet — when  pressed  by  no  common 
danger — naturally  divide  into  parties.  At  such  times  the  man  who 
is  of  neither  party  is  not,  cannot  be,  of  any  consequence.  Mr.  Clay 
therefore  was  of  a  party.  Taking  a  prominent  part  as  he  did,  in  all 
the  great  political  questions  of  his  country  for  the  last  half  century, 
the  wisdom  of  his  course  on  many  is  doubted  and  denied  by  a  large 
portion  of  his  countrymen  •  and  of  such  it  is  not  now  proper  to 
speak  particularly.  But  there  are  many  others,  about  his  course 
upon  which  there  is  little  or  no  disagreement  amongst  intelligent 
and  patriotic  Americans.  Of  these  last  are  the  war  of  1812,  the  Mis 
souri  question,  nullification,  and  the  now  recent  compromise  mea 
sures.  In  1812  Mr.  Clay,  though  not  unknown,  was  still  a  young 
man.  Whether  we  should  go  to  war  with  Great  Britain  being  the 
question  of  the  day,  a  minority  opposed  the  declaration  of  war  by 
Congress,  while  the  majority,  though  apparently  inclined  to  war, 
had  for  years  wavered,  and  hesitated  to  act  decisively.  Meanwhile 
British  aggressions  multiplied,  and  grew  more  daring  and  aggra 
vated.  By  Mr.  Clay  more  than  any  other  man  the  struggle  was 
brought  to  a  decision  in  Congress.  The  question,  being  now  fully 
before  Congress,  came  up  in  a  variety  of  ways  in  rapid  succession,  on 
most  of  which  occasions  Mr.  Clay  spoke.  Adding  to  all  the  logic  of 


172          ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN 

which  the  subject  was  susceptible  that  noble  inspiration  which  came 
to  him  as  it  came  to  no  other,  he  aroused  and  nerved  and  inspired  his 
friends,  and  confounded  and  bore  down  all  opposition.  Several  of 
his  speeches  on  these  occasions  were  reported  and  are  still  extant, 
but  the  best  of  them  all  never  was.  During  its  delivery  the  reporters 
forgot  their  vocations,  dropped  their  pens,  and  sat  enchanted  from 
near  the  beginning  to  quite  the  close.  The  speech  now  lives  only 
in  the  memory  of  a  few  old  men,  and  the  enthusiasm  with  which 
they  cherish  their  recollection  of  it  is  absolutely  astonishing.  The 
precise  language  of  this  speech  we  shall  never  know;  but  we  do 
know — we  cannot  help  knowing — that  with  deep  pathos  it  pleaded 
the  cause  of  the  injured  sailor,  that  it  invoked  the  genius  of  the 
Revolution,  that  it  apostrophized  the  names  of  Otis,  of  Henry,  and 
of  Washington,  that  it  appealed  to  the  interest,  the  pride,  the 
honor,  and  the  glory  of  the  nation,  that  it  shamed  and  taunted 
the  timidity  of  friends,  that  it  scorned  and  scouted  and  withered  the 
temerity  of  domestic  foes,  that  it  bearded  and  defied  the  British 
lion,  and,  rising  and  swelling  and  maddening  in  its  course,  it 
sounded  the  onset,  till  the  charge,  the  shock,  the  steady  strug 
gle,  and  the  glorious  victory  all  passed  in  vivid  review  before  the 
entranced  hearers. 

Important  and  exciting  as  was  the  war  question  of  1812,  it  never 
so  alarmed  the  sagacious  statesmen  of  the  country  for  the  safety  of 
the  Republic  as  afterward  did  the  Missouri  question.  This  sprang 
from  that  unfortunate  source  of  discord — negro  slavery.  When 
our  Federal  Constitution  was  adopted,  we  owned  no  territory  beyond 
the  limits  or  ownership  of  the  States,  except  the  territory  northwest 
of  the  River  Ohio  and  east  of  the  Mississippi.  What  has  since  been 
formed  into  the  States  of  Maine,  Kentucky,  and  Tennessee,  was,  I  be 
lieve,  within  the  limits  of  or  owned  by  Massachusetts,  Virginia,  and 
North  Carolina.  As  to  the  Northwestern  Territory,  provision  had 
been  made  even  before  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  that  slavery 
should  never  go  there.  On  the  admission  of  States  into  the  Union, 
carved  from  the  territory  we  owned  before  the  Constitution,  no  ques 
tion,  or  at  most  no  considerable  question,  arose  about  slavery — 
those  which  were  within  the  limits  of  or  owned  by  the  old  States 
following  respectively  the  condition  of  the  parent  State,  and  those 
within  the  Northwest  Territory  following  the  previously  made  pro 
vision.  But  in  1803  we  purchased  Louisiana  of  the  French,  and  it 
included  with  much  more  what  has  since  been  formed  into  the  State 
of  Missouri.  With  regard  to  it,  nothing  had  been  done  to  forestall 
the  question  of  slavery.  When,  therefore,  in  1819,  Missouri,  having 
formed  a  State  constitution,  without  excluding  slavery,  and  with 
slavery  already  actually  existing  within  its  limits,  knocked  at  the 
door  of  the  Union  for  admission,  almost  the  entire  representation  of 
the  non-slaveholding  States  objected.  A  fearful  and  angry  struggle 
instantly  followed.  This  alarmed  thinking  men  more  than  any  pre 
vious  question,  because,  unlike  all  the  former,  it  divided  the  country 
by  geographical  lines.  Other  questions  had  their  opposing  partizans 
in  all  localities  of  the  country  and  in  almost  every  family,  so  that  no 
division  of  the  Union  could  follow  such  without  a  separation  of 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          173 

friends  to  quite  as  great  an  extent  as  that  of  opponents.  Not  so  with 
the  Missouri  question.  On  this  a  geographical  line  could  be  traced, 
which  in  the  main  would  separate  opponents  only.  This  was  the 
danger.  Mr.  Jefferson,  then  in  retirement,  wrote : 

I  had  for  a  long  time  ceased  to  read  newspapers  or  to  pay  any  attention 
to  public  affairs,  confident  they  were  in  good  hands  and  content  to  be  a 
passenger  in  our  bark  to  the  shore  from  which  I  am  not  distant.  But  this 
momentous  question,  like  a  fire-bell  in  the  night,  awakened  and  filled  me 
with  terror.  I  considered  it  at  once  as  the  knell  of  the  Union.  It  is  hushed, 
indeed,  for  the  moment.  But  this  is  a  reprieve  only,  not  a  final  sentence. 
A  geographical  line  coinciding  with  a  marked  principle,  moral  and  politi 
cal,  once  conceived  and  held  up  to  the  angry  passions  of  men,  will  never  be 
obliterated,  and  every  irritation  will  mark  it  deeper  and  deeper.  I  can  say 
with  conscious  truth  that  there  is  not  a  man  on  earth  who  would  sacrifice 
more  than  I  would  to  relieve  us  from  this  heavy  reproach  in  any  practicable 
way.  The  cession  of  that  kind  of  property — for  it  is  so  misnamed — is  a  bag 
atelle  which  would  not  cost  me  a  second  thought  if  in  that  way  a  general 
emancipation  and  expatriation  could  be  effected,  and  gradually  and  with 
due  sacrifices  I  think  it  might  be.  But  as  it  is,  we  have  the  wolf  by  the 
ears,  and  we  can  neither  hold  him  nor  safely  let  him  go.  Justice  is  in  one 
scale,  and  self-preservation  in  the  other. 

Mr.  Clay  was  in  Congress,  and,  perceiving  the  danger,  at  once  en 
gaged  his  whole  energies  to  avert  it.  It  began,  as  I  have  said,  in 
1819 ;  and  it  did  not  terminate  till  1821.  Missouri  would  not  yield 
the  point;  and  Congress — that  is,  a  majority  in  Congress — by  re 
peated  votes  showed  a  determination  not  to  admit  the  State  unless 
it  should  yield.  After  several  failures  and  great  labor  on  the  part 
of  Mr.  Clay  to  so  present  the  question  that  a  majority  could  consent 
to  the  admission,  it  was  by  a  vote  rejected,  and  as  all  seemed  to 
think,  finally.  A  sullen  gloom  hung  over  the  nation.  All  felt  that 
the  rejection  of  Missouri  was  equivalent  to  a  dissolution  of  the 
Union,  because  those  States  which  already  had  what  Missouri  was 
rejected  for  refusing  to  relinquish  would  go  with  Missouri.  All 
deprecated  and  deplored  this,  but  none  saw  how  to  avert  it.  For 
the  judgment  of  members  to  be  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  yield 
ing  was  not  the  whole  difficulty;  each  had  a  constituency  to  meet 
and  to  answer  to.  Mr.  Clay,  though  worn  down  and  exhausted,  was 
appealed  to  by  members  to  renew  his  efforts  at  compromise.  He 
did  so,  and  by  some  judicious  modifications  of  his  plan,  coupled  with 
laborious  efforts  with  individual  members  and  his  own  overmaster 
ing  eloquence  upon  that  floor,  he  finally  secured  the  admission  of 
the  State.  Brightly  and  captivating  as  it  had  previously  shown, 
it  was  now  perceived  that  his  great  eloquence  was  a  mere  embellish 
ment,  or  at  most  but  a  helping  hand  to  his  inventive  genius,  and 
his  devotion  to  his  country  in  the  day  of  her  extreme  peril. 

After  the  settlement  of  the  Missouri  question,  although  a  portion 
of  the  American  people  have  differed  with  Mr.  Clay,  and  a  majority 
even  appear  generally  to  have  been  opposed  to  him  on  questions  of 
ordinary  administration,  he  seems  constantly  to  have  been  regarded 
by  all  as  the  man  for  a  crisis.  Accordingly,  in  the  days  of  nullifi 
cation,  and  more  recently  in  the  reappearance  of  the  slavery  ques 
tion  connected  with  our  territory  newly  acquired  of  Mexico,  the 


174          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

task  of  devising  a  mode  of  adjustment  seems  to  have  been  cast 
upon  Mr.  Clay  by  common  consent — and  his  performance  of  the 
task  in  each  case  was  little  else  than  a  literal  fulfilment  of  the 
public  expectation. 

Mr.  Clay's  efforts  in  behalf  of  the  South  Americans,  and  after 
ward  in  behalf  of  the  Greeks,  in  the  times  of  their  respective  strug 
gles  for  civil  liberty,  are  among  the  finest  on  record,  upon  the 
noblest  of  all  themes,  and  bear  ample  corroboration  of  what  I  have 
said  was  his  ruling  passion — a  love  of  liberty  and  right,  unselfishly, 
and  for  their  own  sakes. 

Having  been  led  to  allude  to  domestic  slavery  so  frequently  al 
ready,  I  am  unwilling  to  close  without  referring  more  particularly 
to  Mr.  Clay's  views  and  conduct  in  regard  to  it.  He  ever  was  on 
principle  and  in  feeling  opposed  to  slavery.  The  very  earliest,  and 
one  of  the  latest,  public  efforts  of  his  life,  separated  by  a  period  of 
more  than  fifty  years,  were  both  made  in  favor  of  gradual  emanci 
pation.  He  did  not  perceive  that  on  a  question  of  human  right  the 
negroes  were  to  be  excepted  from  the  human  race.  And  yet  Mr. 
Clay  was  the  owner  of  slaves.  Cast  into  life  when  slavery  Vas  al 
ready  widely  spread  and  deeply  seated,  he  did  not  perceive;  as  I 
think  no  wise  man  has  perceived,  how  it  could  be  at  once  eradicated 
without  producing  a  greater  evil  even  to  the  cause  of  human  liberty 
itself.  His  feeling  and  his  judgment,  therefore,  ever  led  him  to 
oppose  both  extremes  of  opinion  on  the  subject.  Those  who  would 
shiver  into  fragments  the  Union  of  these  States,  tear  to  tatters  its 
now  venerated  Constitution,  and  even  burn  the  last  copy  of  the 
Bible,  rather  than  slavery  should  continue  a  single  hour,  together 
with  all  their  more  halting  sympathizers,  have  received,  and  are 
receiving,  their  just  execration;  and  the  name  and  opinions  and 
influence  of  Mr.  Clay  are  fully  and,  as  I  trust,  effectually  and  en- 
duriugly  arrayed  against  them.  But  I  would  also,  if  I  could,  array 
his  name,  opinions,  and  influence  against  the  opposite  extreme  — 
against  a  few  but  an  increasing  number  of  men  who,  for  the  sake 
of  perpetuating  slavery,  are  beginning  to  assail  and  to  ridicule  the 
white  man's  charter  of  freedom,  the  declaration  that  "  all  men  are 
created  free  and  equal."  So  far  as  I  have  learned,  the  first  American 
of  any  note  to  do  or  attempt  this  was  the  late  John  C.  Calhoun  j 
and  if  I  mistake  not,  it  soon  after  found  its  way  into  some  of  the 
messages  of  the  Governor  of  South  Carolina.  We,  however,  look 
for  and  are  not  much  shocked  by  political  eccentricities  and  here 
sies  in  South  Carolina.  But  only  last  year  I  saw  with  astonishment 
what  purported  to  be  a  letter  of  a  very  distinguished  and  influen 
tial  clergyman  of  Virginia,  copied,  with  apparent  approbation,  into 
a  St.  Louis  newspaper,  containing  the  following  to  me  very  unsat 
isfactory  language : 

I  am  fully  aware  that  there  is  a  text  in  some  Bibles  that  is  not  in  mine. 
Professional  Abolitionists  have  made  more  use  of  it  than  of  any  passage 
in  the  Bible.  It  came,  however,  as  I  trace  it,  from  Saint  Voltaire,  and  was 
baptized  by  Thomas  Jefferson,  and  since  almost  universally  regarded  as 
canonical  authority,  "  All  men  are  born  free  and  equal." 

This  is  a  genuine  coin  in  the  political  currency  of  our  generation.     I  am 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          175 

sorry  to  say  that  I  have  never  seen  two  men  of  whom  it  is  true.  But  I  must 
admit  I  never  saw  the  Siamese  Twins,  and  therefore  will  not  dogmatically 
say  that  no  man  ever  saw  a  proof  of  this  sage  aphorism. 

This  sounds  strangely  in  republican  America.  The  like  was  not 
heard  in  the  fresher  days  of  the  republic.  Let  us  contrast  with  it 
the  language  of  that  truly  national  man  whose  life  and  death  we 
now  commemorate  and  lament.  I  quote  from  a  speech  of  Mr.  Clay 
delivered  before  the  American  Colonization  Society  in  1827 : 

We  are  reproached  with  doing  mischief  by  the  agitation  of  this  question. 
The  society  goes  into  no  household  to  disturb  its  domestic  tranquillity.  It 
addresses  itself  to  no  slaves  to  weaken  their  obligations  of  obedience.  It 
seeks  to  affect  no  man's  property.  It  neither  has  the  power  nor  the  will  to 
affect  the  property  of  any  one  contrary  to  his  consent.  The  execution  of 
its  scheme  would  augment  instead  of  diminishing  the  value  of  property  left 
behind.  The  society,  composed  of  free  men,  concerns  itself  only  with  the 
free.  Collateral  consequences  we  are  not  responsible  for.  It  is  not  this 
society  which  has  produced  the  great  moral  revolution  which  the  age  ex 
hibits.  What  would  they  who  thus  reproach  us  have  done  ?  If  they 
would  repress  all  tendencies  toward  liberty  and  ultimate  emancipation, 
they  must  do  more  than  put  down  the  benevolent  efforts  of  society.  They 
must  go  back  to  the  era  of  our  liberty  and  independence,  and  muzzle  the 
cannon  which  thunders  its  annual  joyous  return.  They  must  renew  the 
slave-trade,  with  all  its  train  of  atrocities.  They  must  suppress  the  work 
ings  of  British  philanthropy,  seeking  to  meliorate  the  condition  of  the  un 
fortunate  West  Indian  slave.  They  must  arrest  the  career  of  South  Amer 
ican  deliverance  from  thraldom.  They  must  blow  out  the  moral  light 
around  us  and  extinguish  that  greatest  torch  of  all  which  America  presents 
to  a  benighted  world — pointing  the  way  to  their  rights,  their  liberties,  and 
their  happiness.  And  when  they  have  achieved  all  those  purposes  their 
work  will  be  yet  incomplete.  They  must  penetrate  the  human  soul,  and 
eradicate  the  light  of  reason  and  the  love  of  liberty.  Then,  and  not  till  then, 
when  universal  darkness  and  despair  prevail,  can  you  perpetuate  slavery 
and  repress  all  sympathy  and  all  humane  and  benevolent  efforts  among 
free  men  in  behalf  of  the  unhappy  portion  of  our  race  doomed  to  bondage. 

The  American  Colonization  Society  was  organized  in  1816.  Mr. 
Clay,  though  not  its  projector,  was  one  of  its  earliest  members;  and 
he  died,  as  for  many  preceding  years  he  had  been,  its  president.  It 
was  one  of  the  most  cherished  objects  of  his  direct  care  and  consid 
eration,  and  the  association  of  his  name  with  it  has  probably  been 
its  very  greatest  collateral  support.  He  considered  it  no  demerit  in 
the  society  that  it  tended  to  relieve  the  slaveholders  from  the  trou 
blesome  presence  of  the  free  negroes ;  but  this  was  far  from  being 
its  whole  merit  in  his  estimation.  In  the  same  speech  from  which 
we  have  quoted  he  says : 

j~There  is  a  moral  fitness  in  the  idea  of  returning  to  Africa  her  children, 
whose  ancestors  have  been  torn  from  her  by  the  ruthless  hand  of  fraud  and 
violence.  Transplanted  in  a  foreign  land,  they  will  carry  back  to  their  na 
tive  soil  the  rich  fruits  of  religion,  civilization,  law,  and  liberty.  May  it  not 
be  one  of  the  great  designs  of  the  Ruler  of  the  universe,  whose  ways  are 
often  inscrutable  by  short- sighted  mortals,  thus  to  transform  an  original 
crime  into  a  signal  blessing  to  that  most  unfortunate  portion  of  the  globe  ? 

This  suggestion  of  the  possible  ultimate  redemption  of  the  African 
race  and  African  continent  was  made  twenty-five  years  ago.  Every 


176          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

succeeding  year  has  added  strength  to  the  hope  of  its  realization. 
May  it  indeed  be  realized.  Pharaoh's  country  was  cursed  with 
plagues,  and  his  hosts  were  lost  in  the  Red  Sea,  for  striving  to  retain 
a  captive  people  who  had  already  served  them  more  than  four  hun 
dred  years.  May  like  disasters  never  befall  us !  If,  as  the  friends 
of  colonization  hope,  the  present  and  coming  generations  of  our 
countrymen  shall  by  any  means  succeed  in  freeing  our  land  from  the 
dangerous  presence  of  slavery,  and  at  the  same  time  in  restoring  a 
captive  people  to  their  long-lost  fatherland  with  bright  prospects  for 
the  future,  and  this  too  so  gradually  that  neither  races  nor  individ 
uals  shall  have  suffered  by  the  change,  it  will  indeed  be  a  glorious 
consummation.  And  if  to  such  a  consummation  the  efforts  of  Mr. 
Clay  shall  have  contributed,  it  will  be  what  he  most  ardently  wished, 
and  none  of  his  labors  will  have  been  more  valuable  to  his  country 
and  his  kind. 

But  Henry  Clay  is  dead.  His  long  and  eventful  life  is  closed.  Our 
country  is  prosperous  and  powerful;  but  could  it  have  been  quite 
all  it  has  been,  and  is,  and  is  to  be,  without  Henry  Clay  ?  Such  a 
man  the  times  have  demanded,  and  such  in  the  providence  of  God 
was  given  us.  But  he  is  gone.  Let  us  strive  to  deserve,  as  far  as 
mortals  may,  the  continued  care  of  Divine  Providence,  trusting  that 
in  future  national  emergencies  He  will  not  fail  to  provide  us  the  in 
struments  of  safety  and  security. 

NOTE. — We  are  indebted  for  a  copy  of  this  speech  to  the  courtesy  of 
Major  Win.  H.  Bailhache,  formerly  one  of  the  proprietors  of  the  "  Illinois 
State  Journal." 


November  1,  1852. — OPINION  ON  THE  ILLINOIS  ELECTION  LAW. 
Challenged  Voters. 

SPRINGFIELD,  November  1,  1852. 

A  leading  article  in  the  "  Daily  Register  "  of  this  morning  has  in 
duced  some  of  our  friends  to  request  our  opinion  on  the  election  laws 
as  applicable  to  challenged  voters.  We  have  examined  the  present 
constitution  of  the  State,  the  election  law  of  1849,  and  the  unrepealed 
parts  of  the  election  law  in  the  revised  code  of  1845 ;  and  we  are  of 
the  opinion  that  any  person  taking  the  oath  prescribed  in  the  act  of 
1849  is  entitled  to  vote  unless  counter-proof  be  made  satisfactory  to 
a  majority  of  the  judges  that  such  oath  is  untrue ;  and  that  for  the 
purpose  of  obtaining  such  counter-proof,  the  proposed  voter  may  be 
asked  questions  in  the  way  of  cross-examination,  and  other  inde 
pendent  testimony  may  be  received.  We  base  our  opinion  as  to 
receiving  counter-proof  upon  the  unrepealed  section  nineteen  of  the 
election  law  in  the  revised  code. 

A.  LINCOLN, 

B.  S.  EDWARDS, 
S.  T.  LOGAN. 

I  concur  in  the  foregoing  opinion, 

S.  H.  TREAT. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          177 


October  3,  1853. — LETTER  TO  M.  BRAYMAN. 

PEKIN,  October  3,  1853. 
M.  BRAYMAN,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir:  Neither  the  county  of  McLean  nor  any  one  on  its  be 
half  has  yet  made  any  engagement  with  me  in  relation  to  its  suit 
with  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  on  the  subject  of  taxation.  I  am 
now  free  to  make  an  engagement  for  the  road,  and  if  you  think  of 
it  you  may  "  count  me  in."  Please  write  me  on  receipt  of  this.  I 
shall  be  here  at  least  ten  days.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

April  1,  1854. — LETTER  TO  JESSE  LINCOLN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  April  1,  1854. 

My  dear  Sir:  On  yesterday  I  had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  your 
letter  of  the  16th  of  March.  From  what  you  say  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  you  and  I  are  of  the  same  family.  The  history  of  your 
family,  as  you  give  it,  is  precisely  what  I  have  always  heard,  and 
partly  know,  of  my  own.  As  you  have  supposed,  I  am  the  grand 
son  of  your  uncle  Abraham ;  and  the  story  of  his  death  by  the  In 
dians,  and  of  Uncle  Mordecai,  then  fourteen  years  old,  killing  one 
of  the  Indians,  is  the  legend  more  strongly  than  all  others  im 
printed  upon  my  mind  and  memory.  I  am  the  son  of  grandfather's 
youngest  son,  Thomas.  I  have  often  heard  my  father  speak  of  his 
uncle  Isaac  residing  at  Watauga  (I  think),  near  where  the  then  States 
of  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  and  Tennessee  join, — you  seem  now  to 
be  some  hundred  miles  or  so  west  of  that.  I  often  saw  Uncle  Mor 
decai,  and  Uncle  Josiah  but  once  in  my  life ;  but  I  never  resided 
uear  either  of  them.  Uncle  Mordecai  died  in  1831  or  2,  in  Hancock 
County,  Illinois,  where  he  had  then  recently  removed  from  Ken 
tucky,  and  where  his  children  had  also  removed,  and  still  reside,  as 
I  understand.  Whether  Uncle  Josiah  is  dead  or  living,  I  cannot  tell, 
not  having  heard  from  him  for  more  than  twenty  years.  When  I 
last  heard  of  him  he  was  living  on  Big  Blue  River,  in  Indiana 
(Harrison  Co.,  I  think),  and  where  he  had  resided  ever  since  before 
the  beginning  of  my  recollection.  My  father  (Thomas)  died  the  17th 
of  January,  1851,  in  Coles  County,  Illinois,  where  he  had  resided 
twenty  years.  I  am  his  only  child.  I  have  resided  here,  and  here 
abouts,  twenty-three  years.  I  am  forty-five  years  of  age,  and  have 
a  wife  and  three  children,  the  oldest  eleven  years.  My  wife  was 
born  and  raised  at  Lexington,  Kentucky ;  and  my  connection  with 
her  has  sometimes  taken  me  there,  where  I  have  heard  the  older 
people  of  her  relations  speak  of  your  uncle  Thomas  and  his  family. 
He  is  dead  long  ago,  and  his  descendants  have  gone  to  some  part  of 
Missouri,  as  I  recollect  what  I  was  told.  When  I  was  at  Washing 
ton  in  1848, 1  got  up  a  correspondence  with  David  Lincoln,  residing 
at  Sparta,  Rockingham  County,  Virginia,  who,  like  yourself,  was  a 
first  cousin  of  my  father;  but  I  forget,  if  he  informed  me,  which  of  my 
grandfather's  brothers  was  his  father.  With  Col.  Crozier,  of  whom 
VOL.  L— 12. 


178          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

you  speak,  I  formed  quite  an  intimate  acquaintance,  for  a  short 
one,  while  at  Washington ;  and  when  you  meet  him  again  I  will 
thank  you  to  present  him  my  respects.  Your  present  governor, 
Andrew  Johnson,  was  also  at  Washington  while  I  was  j  and  he  told 
me  of  there  being  people  of  the  name  of  Lincoln  in  Carter  County, 
I  think.  I  can  no  longer  claim  to  be  a  young  man  myself ;  but  I 
infer  that,  as  you  are  of  the  same  generation  as  my  father,  you  are 
some  older.  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  hear  from  you  again. 

Very  truly  your  relative,  A.  LINCOLN. 


[July  1,  1854?]. — FRAGMENT.    ON  GOVERNMENT. 

Government  is  a  combination  of  the  people  of  a  country  to  effect 
certain  objects  by  joint  effort.  The  best  framed  and  best  adminis 
tered  governments  are  necessarily  expensive;  while  by  errors  in 
frame  and  maladministration  most  of  them  are  more  onerous  than 
they  heed  be,  and  some  of  them  very  oppressive.  Why,  then,  should 
we  have  government  ?  Why  not  each  individual  take  to  himself 
the  whole  fruit  of  his  labor,  without  having  any  of  it  taxed  away,  in 
services,  corn,  or  money  ?  Why  not  take  just  so  much  land  as  he 
can  cultivate  with  his  own  hands,  without  buying  it  of  any  one  ? 

The  legitimate  object  of  government  is  "  to  do  for  the  people  what 
needs  to  be  done,  but  which  they  can  not,  by  individual  effort,  do  at 
all,  or  do  so  well,  for  themselves."  There  are  many  such  things — 
some  of  them  exist  independently  of  the  injustice  in  the  world. 
Making  and  maintaining  roads,  bridges,  and  the  like  ;  providing  for 
the  helpless  young  and  afflicted;  common  schools;  and  disposing  of 
deceased  men's  property,  are  instances. 

But  a  far  larger  class  of  objects  springs  from  the  injustice  of 
men.  If  one  people  will  make  war  upon  another,  it  is  a  necessity 
with  that  other  to  unite  and  cooperate  for  defense.  Hence  the 
military  department.  If  some  men  will  kill,  or  beat,  or  constrain 
others,  or  despoil  them  of  property,  by  force,  fraud,  or  noncom- 
pliance  with  contracts,  it  is  a  common  object  with  peaceful  and  just 
men  to  prevent  it.  Hence  the  criminal  and  civil  departments. 

[July  1,  1854?]. —  FRAGMENT.    ON  SLAVERY. 

The  ant  who  has  toiled  and  dragged  a  crumb  to  his  nest  will 
furiously  defend  the  fruit  of  his  labor  against  whatever  robber 
assails  him.  So  plain  that  the  most  dumb  and  stupid  slave  that  ever 
toiled  for  a  master  does  constantly  know  that  he  is  wronged.  So 
plain  that  no  one,  high  or  low,  ever  does  mistake  it,  except  in  a 
plainly  selfish  way ;  for  although  volume  upon  volume  is  written  to 
prove  slavery  a  very  good  thing,  we  never  hear  of  the  man  who 
wishes  to  take  the  good  of  it  by  being  a  slave  himself. 

Most  governments  have  been  based,  practically,  on  the  denial  of 
the  equal  rights  of  men,  as  I  have,  in  part,  stated  them $  ours  began 
by  affirming  those  rights.  They  said,  some  men  are  too  ignorant 
and  vicious  to  share  in  government.  Possibly  so,  said  we ;  and,  by 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          179 

your  system,  you  would  always  keep  them  ignorant  and  vicious. 
We  proposed  to  give  all  a  chance;  and  we  expected  the  weak  to 
grow  stronger,  the  ignorant  wiser,  and  all  better  and  happier 
together. 

We  made  the  experiment,  and  the  fruit  is  before  us.  Look  at  it, 
think  of  it.  Look  at  it  in  its  aggregate  grandeur,  of  extent  of 
country,  and  numbers  of  population — of  ship,  and  steamboat,  and 
railroad.  ^ 

[July  1,  1854?]. —  FRAGMENT.    ON  SLAVERY. 

Equality  in  society  alike  beats  inequality,  whether  the  latter  be  of 
the  British  aristocratic  sort  or  of  the  domestic  slavery  sort.  We 
know  Southern  men  declare  that  their  slaves  are  better  off  than 
hired  laj&xrers  amongst  us.  How  little  they  know  whereof  they 
speak !  {There  is  no  permanent  class  of  hired  laborers  amongst  us. 
Twenty-five  years  ago  I  was  a  hired  laborer.  The  hired  laborer  of 
yesterday  labors  on  his  own  account  to-day,  and  will  hire  others  to 
labor  for  him  to-morrow.  Advancement — improvement  in  condi 
tion —  is  the  order  of  things  in  a  society  of  equals.  As  labor  is  the 
common  burden  of  our  race,  so  the  effort  of  some  to  shift  their  share 
of  the  burden  onto  the  shoulders  of  others  is  the  great  durable 
curse  of  the  race?j  Originally  a  curse  for  transgression  upon  the 
whole  race,  when,  as  by  slavery,  it  is  concentrated  on  a  part  only,  it 
becomes  the  double-refined  curse  of  God  upon  his  creatures. 

(Pree  labor  has  the  inspiration  of  hope ;  pure  slavery  has  no  hope. 
Tfe  power  of  hope  upon  human  exertion  and  happiness  is  wonderf  uT 
The  slave-master  himself  has  a  conception  of  it,  and  hence  the  sys 
tem  of  tasks  among  slaves.  The  slave  whom  you  cannot  drive  with 
the  lash  to  break  seventy-five  pounds  of  hernp  in  a  day,  if  you  will 
task  him  to  break  a  hundred,  and  promise  him  pay  for  all  he  does 
over,  he  will  break  you  a  hundred  and  fifty.  You  have  substituted 
hope  for  the  rod.  And  yet  perhaps  it  does  not  occur  to  you  that  to 
the  extent  of  your  gain  in  the  case,  you  have  given  up  the  slave  sys 
tem  and  adopted  the  free  system  of  labor. 

[July  1,  1854?]. — FRAGMENT.    ON  SLAVERY. 

If  A  can  prove,  however  conclusively,  that  he  may  of  right  en 
slave  B,  why  may  not  B  snatch  the  same  argument  and  prove  equally 
that  he  may  enslave  A  ?  You  say  A  is  white  and  B  is  black.  It  is 
color,  then ;  the  lighter  having  the  right  to  enslave  the  darker  ?  Take 
care.  By  this  rule  you  are  to  be  slave  to  the  first  man  you  meet  with 
a  fairer  skin  than  your  own.  You  do  not  mean  color  exactly?  You 
mean  the  whites  are  intellectually  the  superiors  of  the  blacks,  and 
therefore  have  the  right  to  enslave  them?  Take  care  again.  By 
this  rule  you  are  to  be  slave  to  the  first  man  you  meet  with  an  in 
tellect  superior  to  your  own.  But,  say  you,  it  is  a  question  of  inter 
est,  and  if  you  make  it  your  interest  you  have  the  right  to  enslave 
another.  Very  well.  And  if  he  can  make  it  his  interest  he  has  the 
right  to  enslave  you. 


180          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


[July  1,  1854?]. — FRAGMENT.     ON  GOVERNMENT. 

The  legitimate  object  of  government  is  to  do  for  a  community 
of  people  whatever  they  need  to  have  done,  but  cannot  do  at  all, 
or  cannot  so  well  do,  for  themselves,  in  their  separate  and  individ 
ual  capacities.  In  all  that  the  people  can  individually  do  as  well 
for  themselves,  government  ought  not  to  interfere.  The  desirable 
things  which  the  individuals  of  a  people  cannot  do,  or  cannot  well 
do,  for  themselves,  fall  into  two  classes :  those  which  have  relation 
to  wrongs,  and  those  which  have  not.  Each  of  these  branch  off 
into  an  infinite  variety  of  subdivisions. 

The  first — that  in  relation  to  wrongs — embraces  all  crimes,  mis- 
demeanors;  and  non-performance  of  contracts.  The  other  embraces 
all  which,  in  its  nature,  and  without  wrong,  requires  combined  ac 
tion,  as  public  roads  and  highways,  public  schools,  charities,  pau 
perism,  orphanage,  estates  of  the  deceased,  and  the  machinery  of 
government  itself. 

From  this  it  appears  that  if  all  men  were  just,  there  still  would 
be  some,  though  not  so  much,  need  of  government. 


October  16,  1854. —  SPEECH  AT  PEORIA,  ILLINOIS,  IN  REPLY  TO 
SENATOR  DOUGLAS. 

On  Monday,  October  16,  Senator  Douglas,  by  appointment,  ad 
dressed  a  large  audience  at  Peoria.  When  he  closed  he  was  greeted 
with  six  hearty  cheers,  and  the  band  in  attendance  played  a  stirring 
air.  The  crowd  then  began  to  call  for  Lincoln,  who,  as  Judge 
Douglas  had  announced,  was  by  agreement  to  answer  him.  Mr. 
Lincoln  took  the  stand  and  said: 

I  do  not  rise  to  speak  now,  if  I  can  stipulate  with  the  audience  to 
meet  me  here  at  half -past  six  or  at  seven  o'clock.  It  is  now  several 
minutes  past  five,  and  Judge  Douglas  has  spoken  over  three  hours. 
If  you  hear  me  at  all,  I  wish  you  to  hear  me  through.  It  will  take 
me  as  long  as  it  has  taken  him.  That  will  carry  us  beyond  eight 
o'clock  at  night.  Now,  every  one  of  you  who  can  remain  that  long 
can  just  as  well  get  his  supper,  meet  me  at  seven,  and  remain  an 
hour  or  two  later.  The  judge  has  already  informed  you  that  he  is 
to  have  an  hour  to  reply  to  me.  I  doubt  not  but  you  have  been  a 
little  surprised  to  learn  that  I  have  consented  to  give  one  of  his  high 
reputation  and  known  ability  this  advantage  of  me.  Indeed,  my 
consenting  to  it,  though  reluctant,  was  not  wholly  unselfish,  for  I 
suspected,  if  it  were  understood  that  the  judge  was  entirely  done, 
you  Democrats  would  leave  and  not  hear  me ;  but  by  giving  him 
the  close,  I  felt  confident  you  would  stay  for  the  fun  of  hearing  him 
skin  me. 

The  audience  signified  their  assent  to  the  arrangement,  and  ad 
journed  to  seven  o'clock  p.  M.,  at  which  time  they  reassembled,  and 
Mr.  Lincoln  spoke  substantially  as  follows : 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          181 

The  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  the  propriety  of  its 
restoration,  constitute  the  subject  of  what  I  am  about  to  say.  As 
I  desire  to  present  my  own  connected  view  of  this  subject,  my  re 
marks  will  not  be  specifically  an  answer  to  Judge  Douglas ;  yet,  as 
I  proceed,  the  main  points  he  has  presented  will  arise,  and  will  re 
ceive  such  respectful  attention  as  I  may  be  able  to  give  them.  I 
wish  further  to  say  that  I  do  not  propose  to  question  the  patriotism 
or  to  assail  the  motives  of  any  man  or  class  of  men,  but  rather  to 
confine  myself  strictly  to  the  naked  merits  of  the  question.  I  also 
wish  to  be  no  less  than  national  in  all  the  positions  I  may  take,  and 
whenever  I  take  ground  which  others  have  thought,  or  may  think, 
narrow,  sectional,  and  dangerous  to  the  Union,  I  hope  to  give  a 
reason  which  will  appear  sufficient,  at  least  to  some,  why  I  think 
differently. 

And  as  this  subject  is  no  other  than  part  and  parcel  of  the  larger 
general  question  of  domestic  slavery,  I  wish  to  make  and  to  keep 
the  distinction  between  the  existing  institution  and  the  extension 
of  it,  so  broad  and  so  clear  that  no  honest  man  can  misunderstand 
me,  and  no  dishonest  one  successfully  misrepresent  me. 

In  order  to  a  clear  understanding  of  what  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  is,  a  short  history  of  the  preceding  kindred  subjects  will 
perhaps  be  proper. 

When  we  established  our  independence,  we  did  not  own  or  claim 
the  country  to  which  this  compromise  applies.  Indeed,  strictly 
speaking,  the  Confederacy  then  owned  no  country  at  all ;  the  States 
respectively  owned  the  country  within  their  limits,  and  some  of  them 
owned  territory  beyond  their  strict  State  limits.  Virginia  thus 
owned  the  Northwestern  Territory — the  country  out  of  which  the 
principal  part  of  Ohio,  all  Indiana,  all  Illinois,  all  Michigan,  and  all 
Wisconsin  have  since  been  formed.  She  also  owned  (perhaps 
within  her  then  limits)  what  has  since  been  formed  into  the  State 
of  Kentucky.  North  Carolina  thus  owned  what  is  now  the  State  of 
Tennessee ;  and  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  owned,  in  separate 
parts,  what  are  now  Mississippi  and  Alabama.  Connecticut,  I  think, 
owned  the  little  remaining  part  of  Ohio,  being  the  same  where  they 
now  send  Giddings  to  Congress,  and  beat  all  creation  in  making 
cheese. 

These  territories,  together  with  the  States  themselves,  constitute 
all  the  country  over  which  the  Confederacy  then  claimed  any  sort 
of  jurisdiction.  We  were  then  living  under  the  Articles  of  Con 
federation,  which  were  superseded  by  the  Constitution  several  years 
afterward.  The  question  of  ceding  the  territories  to  the  General 
Government  was  set  on  foot.  Mr.  Jefferson,  the  author  of  the  Dec 
laration  of  Independence,  and  otherwise  a  chief  actor  in  the  Revo 
lution  ;  then  a  delegate  in  Congress ;  afterward,  twice  President ; 
who  was,  is,  and  perhaps  will  continue  to  be,  the  most  distinguished 
politician  of  our  history ;  a  Virginian  by  birth  and  continued  resi 
dence,  and  withal  a  slaveholder, — conceived  the  idea  of  taking  that 
occasion  to  prevent  slavery  ever  going  into  the  Northwestern  Terri 
tory.  He  prevailed  on  the  Virginia  legislature  to  adopt  his  views, 
and  to  cede  the  Territory,  making  the  prohibition  of  slavery  therein 


182          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

a  condition  of  the  deed.1  Congress  accepted  the  cession  with  the 
condition;  and  the  first  ordinance  (which  the  acts  of  Congress 
were  then  called)  for  the  government  of  the  Territory  provided  that 
slavery  should  never  be  permitted  therein.  This  is  the  famed 
"  Ordinance  of  787,"  so  often  spoken  of. 

Thenceforward  for  sixty-one  years,  andj  until,  in  1848,  the  last 
scrap  of  this  Territory  came  into  the  Union  as  the  State  of  Wiscon 
sin,  all  parties  acted  in  quiet  obedience  to  this  ordinance.  It  is  now 
what  Jefferson  foresaw  and  intended — the  happy  home  of  teeming 
millions  of  free,  white,  prosperous  people,  and  no  slave  among  them. 
[Thus,  with  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the 
policy  of  prohibiting  slavery  in  new  territory  originated.  Thus, 
away  back  to  the  Constitution,  in  the  pure,  fresh,  free  breath  of  the 
Revolution,  the  State  of  Virginia  and  the  National  Congress  put 
that  policy  into  practice.  Thus,  through  more  than  sixty  of  the  best 
years  of  the  republic,  did  that  policy  steadily  work  to  its  great  and 
beneficent  end.  And  thus,  in  those  five  States,  and  in  five  millions 
of  free,  enterprising  people,  we  have  before  us  the  rich  fruits  of  this 
polic^T7 

But  now  new  light  breaks  upon  us.  Now  Congress  declares  this 
ought  never  to  have  been,  and  the  like  of  it  must  never  be  again. 
The  sacred  right  of  self-government  is  grossly  violated  by  it.  We 
even  find  some  men  who  drew  their  first  breath  —  and  every  other 
breath  of  their  lives — under  this  very  restriction,  now  live  in  dread 
of  absolute  suffocation  if  they  should  be  restricted  in  the  "  sacred 
right n  of  taking  slaves  to  Nebraska.  That  perfect  liberty  they  sigh 
for — the  liberty  of  making  slaves  of  other  people  —  Jefferson  never 
thought  of,  their  own  fathers  never  thought  of,  they  never  thought 
of  themselves,  a  year  ago.  How  fortunate  for  them  they  did  not 
sooner  become  sensible  of  their  great  misery !  Oh,  how  difficult  it  is 
to  treat  with  respect  such  assaults  upon  all  we  have  ever  really  held 
sacred ! 

But  to  return  to  history.  In  1803  we  purchased  what  was  then 
called  Louisiana,  of  France.  It  included  the  present  States  of  Loui 
siana,  Arkansas,  Missouri,  and  Iowa ;  also  the  Territory  of  Minne 
sota,  and  the  present  bone  of  contention,  Kansas  and  Nebraska. 
Slavery  already  existed  among  the  French  at  New  Orleans,  and  to 
some  extent  at  St.  Louis.  In  1812  Louisiana  came  into  the  Union 
as  a  slave  State,  without  controversy.  In  1818  or  '19,  Missouri 
showed  signs  of  a  wish  to  come  in  with  slavery.  This  was  resisted 
by  Northern  members  of  Congress ;  and  thus  began  the  first  great 
slavery  agitation  in  the  nation.  This  controversy  lasted  several 
months,  and  became  very  angry  and  exciting, — the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  voting  steadily  for  the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  Missouri, 
and  the  Senate  voting  as  steadily  against  it.  Threats  of  the  break 
ing  up  of  the  Union  were  freely  made,  and  the  ablest  public  men  of 
the  day  became  seriously  alarmed.  At  length  a  compromise  was 
made,  in  which,  as  in  all  compromises,  both  sides  yielded  something. 

1  Mr.  Lincoln  afterward  authorized  the  correction  of  the  error  into 
which  the  report  here  falls,  with  regard  to  the  prohibition  being  made  a 
condition  of  the  deed.  It  was  not  a  condition. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          183 

It  was  a  law,  passed  on  the  6th  of  March,  1820,  providing  that  Mis 
souri  might  come  into  the  Union  with  slavery,  but  that  in  all  the 
remaining  part  of  the  territory  purchased  of  France,  which  lies 
north  of  thirty-six  degrees  and  thirty  minutes  north  latitude,  slavery 
should  never  be  permitted.  This  provision  of  law  is  the  "  Missouri 
Compromise."  In  excluding  slavery  north  of  the  line,  the  same  lan 
guage  is  employed  as  in  the  ordinance  of  1787.  It  directly  applied  to 
Iowa,  Minnesota,  and  to  the  present  bone  of  contention,  Kansas  and 
Nebraska.  Whether  there  should  or  should  not  be  slavery  south  of 
that  line,  nothing  was  said  in  the  law.  But  Arkansas  constituted 
the  principal  remaining  part  south  of  the  line ;  and  it  has  since  been 
admitted  as  a  slave  State,  without  serious  controversy.  More  re 
cently,  Iowa,  north  of  the  line,  came  in  as  a  free  State  without  con 
troversy.  Still  later,  Minnesota,  north  of  the  line,  had  a  territorial 
organization  without  controversy.  Texas,  principally  south  of  the 
line,  and  west  of  Arkansas,  though  originally  within  the  purchase 
from  France,  had,  in  1819,  been  traded  off  to  Spain  in  our  treaty  for 
the  acquisition  of  Florida.  It  had  thus  become  a  part  of  Mexico. 
Mexico  revolutionized  and  became  independent  of  Spain.  American 
citizens  began  settling  rapidly  with  their  slaves  in  the  southern  part 
of  Texas.  Soon  they  revolutionized  against  Mexico,  and  established 
an  independent  government  of  their  own,  adopting  a  constitution 
with  slavery,  strongly  resembling  the  constitutions  of  our  slave 
States.  By  still  another  rapid  move,  Texas,  claiming  a  boundary 
much  further  west  than  when  we  parted  with  her  in  1819,  was 
brought  back  to  the  United  States,  and  admitted  into  the  Union  as 
a  slave  State.  Then  there  was  little  or  no  settlement  in  the  nor 
thern  part  of  Texas,  a  considerable  portion  of  which  lay  north  of  the 
Missouri  line  j  and  in  the  resolutions  admitting  her  into  the  Union, 
the  Missouri  restriction  was  expressly  extended  westward  across  her 
territory.  This  was  in  1845,  only  nine  years  ago. 

Thus  originated  the  Missouri  Compromise ;  and  thus  has  it  been 
respected  down  to  1845.  And  even  four  years  later,  in  1849,  our 
distinguished  senator,  in  a  public  address,  held  the  following  lan 
guage  in  relation  to  it: 

The  Missouri  Compromise  has  been  in  practical  operation  for  about  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  and  has  received  the  sanction  and  approbation  of  men 
of  all  parties  in  every  section  of  the  Union.  It  has  allayed  all  sectional 
jealousies  and  irritations  growing-  out  of  this  vexed  question,  and  harmon 
ized  and  tranquilized  the  whole  country.  It  has  given  to  Henry  Clay,  as 
its  prominent  champion,  the  proud  sobriquet  of  the  "  Great  Pacificator," 
and  by  that  title,  and  for  that  service,  his  political  friends  had  repeatedly 
appealed  to  the  people  to  rally  under  his  standard  as  a  presidential  candi 
date,  as  the  man  who  had  exhibited  the  patriotism  and  power  to  suppress 
an  unholy  and  treasonable  agitation,  and  preserve  the  Union.  He  was  not 
aware  that  any  man  or  any  party,  from  any  section  of  the  Union,  had  ever 
urged  as  an  objection  to  Mr.  Clay  that  he  was  the  great  champion  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise.  On  the  contrary,  the  effort  was  made  by  the  oppo 
nents  of  Mr.  Clay  to  prove  that  he  was  not  entitled  to  the  exclusive  merit 
of  that  great  patriotic  measure  j  and  that  the  honor  was  equally  due  to 
others,  as  well  as  to  him,  for  securing  its  adoption  —  that  it  had  its  origin  in 
the  hearts  of  all  patriotic  men,  who  desired  to  preserve  and  perpetuate  the 


184          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

blessings  of  our  glorious  Union  —  an  origin  akin  to  that  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  conceived  in  the  same  spirit  of  fraternal  affection,  and 
calculated  to  remove  forever  the  only  danger  which  seemed  to  threaten,  at 
some  distant  day,  to  sever  the  social  bond  of  union.  All  the  evidences  of 
public  opinion  at  that  day  seemed  to  indicate  that  this  Compromise  had 
been  canonized  in  the  hearts  of  the  American  people,  as  a  sacred  thing 
which  no  ruthless  hand  would  ever  be  reckless  enough  to  disturb. 

I  do  not  read  this  extract  to  involve  Judge  Douglas  in  an  incon 
sistency.  If  he  afterward  thought  he  had  been  wrong,  it  was  right 
for  him  to  change.  I  bring  this  forward  merely  to  show  the  high 
estimate  placed  on  the  Missouri  Compromise  by  all  parties  up  to  so 
late  as  the  year  1849. 

But  going  back  a  little  in  point  of  time.  Our  war  with  Mexico 
broke  out  in  1846.  When  Congress  was  about  adjourning  that  ses 
sion,  President  Polk  asked  them  to  place  two  millions  of  dollars  un 
der  his  control,  to  be  used  by  him  in  the  recess,  if  found  practicable 
and  expedient,  in  negotiating  a  treaty  of  peace  with  Mexico,  and  ac 
quiring  some  part  of  her  territory.  A  bill  was  duly  gotten  up  for 
the  purpose,  and  was  progressing  swimmingly  in  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives,  when  a  member  by  the  name  of  David  Wilmot,  a  Dem 
ocrat  from  Pennsylvania,  moved  as  an  amendment,  "  Provided,  that 
in  any  territory  thus  acquired  there  shall  never  be  slavery." 

This  is  the  origin  of  the  far-famed  Wilmot  proviso.  It  created  a 
great  nutter;  but  it  stuck  like  wax,  was  voted  into  the  bill,  and 
the  bill  passed  with  it  through  the  House.  The  Senate,  however, 
adjourned  without  final  action  on  it,  and  so  both  appropriation  and 
proviso  were  lost  for  the  time.  The  war  continued,  and  at  the  next 
session  the  President  renewed  his  request  for  the  appropriation,  en 
larging  the  amount,  I  think,  to  three  millions.  Again  came  the  pro 
viso,  and  defeated  the  measure.  Congress  adjourned  again,  and  the 
war  went  on.  In  December,  1847,  the  new  Congress  assembled.  I 
was  in  the  lower  House  that  term.  The  Wilmot  proviso,  or  the 
principle  of  it,  was  constantly  coming  up  in  some  shape  or  other, 
and  I  think  I  may  venture  to  say  I  voted  for  it  at  least  forty  times 
during  the  short  time  I  was  there.  The  Senate,  however,  held  it  in 
check,  and  it  never  became  a  law.  In  the  spring  of  1848  a  treaty  of 
peace  was  made  with  Mexico,  by  which  we  obtained  that  portion  of 
her  country  which  now  constitutes  the  Territories  of  New  Mexico 
and  Utah,  and  the  present  State  of  California.  By  this  treaty  the 
Wilmot  proviso  was  defeated,  in  so  far  as  it  was  intended  to  be  a  con 
dition  of  the  acquisition  of  territory.  Its  friends,  however,  were  still 
determined  to  find  some  way  to  restrain  slavery  from  getting  into 
the  new  country.  This  new  acquisition  lay  directly  west  of  our  old 
purchase  from  France,  and  extended  west  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and 
was  so  situated  that  if  the  Missouri  line  should  be  extended  straight 
west,  the  new  country  would  be  divided  by  such  extended  line,  leav 
ing  some  north  and  some  south  of  it.  On  Judge  Douglas's  motion, 
a  bill,  or  provision  of  a  bill,  passed  the  Senate  to  so  extend  the  Mis 
souri  line.  The  proviso  men  in  the  House,  including  myself,  voted 
it  down,  because,  by  implication,  it  gave  up  the  southern  part  to 
slavery,  while  we  were  bent  on  having  it  all  free. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          185 

In  the  fall  of  1848  the  gold-mines  were  discovered  in  California. 
This  attracted  people  to  it  with  unprecedented  rapidity,  so  that  on, 
or  soon  after,  the  meeting  of  the  new  Congress  in  December,  1849, 
she  already  had  a  population  of  nearly  a  hundred  thousand,  had 
called  a  convention,  formed  a  State  Constitution  excluding  slavery, 
and  was  knocking  for  admission  into  the  Union.  The  proviso  men, 
of  course,  were  for  letting  her  in,  but  the  Senate,  always  true  to  the 
other  side,  would  not  consent  to  her  admission,  and  there  California 
stood,  kept  out  of  the  Union  because  she  would  not  let  slavery  into 
her  borders.  Under  all  the  circumstances,  perhaps,  this  was  not 
wrong.  There  were  other  points  of  dispute  connected  with  the  gen 
eral  question  of  slavery,  which  equally  needed  adjustment.  The 
South  clamored  for  a  more  efficient  fugitive-slave  law.  The  North 
clamored  for  the  abolition  of  a  peculiar  species  of  slave-trade  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  in  connection  with  which,  in  view  from  the 
windows  of  the  Capitol,  a  sort  of  negro  livery-stable,  where  droves 
of  negroes  were  collected,  temporarily  kept,  and  finally  taken  to 
Southern  markets,  precisely  like  droves  of  horses,  had  been  openly 
maintained  for  fifty  years.  Utah  and  New  Mexico  needed  territorial 
governments;  and  whether  slavery  should  or  should  not  be  pro 
hibited  within  them  was  another  question.  The  indefinite  western 
boundary  of  Texas  was  to  be  settled.  She  was  a  slave  State,  and 
consequently  the  farther  west  the  slavery  men  could  push  her  boun 
dary,  the  more  slave  country  they  secured ;  and  the  farther  east  the 
slavery  opponents  could  thrust  the  boundary  back,  the  less  slave 
ground  was  secured.  Thus  this  was  just  as  clearly  a  slavery  ques 
tion  as  any  of  the  others. 

These  points  all  needed  adjustment,  and  they  were  held  up,  per 
haps  wisely,  to  make  them  help  adjust  one  another.  The  Union 
now,  as  in  1820,  was  thought  to  be  in  danger,  and  devotion  to  the 
Union  rightfully  inclined  men  to  yield  somewhat  in  points,  where 
nothing  else  could  have  so  inclined  them.  A  compromise  was 
finally  effected.  The  South  got  their  new  fugitive-slave  law,  and  the 
North  got  California  (by  far  the  best  part  of  our  acquisition  from 
Mexico)  as  a  free  State.  The  South  got  a  provision  that  New  Mexico 
and  Utah,  when  admitted  as  States,  may  come  in  with  or  without 
slavery  as  they  may  then  choose ;  and  the  North  got  the  slave-trade 
abolished  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  The  North  got  the  western 
boundary  of  Texas  thrown  farther  back  eastward  than  the  South 
desired ;  but,  in  turn,  they  gave  Texas  ten  millions  of  dollars  with 
which  to  pay  her  old  debts.  This  is  the  compromise  of  1850. 

Preceding  the  presidential  election  of  1852,  each  of  the  great 
political  parties,  Democrats  and  Whigs,  met  in  convention  and 
adopted  resolutions  indorsing  the  compromise  of  '50,  as  a  "final 
ity/7  a  final  settlement,  so  far  as  these  parties  could  make  it  so,  of  all 
slavery  agitation.  Previous  to  this,  in  1851,  the  Illinois  legislature 
had  indorsed  it. 

During  this  long  period  of  time,  Nebraska  had  remained  substan 
tially  an  uninhabited  country,  but  now  emigration  to  and  settle 
ment  within  it  began  to  take  place.  It  is  about  one  third  as  large 
as  the  present  United  States,  and  its  importance,  so  long  overlooked, 


186          ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

begins  to  come  into  view.  The  restriction  of  slavery  by  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise  directly  applies  to  it — in  fact  was  first  made,  and 
has  since  been  maintained,  expressly  for  it.  In  1853,  a  bill  to  give 
it  a  territorial  government  passed  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and,  in  the  hands  of  Judge  Douglas,  failed  of  passing  only  for  want 
of  time.  This  bill  contained  no  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise. 
Indeed,  when  it  was  assailed  because  it  did  not  contain  such  repeal, 
Judge  Douglas  defended  it  in  its  existing  form.  On  January  4, 
1854,  Judge  Douglas  introduces  a  new  bill  to  give  Nebraska  terri 
torial  government.  He  accompanies  this  bill  with  a  report,  in  which 
last  he  expressly  recommends  that  the  Missouri  Compromise  shall 
neither  be  affirmed  nor  repealed.  Before  long  the  bill  is  so  modified 
as  to  make  two  territories  instead  of  one,  calling  the  southern  one 
Kansas. 

Also,  about  a  month  after  the  introduction  of  the  bill,  on  the 
judge's  own  motion  it  is  so  amended  as  to  declare  the  Missouri 
Compromise  inoperative  and  void;  and,  substantially,  that  the  peo 
ple  who  go  and  settle  there  may  establish  slavery,  or  exclude  it,  as 
they  may  see  fit.  In  this  shape  the  bill  passed  both  branches  of 
Congress  and  became  a  law. 

This  is  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  The  foregoing 
history  may  not  be  precisely  accurate  in  every  particular,  but  I  am 
sure  it  is  sufficiently  so  for  all  the  use  I  shall  attempt  to  make  of  it, 
and  in  it  we  have  before  us  the  chief  material  enabling  us  to  judge 
correctly  whether  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  is  right 
or  wrong.  I  think,  and  shall  try  to  show,  that  it  is  wrong — wrong  in 
its  direct  effect,  letting  slavery  into  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  and 
wrong  in  its  prospective  principle,  allowing  it  to  spread  to  every 
other  part  of  the  wide  world  where  men  can  be  found  inclined  to 
take  it. 

This  declared  indifference,  but,  as  I  must  think,  covert  real  zeal, 
f  or  (the  spread  of  slavery,  I  cannot  but  hate.  I  hate  it  because  of  the 
monstrous  injustice  of  slavery  itself.  I  hate  it  because  it  deprives 
our  republican  example  of  its  just  influence  in  the  world ;  enables 
the  enemies  of  free  institutions  with  plausibility  to  taunt  us  as  hypo 
crites  ;  causes  the  real  friends  of  freedom  to  doubt  our  sincerity ; 
and  especially  because  it  forces  so  many  good  men  among  ourselves 
into  an  open  war  with  the  very  fundamental  principles  of  civil  lib 
erty,  criticizing  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  insisting  that 
there  is  no  right  principle  of  action  but  self-interest. 

Before  proceeding  let  me  say  that  I  think  I  have  no  prejudice 
against  the  Southern  people.  They  are  just  what  we  would  be  in 
their  situation.  If  slavery  did  not  now  exist  among  them,  they 
would  not  introduce  it.  If  it  did  now  exist  among  us,  we  should  not 
instantly  give  it  up.  This  I  believe  of  the  masses  North  and  South. 
Doubtless  there  are  individuals  on  both  sides  who  would  not  hold 
slaves  under  any  circumstances,  and  others  who  would  gladly  intro 
duce  slavery  anew  if  it  were  out  of  existence.  We  know  that  some 
Southern  men  do  free  their  slaves,  go  North  and  become  tip-top 
Abolitionists,  while  some  Northern  ones  go  South  and  become  most 
cruel  slave-masters. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          187 

When  Southern  people  tell  us  they  are  no  more  responsible  for  the 
origin  of  slavery  than  we  are,  I  acknowledge  the  fact.  When  it  is 
said  that  the  institution  exists,  and  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  get  rid 
of  it  in  any  satisfactory  way,  I  can  understand  and  appreciate  the 
saying.  I  surely  will  not  blame  them  for  not  doing  what  I  should 
not  know  how  to  do  myself.  If  all  earthly  power  were  given  me,  I 
should  not  know  what  to  do  as  to  the  existing  institution.  My  first 
impulse  would  be  to  free  all  the  slaves,  and  send  them  to  Liberia,  to 
their  own  native  land.  But  a  moment's  reflection  would  convince 
me  that  whatever  of  high  hope  (as  I  think  there  is)  there  may  be  in 
this  in  the  long  run,  its  sudden  execution  is  impossible.  If  they  were 
all  landed  there  in  a  day,  they  would  all  perish  in  the  next  ten  days ; 
and  there  are  not  surplus  shipping  and  surplus  money  enough  to 
carry  them  there  in  many  times  ten  days.  What  then  ?  Free  them 
all,  and  keep  them  among  us  as  underlings?  Is  it  quite  certain  that 
this  betters  their  condition  ?  I  think  I  would  not  hold  one  in  slavery 
at  any  rate,  yet  the  point  is  not  clear  enough  for  me  to  denounce 
people  upon.  What  next  ?  Free  them,  and  make  them  politically 
and  socially  our  equals.  My  own  feelings  will  not  admit  of  this,  and 
if  mine  would,  we  well  know  that  those  of  the  great  mass  of  whites 
will  not. j  Whether  this  feeling  accords  with  justice  and  sound  judg 
ment  is  not  the  sole  question,  if  indeed  it  is  any  part  of  it.  A 
universal  feeling,  whether  well  or  ill  founded,  cannot  be  safely  disre 
garded.  We  cannot  then  make  them  equals.  •  It  does  seem  to  me 
that  systems  of  gradual  emancipation  might  be  adopted,  but  for  their 
tardiness  in  this  I  will  not  undertake  to  judge  our  brethren  of  the 
South. 

When  they  remind  us  of  their  constitutional  rights,  I  acknowledge 
them  —  not  grudgingly,  but  fully  and  fairly;  and  I  would  give  them 
any  legislation  for  the  reclaiming  of  their  fugitives  which  should 
not  in  its  stringency  be  more  likely  to  carry  a  free  man  into  slavery 
than  our  ordinary  criminal  laws  are  to  hang  an  innocent  one. 

But  all  this,  to  my  judgment,  furnishes  no  more  excuse  for  per 
mitting  slavery  to  go  into  our  own  free  territory  than  it  would  for 
reviving  the  African  slave-trade  by  law.  The  law  which  forbids  the 
bringing  of  slaves  from  Africa,  and  that  which  has  so  long  forbidden 
the  taking  of  them  into  Nebraska,  can  hardly  be  distinguished  on 
any  moral  principle,  and  the  repeal  of  the  former  could  find  quite  as 
plausible  excuses  as  that  of  the  latter. 

The  arguments  by  which  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  is 
sought  to  be  justified  are  these:  First.  That  the  Nebraska  country 
needed  a  territorial  government.  Second.  That  in  various  ways  the 
public  had  repudiated  that  compromise  and  demanded  the  repeal, 
and  therefore  should  not  now  complain  of  it.  And,  lastly,  That  the 
repeal  establishes  a  principle  which  is  intrinsically  right. 

I  will  attempt  an  answer  to  each  of  them  in  its  turn.  First,  then. 
If  that  country  was  in  need  of  a  territorial  organization,  could  it 
not  have  had  it  as  well  without  as  with  a  repeal?  Iowa  and  Min 
nesota,  to  both  of  which  the  Missouri  restriction  applied,  had,  with 
out  its  repeal,  each  in  succession,  territorial  organizations.  And 
even  the  year  before,  a  bill  for  Nebraska  itself  was  within  an  ace  of 


188          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

passing  without  the  repealing  clause,  and  this  in  the  hands  of  the 
same  men  who  are  now  the  champions  of  repeal.  Why  no  necessity 
then  for  repeal  ?  But  still  later,  when  this  very  bill  was  first  brought 
in,  it  contained  no  repeal.  But,  say  they,  because  the  people  had 
demanded,  or  rather  commanded,  the  repeal,  the  repeal  was  to  ac 
company  the  organization  whenever  that  should  occur. 

Now,  I  deny  that  the  public  ever  demanded  any  such  thing — ever 
repudiated  the  Missouri  Compromise,  ever  commanded  its  repeal.  I 
deny  it,  and  call  for  the  proof.  It  is  not  contended,  I  believe,  that 
any  such  command  has  ever  been  given  in  express  terms.  It  is  only 
said  that  it  was  done  in  principle.  The  support  of  the  Wilmot 
proviso  is  the  first  fact  mentioned  to  prove  that  the  Missouri  restric 
tion  was  repudiated  in  principle,  and  the  second  is  the  refusal  to  extend 
the  Missouri  line  over  the  country  acquired  from  Mexico.  These 
are  near  enough  alike  to  be  treated  together.  The  one  was  to  exclude 
the  chances  of  slavery  from  the  whole  new  acquisition  by  the  lump, 
and  the  other  was  to  reject  a  division  of  it,  by  which  one  half  was 
to  be  given  up  to  those  chances.  Now,  whether  this  was  a  repudia 
tion  of  the  Missouri  line  in  principle  depends  upon  whether  the 
Missouri  law  contained  any  principle  requiring  the  line  to  be  ex 
tended  over  the  country  acquired  from  Mexico.  I  contend  it  did 
not.  I  insist  that  it  contained  no  general  principle,  but  that  it  was, 
in  every  sense,  specific.  That  its  terms  limit  it  to  the  country  pur 
chased  from  France  is  undenied  and  undeniable.  It  could  have  no 
principle  beyond  the  intention  of  those  who  made  it.  They  did  not 
intend  to  extend  the  line  to  country  which  they  did  not  own.  If 
they  intended  to  extend  it  in  the  event  of  acquiring  additional  terri 
tory,  why  did  they  not  say  so  ?  It  was  just  as  easy  to  say  that  "  in 
all  the  country  west  of  the  Mississippi  which  we  now  own,  or  may 
hereafter  acquire,  there  shall  never  be  slavery,"  as  to  say  what  they 
did  say ;  and  they  would  have  said  it  if  they  had  meant  it.  An  in 
tention  to  extend  the  law  is  not  only  not  mentioned  in  the  law,  but 
is  not  mentioned  in  any  contemporaneous  history.  Both  the  law 
itself,  and  the  history  of  the  times,  are  a  blank  as  to  any  principle  of 
extension ;  and  by  neither  the  known  rules  of  construing  statutes 
and  contracts,  nor  by  common  sense,  can  any  such  principle  be 
inferred. 

Another  fact  showing  the  specific  character  of  the  Missouri  law  — 
showing  that  it  intended  no  more  than  it  expressed,  showing  that 
the  line  was  not  intended  as  a  universal  dividing  line  between  free 
and  slave  territory,  present  and  prospective,  north  of  which  slavery 
could  never  go — is  the  fact  that  by  that  very  law  Missouri  came  in 
as  a  slave  State,  north  of  the  line.  If  that  law  contained  any  pro 
spective  principle,  the  whole  law  must  be  looked  to  in  order  to  ascer 
tain  what  the  principle  was.  And  by  this  rule  the  South  could  fairly 
contend  that  inasmuch  as  they  got  one  slave  State  north  of  the  line 
at  the  inception  of  the  law,  they  have  the  right  to  have  another 
given  them  north  of  it  occasionally,  now  and  then,  in  the  indefinite 
westward  extension  of  the  line.  This  demonstrates  the  absurdity 
of  attempting  to  deduce  a  prospective  principle  from  the  Missouri 
Compromise  line. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          189 

When  we  voted  for  the  Wilinot  proviso  we  were  voting  to  keep 
slavery  out  of  the  whole  Mexican  acquisition,  and  little  did  we  think 
we  were  thereby  voting  to  let  it  into  Nebraska,  lying  several  hun 
dred  miles  distant.  When  we  voted  against  extending  the  Missouri 
line,  little  did  we  think  we  were  voting  to  destroy  the  old  line,  then 
of  near  thirty  years'  standing. 

To  argue  that  we  thus  repudiated  the  Missouri  Compromise  is  no 
less  absurd  than  it  would  be  to  argue  that  because  we  have  so  far 
forborne  to  acquire  Cuba,  we  have  thereby,  in  principle,  repudiated 
our  former  acquisitions  and  determined  to  throw  them  out  of  the 
Union.  No  less  absurd  than  it  would  be  to  say  that  because  I  may 
have  refused  to  build  an  addition  to  my  house,  I  thereby  have  decided 
to  destroy  the  existing  house !  And  if  I  catch  you  setting  fire  to  my 
house,  you  will  turn  upon  me  and  say  I  instructed  you  to  do  it! 

The  most  conclusive  argument,  however,  that  while  for  the  Wil- 
mot  proviso,  and  while  voting  against  the  extension  of  the  Missouri 
line,  we  never  thought  of  disturbing  the  original  Missouri  Compro 
mise,  is  found  in  the  fact  that  there  was  then,  and  still  is,  an  unor 
ganized  tract  of  fine  country,  nearly  as  large  as  the  State  of  Missouri, 
lying  immediately  west  of  Arkansas  and  south  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  line,  and  that  we  never  attempted  to  prohibit  slavery  as 
to  it.  I  wish  particular  attention  to  this.  It  adjoins  the  original  Mis 
souri  Compromise  line  by  its  northern  boundary,  and  consequently 
is  part  of  the  country  into  which  by  implication  slavery  was  per 
mitted  to  go  by  that  compromise.  There  it  has  lain  open  ever 
since,  and  there  it  still  lies,  and  yet  no  effort  has  been  made  at  any 
time  to  wrest  it  from  the  South.  In  all  our  struggles  to  prohibit 
slavery  within  our  Mexican  acquisitions,  we  never  so  much  as  lifted 
a  finger  to  prohibit  it  as  to  this  tract.  Is  not  this  entirely  conclusive 
that  at  all  times  we  have  held  the  Missouri  Compromise  as  a  sacred 
thing,  even  when  against  ourselves  as  well  as  when  for  us? 

Senator  Douglas  sometimes  says  the  Missouri  line  itself  was  in 
principle  only  an  extension  of  the  line  of  the  ordinance  of  '87 — 
that  is  to  say,  an  extension  of  the  Ohio  River.  I  think  this  is  weak 
enough  on  its  face.  I  will  remark,  however,  that,  as  a  glance  at  the 
map  will  show,  the  Missouri  line  is  along  way  farther  south  than  the 
Ohio,  and  that  if  our  senator  in  proposing  his  extension  had  stuck 
to  the  principle  of  jogging  southward,  perhaps  it  might  not  have 
been  voted  down  so  readily. 

But  next  it  is  said  that  the  compromises  of  '50,  and  the  ratification 
of  them  by  both  political  parties  in  ?52,  established  a  new  principle 
which  required  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  This  again 
I  deny.  I  deny  it,  and  demand  the  proof.  I  have  already  stated 
fully  what  the  compromises  of  '50  are.  That  particular  part  of 
those  measures  from  which  the  virtual  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  is  sought  to  be  inferred  (for  it  is  admitted  they  contain 
nothing  about  it  in  express  terms)  is  the  provision  in  the  Utah  and 
New  Mexico  laws  which  permits  them  when  they  seek  admission 
into  the  Union  as  States  to  come  in  with  or  without  slavery,  as  they 
shall  then  see  fit.  Now  I  insist  this  provision  was  made  for  Utah 
and  New  Mexico,  and  for  no  other  place  whatever.  It  had  no  more 


190          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

direct  reference  to  Nebraska  than  it  had  to  the  territories  of  the 
moon.  But,  say  they,  it  had  reference  to  Nebraska  in  principle. 
Let  us  see.  The  North  consented  to  this  provision,  not  because  they 
considered  it  right  in  itself,  but  because  they  were  compensated  — 
paid  for  it. 

They  at  the  same  time  got  California  into  the  Union  as  a  free  State. 
This  was  far  the  best  part  of  all  they  had  struggled  for  by  the  Wil- 
mot  proviso.  They  also  got  the  area  of  slavery  somewhat  narrowed 
in  the  settlement  of  the  boundary  of  Texas.  Also  they  got  the  slave- 
trade  abolished  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 

For  all  these  desirable  objects  the  North  could  afford  to  yield 
something;  and  they  did  yield  to  the  South  the  Utah  and  New 
Mexico  provision.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  whole  North,  or  even  a 
majority,  yielded,  when  the  law  passed ;  but  enough  yielded,  when 
added  to  the  vote  of  the  South,  to  carry  the  measure.  Nor  can  it 
be  pretended  that  the  principle  of  this  arrangement  requires  us  to 
permit  the  same  provision  to  be  applied  to  Nebraska,  without  any 
equivalent  at  all.  Give  us  another  free  State ;  press  the  boundary  of 
Texas  still  further  back  ;  give  us  another  step  toward  the  destruction 
of  slavery  in  the  District,  and  you  present  us  a  similar  case.  Biit 
ask  us  not  to  repeat,  for  nothing,  what  you  paid  for  in  the  first  in 
stance.  If  you  wish  the  thing  again,  pay  again.  That  is  the  prin 
ciple  of  the  compromises  of  '50,  if,  indeed,  they  had  any  principles 
beyond  their  specific  terms  —  it  was  the  system  of  equivalents. 

Again,  if  Congress,  at  that  time,  intended  that  all  future  Territor 
ies  should,  when  admitted  as  States,  come  in  with  or  without  slavery, 
at  their  own  option,  why  did  it  not  say  so  ?  With  such  a  univer 
sal  provision,  all  know  the  bills  could  not  have  passed.  Did  they, 
then — could  they — establish  a  principle  contrary  to  their  own  inten 
tion  ?  Still  further,  if  they  intended  to  establish  the  principle  that, 
whenever  Congress  had  control,  it  should  be  left  to  the  people  to  do 
as  they  thought  fit  with  slavery,  why  did  they  not  authorize  the 
people  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  at  their  option,  to  abolish  slavery 
within  their  limits  ? 

1  personally  know  that  this  has  not  been  left  undone  because  it 
was  unthought  of.  It  was  frequently  spoken  of  by  members  of 
Congress,  and  by  citizens  of  Washington,  six  years  ago;  and  I  heard 
no  one  express  a  doubt  that  a  system  of  gradual  emancipation,  with 
compensation  to  owners,  would  meet  the  approbation  of  a  large  ma 
jority  of  the  white  people  of  the  District.  But  without  the  action  of 
Congress  they  could  say  nothing;  and  Congress  said  "No."  In  the 
measures  of  1850,  Congress  had  the  subject  of  slavery  in  the  District 
expressly  on  hand.  If  they  were  then  establishing  the  principle  of 
allowing  the  people  to  do  as  they  please  with  slavery,  why  did  they 
not  apply  the  principle  to  that  people  ? 

Again,  it  is  claimed  that  by  the  resolutions  of  the  Illinois  legis 
lature,  passed  in  1851,  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  was 
demanded.  This  I  deny  also.  Whatever  may  be  worked  out  by  a 
criticism  of  the  language  of  those  resolutions,  the  people  have  never 
understood  them  as  being  any  more  than  an  indorsement  of  the 
compromises  of  1850,  and  a  release  of  our  senators  from  voting  for 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          191 

the  Wilmot  proviso.  The  whole  people  are  living  witnesses  that 
this  only  was  their  view.  Finally,  it  is  asked,  "  If  we  did  not  mean 
to  apply  the  Utah  and  New  Mexico  provision  to  all  future  territories, 
what  did  we  mean  when  we,  in  1852,  indorsed  the  compromises  of 
1850?" 

For  myself  I  can  answer  this  question  most  easily.  I  meant  not 
to  ask  a  repeal  or  modification  of  the  fugitive-slave  law.  I  meant 
not  to  ask  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
I  meant  not  to  resist  the  admission  of  Utah  and  New  Mexico,  even 
should  they  ask  to  come  in  as  slave  States.  I  meant  nothing  about 
additional  "Territories,  because,  as  I  understood,  we  then  had  no  Ter 
ritory  whose  character  as  to  slavery  was  not  already  settled.  As  to 
Nebraska,  I  regarded  its  character  as  being  fixed  by  the  Missouri 
Compromise  for  thirty  years  —  as  unalterably  fixed  as  that  of  my 
own  home  in  Illinois.  As  to  new  acquisitions,  I  said,  "  Sufficient 
unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof."  When  we  make  new  acquisitions, 
we  will,  as  heretofore,  try  to  manage  them  somehow.  That  is  my 
answer ;  that  is  what  I  meant  and  said  j  and  I  appeal  to  the  people 
to  say  each  for  himself,  whether  that  is  not  also  the  universal  mean 
ing  of  the  free  States. 

And  now,  in  turn,  let  me  ask  a  few  questions.  If,  by  any  or  all 
these  matters,  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  com 
manded,  why  was  not  the  command  sooner  obeyed  ?  Why  was  the 
repeal  omitted  in  the  Nebraska  bill  of  1853  ?  Why  was  it  omitted 
in  the  original  bill  of  1854  ?  Why  in  the  accompanying  report  was 
such  a  repeal  characterized  as  a  departure  from  the  course  pursued 
in  1850  ?  and  its  continued  omission  recommended  ? 

I  am  aware  Judge  Douglas  now  argues  that  the  subsequent  ex 
press  repeal  is  no  substantial  alteration  of  the  bill.  This  argument 
seems  wonderful  to  me.  It  is  as  if  one  should  argue  that  white  and 
black  are  not  different.  He  admits,  however,  that  there  is  a  literal 
change  in  the  bill,  and  that  he  made  the  change  in  deference  to  other 
senators  who  would  not  support  the  bill  without.  This  proves  that 
those  other  senators  thought  the  change  a  substantial  one,  and  that 
the  judge  thought  their  opinions  worth  deferring  to.  His  own  opin 
ions,  therefore,  seem  not  to  rest  on  a  very  firm  basis,  even  in  his  own 
mind ;  and  I  suppose  the  world  believes,  and  will  continue  to  believe, 
that  precisely  on  the  substance  of  that  change  this  whole  agitation 
has  arisen. 

I  conclude,  then,  that  the  public  never  demanded  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise. 

I  now  come  to  consider  whether  the  appeal,  with  its  avowed  prin 
ciples,  is  intrinsically  right.  I  insist  that  it  is  not.  Take  the  par 
ticular  case.  A  controversy  had  arisen  between  the  advocates  and 
opponents  of  slavery,  in  relation  to  its  establishment  within  the 
country  we  had  purchased  of  France.  The  southern,  and  then  best, 
part  of  the  purchase  was  already  in  as  a  slave  State.  The  contro 
versy  was  settled  by  also  letting  Missouri  in  as  a  slave  State  ;  but 
with  the  agreement  that  within  all  the  remaining  part  of  the  pur 
chase,  north  of  a  certain  line,  there  should  never  be  slavery.  As  to 
what  was  to  be  done  with  the  remaining  part  south  of  the  line, 


192          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

nothing  was  said ;  but  perhaps  the  fair  implication  was,  it  should 
come  in  with  slavery  if  it  should  so  choose.  The  southern  part,  ex 
cept  a  portion  heretofore  mentioned,  afterward  did  come  in  with 
slavery,  as  the  State  of  Arkansas.  All  these  many  years,  since  1820, 
the  northern  part  had  remained  a  wilderness.  At  length  settle 
ments  began  in  it  also.  In  due  course  Iowa  came  in  as  a  free  State, 
and  Minnesota  was  given  a  territorial  government,  without  remov 
ing  the  slavery  restriction.  Finally,  the  sole  remaining  part  north 
of  the  line — Kansas  and  Nebraska — was  to  be  organized;  and  it  is 
proposed,  and  carried,  to  blot  out  the  old  dividing  line  of  thirty-four 
years'  standing,  and  to  open  the  whole  of  that  country  to  the  intro 
duction  of  slavery.  Now  this,  to  my  mind,  is  manifestly  unjust. 
After  an  angry  and  dangerous  controversy,  the  parties  made  friends 
by  dividing  the  bone  of  contention.  The  one  party  first  appropri 
ates  her  own  share,  beyond  all  power  to  be  disturbed  in  the  posses 
sion  of  it,  and  then  seizes  the  share  of  the  other  party.  It  is  as  if 
two  starving  men  had  divided  their  only  loaf ;  the  one  had  hastily 
swallowed  his  half,  and  then  grabbed  the  other's  half  just  as  he  was 
putting  it  to  his  mouth. 

Let  me  here  drop  the  main  argument,  to  notice  what  I  consider 
rather  an  inferior  matter.  It  is  argued  that  slavery  will  not  go  to 
Kansas  and  Nebraska,  in  any  event.  This  is  a  palliation,  a  lullaby. 
I  have  some  hope  that  it  will  not ;  but  let  us  not  be  too  confident. 
As  to  climate,  a  glance  at  the  map  shows  that  there  are  five  slave 
States — Delaware,  Mary  land,  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri,  and 
also  the  District  of  Columbia,  all  north  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
line.  The  census  returns  of  1850  show  that  within  these  there  are 
eight  hundred  and  sixty-seven  thousand  two  hundred  and  seventy- 
six  slaves,  being  more  than  one  fourth  of  all  the  slaves  in  the 
nation. 

It  is  not  climate  then,  that  will  keep  slavery  out  of  these  Terri 
tories.  Is  there  anything  in  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  country? 
Missouri  adjoins  these  Territories  by  her  entire  western  boundary, 
and  slavery  is  already  within  every  one  of  her  western  counties.  I 
have  even  heard  it  said  that  there  are  more  slaves  in  proportion  to 
whites  in  the  northwestern  county  of  Missouri,  than  within  any 
other  county  in  the  State.  Slavery  pressed  entirely  up  to  the  old 
western  boundary  of  the  State,  and  when  rather  recently  a  part  of 
that  boundary  at  the  northwest  was  moved  out  a  little  farther  west, 
slavery  followed  on  quite  up  to  the  new  line.  Now  when  the  re 
striction  is  removed,  what  is  to  prevent  it  from  going  still  farther  ? 
Climate  will  not,  no  peculiarity  of  the  country  will,  nothing  in  na 
ture  will.  Will  the  disposition  of  the  people  prevent  it?  Those 
nearest  the  scene  are  all  in  favor  of  the  extension.  The  Yankees 
who  are  opposed  to  it  may  be  most  numerous;  but,  in  military 
phrase,  the  battle-field  is  too  far  from  their  base  of  operations. 

But  it  is  said,  there  now  is  no  law  in  Nebraska  on  the  subject  of 
slavery,  and  that,  in  such  case,  taking  a  slave  there  operates  his 
freedom.  That  is  good  book-law,  but  is  not  the  rule  of  actual  prac 
tice.  Wherever  slavery  is  it  has  been  first  introduced  without  law. 
The  oldest  laws  we  find  concerning  it  are  not  laws  introducing  it,  but 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          193 

regulating  it  as  an  already  existing  thing.  A  white  man  takes  his 
slave  to  Nebraska  now.  Who  will  inform  the  negro  that  he  is  free  ? 
Who  will  take  him  before  court  to  test  the  question  of  his  freedom  ? 
In  ignorance  of  his  legal  emancipation  he  is  kept  chopping,  splitting, 
and  plowing.  Others  are  brought,  and  move  on  in  the  same  track. 
At  last,  if  ever  the  time  for  voting  comes  on  the  question  of  slavery, 
the  institution  already,  in  fact,  exists  in  the  country,  and  cannot 
well  be  removed.  The  fact  of  its  presence,  and  the  difficulty  of  its 
removal,  will  carry  the  vote  in  its  favor.  Keep  it  out  until  a  vote  is 
taken,  and  a  vote  in  favor  of  it  cannot  be  got  in  any  population 
of  forty  thousand  on  earth,  who  have  been  drawn  together  by  the 
ordinary  motives  of  emigration  and  settlement.  To  get  slaves  into 
the  Territory  simultaneously  with  the  whites  in  the  incipient  stages 
of  settlement  is  the  precise  stake  played  for  and  won  in  this  Ne 
braska  measure. 

The  question  is  asked  us :  "  If  slaves  will  go  in  notwithstanding 
the  general  principle  of  law  liberates  them,  why  would  they  not 
equally  go  in  against  positive  statute  law — go  in,  even  if  the  Mis 
souri  restriction  were  maintained ! w  I  answer,  because  it  takes  a 
much  bolder  man  to  venture  in  with  his  property  in  the  latter  case 
than  in  the  former  5  because  the  positive  congressional  enactment 
is  known  to  and  respected  by  all,  or  nearly  all,  whereas  the  negative 
principle  that  no  law  is  free  law  is  not  much  known  except  among 
lawyers.  We  have  some  experience  of  this  practical  diif erence.  In 
spite  of  the  ordinance  of  7S7,  a  few  negroes  were  brought  into  Illi 
nois,  and  held  in  a  state  of  quasi- slavery,  not  enough,  however,  to 
carry  a  vote  of  the  people  in  favor  of  the  institution  when  they  came 
to  form  a  constitution.  But  into  the  adjoining  Missouri  country, 
where  there  was  no  ordinance  of  '87 — was  no  restriction,  they 
were  carried  ten  times,  nay,  a  hundred  times,  as  fast,  and  actually 
made  a  slave  State.  This  is  fact — naked  fact. 

Another  lullaby  argument  is  that  taking  slaves  to  new  countries 
does  not  increase  their  number,  does  not  make  any  one  slave  who 
would  otherwise  be  free.  There  is  some  truth  in  this,  and  I  am  glad 
of  it ;  but  it  is  not  wholly  true.  The  African  slave-trade  is  not  yet 
effectually  suppressed ;  and  if  we  make  a  reasonable  deduction  for 
the  white  people  among  us  who  are  foreigners  and  the  descendants 
of  foreigners  arriving  here  since  1808,  we  shall  find  the  increase  of 
the  black  population  outrunning  that  of  the  wThite  to  an  extent  un 
accountable,  except  by  supposing  that  some  of  them,  too,  have  been 
coming  from  Africa.  If  this  be  so,  the  opening  of  new  countries  to 
the  institution  increases  the  demand  for  and  augments  the  price  of 
slaves,  and  so  does,  in  fact,  make  slaves  of  freemen,  by  causing  them 
to  be  brought  from  Africa  and  sold  into  bondage. 

But  however  this  may  be,  we  know  the  opening  of  new  countries 
to  slavery  tends  to  the  perpetuation  of  the  institution,  and  so  does 
keep  men  in  slavery  who  would  otherwise  be  free.  This  result  we 
do  not  feel  like  favoring,  and  we  are  under  no  legal  obligation  to 
suppress  our  feelings  in  this  respect. 

Equal  justice  to  the  South,  it  is  said,  requires  us  to  consent  to 
the  extension  of  slavery  to  new  countries.  That  is  to  say,  inasmuch 
VOL.  L— 13. 


194          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

as  you  do  not  object  to  my  taking  my  hog  to  Nebraska,  therefore  I 
must  not  object  to  you  taking  your  slave.  Now,  I  admit  that  this 
is  perfectly  logical,  if  there  is  no  difference  between  hogs  and 
negroes.  But  while  you  thus  require  me  to  deny  the  humanity  of 
the  negro,  I  wish  to  ask  whether  you  of  the  South,  yourselves,  have 
ever  been  willing  to  do  as  much  ?  It  is  kindly  provided  that  of  all 
those  who  come  into  the  world  only  a  small  percentage  are  natural 
tyrants.  That  percentage  is  no  larger  in  the  slave  States  than  in 
tide  free.  The  great  majority  South,  as  well  as  North,  have  human 
sympathies,  of  which  they  can  no  more  divest  themselves  than 
they  can  of  their  sensibility  to  physical  pain.  These  sympathies  in 
the  bosoms  of  the  Southern  people  manifest,  in  many  ways,  their 
sense  of  the  wrong  of  slavery,  and  their  consciousness  that,  after 
all,  there  is  humanity  in  the  negro.  If  they  deny  this,  let  me  address 
them  a  few  plain  questions.  In  1820  you  joined  the  North,  almost 
unanimously,  in  declaring  the  African  slave-trade  piracy,  and  in 
annexing  to  it  the  punishment  of  death.  Why  did  you  do  this  ?  If 
you  did  not  feel  that  it  was  wrong,  why  did  you  join  in  providing 
that  men  should  be  hung  for  it?  The  practice  was  no  more  than 
bringing  wild  negroes  from  Africa  to  such  as  would  buy  them. 
But  you  never  thought  of  hanging  men  for  catching  and  selling 
wild  horses,  wild  buffaloes,  or  wild  bears. 

Again,  you  have  among  you  a  sneaking  individual  of  the  class 
of  native  tyrants  known  as  the  "  Slave-Dealer."  He  watches  your 
necessities,  and  crawls  up  to  buy  your  slave,  at  a  speculating  price. 
If  you  cannot  help  it,  you  sell  to  him ;  but  if  you  can  help  it,  you 
drive  him  from  your  door.  You  despise  him  utterly.  You  do  not 
recognize  him  as  a  friend,  or  even  as  an  honest  man.  Your  children 
must  not  play  with  his;  they  may  rollick  freely  with  the  little  ne 
groes,  but  not  with  the  slave-dealer's  children.  If  you  are  obliged 
to  deal  with  him,  you  try  to  get  through  the  job  without  so  much 
as  touching  him.  It  is  common  with  you  to  join  hands  with  the 
men  you  meet,  but  with  the  slave-dealer  you  avoid  the  ceremony — 
instinctively  shrinking  from  the  snaky  contact.  If  he  grows  rich 
and  retires  from  business,  you  still  remember  him,  and  still  keep  up 
the  ban  of  non-intercourse  upon  him  and  his  family.  Now  why  is  this J? 
You  do  not  so  treat  the  man  who  deals  in  corn,  cotton,  or  tobacco. 

And  yet  again.  There  are  in  the  United  States  and  Territories,  in 
cluding  the  District  of  Columbia,  433,643  free  blacks.  At  five  hun 
dred  dollars  per  head  they  are  worth  over  two  hundred  millions  of 
dollars.  How  comes  this  vast  amount  of  property  to  be  running 
about  without  owners  ?  We  do  not  see  free  horses  or  free  cattle  run 
ning  at  large.  How  is  this?  All  these  free  blacks  are  the  descen 
dants  of  slaves,  or  have  been  slaves  themselves ;  and  they  would  be 
slaves  now  but  for  something  which  has  operated  on  their  white 
owners,  inducing  them  at  vast  pecuniary  sacrifice  to  liberate  them. 
What  is  that  something?  Is  there  any  mistaking  it?  In  all  these 
cases  it  is  your  sense  of  justice  and  human  sympathy  continually  tell 
ing  you  that  the  poor  negro  has  some  natural  right  to  himself — that 
those  who  deny  it  and  make  mere  merchandise  of  him  deserve  kick- 
ings,  contempt,  and  death. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          195 

And  now  why  will  you  ask  us  to  deny  the  humanity  of  the  slave, 
and  estimate  him  as  only  the  equal  of  the  hog  ?  Why  ask  us  to  do 
what  you  will  not  do  yourselves?  Why  ask  us  to  do  for  nothing 
what  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  could  not  induce  you  to  do  ? 

But  one  great  argument  in  support  of  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  is  still  to  come.  That  argument  is  "  the  sacred  right  of 
self-government.7'  It  seems  our  distinguished  senator  has  found 
great  difficulty  in  getting  his  antagonists,  even  in  the  Senate,  to  meet 
him  fairly  on  this  argument.  Some  poet  has  said: 

Fools  rush  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread. 

At  the  hazard  of  being  thought  one  of  the  fools  of  this  quotation, 
I  meet  that  argument — I  rush  in  —  I  take  that  bull  by  the  horns.  I 
trust  I  understand  and  truly  estimate  the  right  of  self-government. 
My  faith  in  the  proposition  that  each  man  should  do  precisely  as  he 
pleases  with  all  which  is  exclusively  his  own  lies  at  the  foundation 
of  the  sense  of  justice  there  is  in  me.  I  extend  the  principle  to  com 
munities  of  men  as  well  as  to  individuals.  I  so  extend  it  because  it 
is  politically  wise,  as  well  as  naturally  just:  politically  wise  in  saving 
us  from  broils  about  matters  which  do  not  concern  us.  Here,  or  at 
Washington,  I  would  not  trouble  myself  with  the  oyster  laws  of  Vir 
ginia,  or  the  cranberry  laws  of  Indiana.  The  doctrine  of  self-gov 
ernment  is  right, —  absolutely  and  eternally  right, —  but  it  has  no 
just  application  as  here  attempted.  Or  perhaps  I  should  rather  say 
that  whether  it  has  such  application  depends  upon  whether  a  negro 
is  not  or  is  a  man.  If  he  is  not  a  man,  in  that  case  he  who  is  a  man 
may  as  a  matter  of  self-government  do  just  what  he  pleases  with  him. 
But  if  the  negro  is  a  man,  is  it  not  to  that  extent  a  total  destruction 
of  self-government  to  say  that  he  too  shall  not  govern  himself? 
When  the  white  man  governs  himself,  that  is  self-government ;  but 
when  he  governs  himself  and  also  governs  another  man,  that  is  more 
than  self-government — that  is  despotism.  If  the  negro  is  a  man, 
why  then  my  ancient  faith  teaches  me  that  "  all  men  are  created 
equal,"  and  that  there  can  be  no  moral  right  in  connection  with 
one  man's  making  a  slave  of  another. 

Judge  Douglas  frequently,  with  bitter  irony  and  sarcasm,  para 
phrases  our  argument  by  saying :  "  The  white  people  of  Nebraska 
are  good  enough  to  govern  themselves,  but  they  are  not  good  enough 
to  govern  a  few  miserable  negroes ! " 

Well!  I  doubt  not  that  the  people  of  Nebraska  are  and  will  con 
tinue  to  be  as  good  as  the  average  of  people  elsewhere.  I  do  not  say 
the  contrary.  What  I  do  say  is  that  no  man  is  good  enough  to  govern 
another  man  without  that  other's  consent.  I  say  this  is  the  leading 
principle,  the  sheet-anchor  of  American  republicanism.  Our  Decla 
ration  of  Independence  says : 

We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident:  That  all  men  are  created  equal; 
that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights ;  that 
among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  That  to  secure 
these  rights,  governments  are  instituted  among  men,  DERIVING  THEIR  JUST 

POWERS  FROM  THE  CONSENT  OF  THE  GOVERNED. 


196          ADDRESSES  AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

I  have  quoted  so  much  at  this  time  merely  to  show  that,  accord 
ing  to  our  ancient  faith,  the  just  powers  of  governments  are  derived 
from  the  consent  of  the  governed.  Now  the  relation  of  master  and 
slave  is  pro  tanto  a  total  violation  of  this  principle.  The  master  not 
only  governs  the  slave  without  his  consent,  but  he  governs  him  by 
a  set  of  rules  altogether  different  from  those  which  he  prescribes 
for  himself.  Allow  all  the  governed  an  equal  voice  in  the  govern 
ment,  and  that,  and  that  only,  is  self-government. 

Let  it  not  be  said  I  am  contending  for  the  establishment  of  polit 
ical  and  social  equality  between  the  whites  and  blacks.  I  have 
already  said  the  contrary.  I  am  not  combating  the  argument  of 
necessity,  arising  from  the  fact  that  the  blacks  are  already  among 
us;  but  I  am  combating  what  is  set  up  as  moral  argument  for 
allowing  them  to  be  taken  where  they  have  never  yet  been — argu 
ing  against  the  extension  of  a  bad  thing,  which,  where  it  already 
exists,  we  must  of  necessity  manage  as  we  best  can. 

In  support  of  his  application  of  the  doctrine  of  self-government, 
Senator  Douglas  has  sought  to  bring  to  his  aid  the  opinions  and 
examples  of  our  Revolutionary  fathers.  I  am  glad  he  has  done  this. 
I  love  the  sentiments  of  those  old-time  men,  and  shall  be  most 
happy  to  abide  by  their  opinions.  He  shows  us  that  when  it  was  in 
contemplation  for  the  colonies  to  break  off  from  Great  Britain,  and 
set  up  a  new  government  for  themselves,  several  of  the  States  in 
structed  their  delegates  to  go  for  the  measure,  provided  each  State 
should  be  allowed  to  regulate  its  domestic  concerns  in  its  own  way. 
I  do  not  quote 5  but  this  in  substance.  This  was  right;  I  see  nothing 
objectionable  in  it.  I  also  think  it  probable  that  it  had  some 
reference  to  the  existence  of  slavery  among  them.  I  will  not  deny 
that  it  had.  But  had  it  any  reference  to  the  carrying  of  slavery 
into  new  countries  ?  That  is  the  question,  and  we  will  let  the 
fathers  themselves  answer  it. 

This  same  generation  of  men,  and  mostly  the  same  individuals  of 
the  generation  who  declared  this  principle,  who  declared  indepen 
dence,  who  fought  the  war  of  the  Revolution  through,  who  afterward 
made  the  Constitution  under  which  we  still  live — these  same  men 
passed  the  ordinance  of  ?87,  declaring  that  slavery  should  never  go 
to  the  Northwest  Territory.  I  have  no  doubt  Judge  Douglas  thinks 
they  were  very  inconsistent  in  this.  It  is  a  question  of  discrimina 
tion  between  them  and  him.  But  there  is  not  an  inch  of  ground 
left  for  his  claiming  that  their  opinions,  their  example,  their  author 
ity,  are  on  his  side  in  the  controversy. 

Again,  is  not  Nebraska,  while  a  Territory,  a  part  of  us  ?  Do  we 
not  own  the  country?  And  if  we  surrender  the  control  of  it,  do  we 
not  surrender  the  right  of  self-government  ?  It  is  part  of  our 
selves.  If  you  say  we  shall  not  control  it,  because  it  is  only  part, 
the  same  is  true  of  every  other  part ;  .'tnd  when  all  the  parts  are 
gone,  what  has  become  of  the  whole?  What  is  then  left  of  us? 
What  use  *for  the  General  Government,  when  there  is  nothing  left 
for  it  to  govern  ? 

But  you  say  this  question  should  be  left  to  the  people  of  Ne 
braska,  because  they  are  mpre  particularly  interested.  If  this  be 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABEAHAM  LINCOLN          197 

the  rule,  you  must  leave  it  to  each  individual  to  say  for  himself 
whether  he  will  have  slaves.  What  better  moral  right  have  thirty- 
one  citizens  of  Nebraska  to  say  that  the  thirty-second  shall  not  hold 
slaves  than  the  people  of  the  thirty-one  States  have  to  say  that 
slavery  shall  not  go  into  the  thirty-second  State  at  all? 

But  if  it  is  a  sacred  right  for  the  people  of  Nebraska  to  take  and 
hold  slaves  there,  it  is  equally  their  sacred  right  to  buy  them  where 
they  can  buy  them  cheapest ;  and  that,  undoubtedly,  will  be  on  the 
coast  of  Africa,  provided  you  will  consent  not  to  hang  them  for. 
going  there  to  buy  them.  You  must  remove  this  restriction,  too, 
from  the  sacred  right  of  self-government.  I  am  aware,  you  say, 
that  taking  slaves  from  the  States  to  Nebraska  does  not  make  slaves 
of  freemen  •  but  the  African  slave-trader  can  say  just  as  much.  He 
does  not  catch  free  negroes  and  bring  them  here.  He  finds  them 
already  slaves  in  the  hands  of  their  black  captors,  and  he  honestly 
buys  them  at  the  rate  of  a  red  cotton  handkerchief  a  head.  This  is 
very  cheap,  and  it  is  a  great  abridgment  of  the  sacred  right  of  self- 
government  to  hang  men  for  engaging  in  this  profitable  trade. 

Another  important  objection  to  this  application  of  the  right  of 
self-government  is  that  it  enables  the  first  few  to  deprive  the  suc 
ceeding  many  of  a  free  exercise  of  the  right  of  self-government. 
The  first  few  may  get  slavery  in,  and  the  subsequent  many  cannot 
easily  get  it  out.  How  common  is  the  remark  now  in  the  slave 
States,  "  If  we  were  only  clear  of  our  slaves,  how  much  better  it 
would  be  for  us."  They  are  actually  deprived  of  the  privilege  of 
governing  themselves  as  they  would,  by  the  action  of  a  very  few  in 
the  beginning.  The  same  thing  was  true  of  the  whole  nation  at 
the^time  our  Constitution  was  formed. 

/  Whether  slavery  shall  go  into  Nebraska,  or  other  new  Territories, 
is  not  a  matter  of  exclusive  concern  to  the  people  who  may  go  there. 
The  whole  nation  is  interested  that  the  best  use  shall  be  made  of 
these  Territories.  We  want  them  for  homes  of  free  white  people. 
This  they  cannot  be,  to  any  considerable  extent,  if  slavery  shall  be 
planted  within  them.  Slave  States  are  places  for  poor  white  people 
to  remove  from,  not  to  remove  to.  New  free  States  are  the  places 
for  poor  people  to  go  to,  and  better  their  condition.  For  this  use 
the  nation  needs  these  Territories]] 

Still  further :  there  are  constitutional  relations  between  the  slave 
and  free  States  which  are  degrading  to  the  latter.  We  are  under 
legal  obligations  to  catch  and  return  their  runaway  slaves  to  them : 
a  sort  of  dirty,  disagreeable  job,  which,  I  believe,  as  a  general  rule, 
the  slaveholders  will  not  perform  for  one  another.  Then  again,  in 
the  control  of  the  government — the  management  of  the  partnership 
affairs — they  have  greatly  the  advantage  of  us.  By  the  Constitu 
tion  each  State  has  two  senators,  each  has  a  number  of  representa 
tives  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  its  people,  and  each  has  a 
number  of  presidential  electors  equal  to  the  whole  number  of  its 
senators  and  representatives  together.  But  in  ascertaining  the  num 
ber  of  the  people  for  this  purpose,  five  slaves  are  counted  as  being 
equal  to  three  whites.  The  slaves  do  not  vote ;  they  are  only  counted 
and  so  used  as  to  swell  the  influence  of  the  white  people's  votes. 


198          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  practical  effect  of  this  is  more  aptly  shown  by  a  comparison  of 
the  States  of  South  Carolina  and  Maine.  South  Carolina  has  six 
representatives,  and  so  has  Maine  ;  South  Carolina  has  eight  presi 
dential  electors,  and  so  has  Maine.  This  is  precise  equality  so  far ; 
and  of  course  they  are  equal  in  senators,  each  having  two.  Thus  in 
the  control  of  the  government  the  two  States  are  equals  precisely. 
But  how  are  they  in  the  number  of  their  white  people  ?  Maine  has 
581,813,  while  South  Carolina  has  274,567;  Maine  has  twice  as  many 
as  South  Carolina,  and  32,679  over.  Thus,  each  white  man  in  South 
Carolina  is  more  than  the  double  of  any  man  in  Maine.  This  is  all 
because  South  Carolina,  besides  her  free  people,  has  384,984  slaves. 
The  South  Carolinian  has  precisely  the  same  advantage  over  the  white 
man  in  every  other  free  State  as  well  as  in  Maine.  He  is  more  than 
the  double  of  any  one  of  us  in  this  crowd.  The  same  advantage, 
but  not  to  the  same  extent,  is  held  by  all  the  citizens  of  the  slave 
States  over  those  of  the  free ;  and  it  is  an  absolute  truth,  without 
an  exception,  that  there  is  no  voter  in  any  slave  State,  but  who  has 
more  legal  power  in  the  government  than  any  voter  in  any  free 
State.  There  is  no  instance  of  exact  equality;  and  the  disadvantage 
is  against  us  the  whole  chapter  through.  This  principle,  in  the  ag 
gregate,  gives  the  slave  States  in  the  present  Congress  twenty  ad 
ditional  representatives,  being  seven  more  than  the  whole  majority 
by  which  they  passed  the  Nebraska  bill. 

Now  all  this  is  manifestly  unfair ;  yet  I  do  not  mention  it  to  com 
plain  of  it,  in  so  far  as  it  is  already  settled.  It  is  in  the  Constitu 
tion,  and  I  do  not  for  that  cause,  or  any  other  cause,  propose  to 
destroy,  or  alter,  or  disregard  the  Constitution.  I  stand  to  it,  fairly, 
fully,  and  firmly. 

But  when  I  am  told  I  must  leave  it  altogether  to  other  people  to 
say  whether  new  partners  are  to  be  bred  up  and  brought  into  the 
firm,  on  the  same  degrading  terms  against  me,  I  respectfully  demur. 
I  insist  that  whether  I  shall  be  a  whole  man,  or  only  the  half  of  one, 
in  comparison  with  others,  is  a  question  in  which  I  am  somewhat 
concerned,  and  one  which  no  other  man  can  have  a  sacred  right  of 
deciding  for  me.  If  I  am  wrong  in  this — if  it  really  be  a  sacred 
right  of  self-government  in  the  man  who  shall  go  to  Nebraska  to 
decide  whether  he  will  be  the  equal  of  me  or  the  double  of  me,  then, 
after  he  shall  have  exercised  that  right,  and  thereby  shall  have  re 
duced  me  to  a  still  smaller  fraction  of  a  man  than  I  already  am,  I 
should  like  for  some  gentleman,  deeply  skilled  in  the  mysteries  of 
sacred  rights,  to  provide  himself  with  a  microscope,  and  peep  about, 
and  find  out,  if  he  can,  what  has  become  of  my  sacred  rights.  They 
will  surely  be  too  small  for  detection  with  the  naked  eye. 

Finally,  I  insist  that  if  there  is  anything  which  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  whole  people  to  never  intrust  to  any  hands  but  their  own,  that 
thing  is  the  preservation  and  perpetuity  of  their  own  liberties  and 
institutions.  And  if  they  shall  think,  as  I  do,  that  the  extension  of 
slavery  endangers  them  'more  than  any  or  all  other  causes,  how  re 
creant  to  themselves  if  they  submit  the  question,  and  with  it  the  fate 
of  their  country,  to  a  mere  handful  of  men  bent  onlv  on  self-interest. 
If  this  question  of  slavery  extension  were  an  insignificant  one — one 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          199 

having  no  power  to  do  harm — it  might  be  shuffled  aside  in  this  way; 
and  being,  as  it  is,  the  great  Behemoth  of  danger,  shall  the  strong 
grip  of  the  nation  be  loosened  upon  him,  to  intrust  him  to  the  hands 
of  such  feeble  keepers  ? 

I  have  done  with  this  mighty  argument  of  self-government.  Go, 
sacred  thing  !  Go  in  peace. 

But  Nebraska  is  urged  as  a  great  Union-saving  measure.  Well, 
I  too  go  for  saving  the  Union.  Much  as  I  hate  slavery,  I  would 
consent  to  the  extension  of  it  rather  than  see  the  Union  dissolved, 
just  as  I  would  consent  to  any  great  evil  to  avoid  a  greater  one. 
But  when  I  go  to  Union-saving,  I  must  believe,  at  least,  that  the 
means  I  employ  have  some  adaptation  to  the  end.  I  To  my  mind, 
Nebraska  has  no  such  adaptation. 

It  hath  no  relish  of  salvation  in  it. 

It  is  an  aggravation,  rather,  of  the  only  one  thing  which  ever  en 
dangers  the  Union.  When  it  came  upon  us,  all  was  peace  and  quiet. 
The  nation  was  looking  to  the  forming  of  new  bonds  of  union,  and 
a  long  course  of  peace  and  prosperity  seemed  to  lie  before  us.  In 
the  whole  range  of  possibility,  there  scarcely  appears  to  me  to  have 
been  anything  out  of  which  the  slavery  agitation  could  have  been 
revived,  except  the  very  project  of  repealing  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise.  Every  inch  of  territory  we  owned  already  had  a  definite  set 
tlement  of  the  slavery  question,  by  which  all  parties  were  pledged 
to  abide.  Indeed,  there  was  no  uninhabited  country  on  the  conti 
nent  which  we  could  acquire,  if  we  except  some  extreme  northern 
regions  which  are  wholly  out  of  the  question. 

In  this  state  of  affairs  the  Genius  of  Discord  himself  could  scarcely 
have  invented  a  way  of  again  setting  us  by  the  ears  but  by  turning 
back  and  destroying  the  peace  measures  of  the  past.  The  counsels 
of  that  Genius  seem  to  have  prevailed.  The  Missouri  Compromise 
was  repealed ;  and  here  we  are  in  the  midst  of  a  new  slavery  agita 
tion,  such,  I  think,  as  we  have  never  seen  before.  Who  is  respon 
sible  for  this?  Is  it  those  who  resist  the  measure,  or  those  who 
causelessly  brought  it  forward  and  pressed  it  through,  having  rea 
son  to  know,  and  in  fact  knowing,  it  must  and  would  be  so  resisted  ? 
It  could  not  but  be  expected  by  its  author  that  it  would  be  looked 
upon  as  a  measure  for  the  extension  of  slavery,  aggravated  by  a 
gross  breach  of  faith. 

Argue  as  you  will  and  long  as* you  will,  this  is  the  naked  front 
and  aspect  of  the  measure.  And  in  this  aspect  it  could  not  but 
produce  agitation.  Slavery  is  founded  in  the  selfishness  of  man's 
nature — opposition  to  it  in  his  love  of  justice.  These  principles 
are  an  eternal  antagonism,  and  when  brought  into  collision  so 
fiercely  as  slavery  extension  brings  them,  shocks  and  throes  and 
convulsions  must  ceaselessly  follow.  Repeal  the  Missouri  Com 
promise,  repeal  all  compromises,  repeal  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  repeal  all  past  history,  you  still  cannot  repeal  human 
nature.  It  still  will  be  the  abundance  of  man's  heart  that  slavery 
extension  is  wrong,  and  out  of  the  abundance  of  his  heart  his  mouth 
will  continue  to  speak. 


200         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

The  structure,  too,  of  the  Nebraska  bill  is  very  peculiar.  The 
people  are  to  decide  the  question  of  slavery  for  themselves;  but 
when  they  are  to  decide,  or  how  they  are  to  decide,  or  whether, 
when  the  question  is  once  decided,  it  is  to  remain  so  or  is  to  be  sub 
ject  to  an  indefinite  succession  of  new  trials,  the  law  does  not  say. 
Is  it  to  be  decided  by  the  first  dozen  settlers  who  arrive  there,  or  is 
it  to  await  the  arrival  of  a  hundred  ?  Is  it  to  be  decided  by  a  vote 
of  the  people  or  a  vote  of  the  legislature,  or,  indeed,  by  a  vote  of 
any  sort  ?  To  these  questions  the  law  gives  no  answer.  There  is  a 
mystery  about  this ;  for  when  a  member  proposed  to  give  the  legis 
lature  express  authority  to  exclude  slavery,  it  was  hooted  down  by 
the  friends  of  the  bill.  This  fact  is  worth  remembering.  Some 
Yankees  in  the  East  are  sending  emigrants  to  Nebraska  to  exclude 
slavery  from  it ;  and,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  they  expect  the  question 
to  be  decided  by  voting  in  some  way  or  other.  But  the  Missourians 
are  awake,  too.  They  are  within  a  stone's-throw  of  the  contested 
ground.  They  hold  meetings  and  pass  resolutions,  in  which  not  the 
slightest  allusion  to  voting  is  made.  They  resolve  that  slavery 
already  exists  in  the  Territory;  that  more  shall  go  there ;  that  they, 
remaining  in  Missouri,  will  protect  it,  and  that  Abolitionists  shall 
be  hung  or  driven  away.  Through  all  this  bowie-knives  and  six- 
shooters  are  seen  plainly  enough,  but  never  a  glimpse  of  the  ballot- 
box. 

And,  really,  what  is  the  result  of  all  this?  Each  party  within 
having  numerous  and  determined  backers  without,  is  it  not  probable 
that  the  contest  will  come  to  blows  and  bloodshed  ?  Could  there  be 
a  more  apt  invention  to  bring  about  collision  and  violence  on  the 
slavery  question  than  this  Nebraska  project  is!  I  do  not  charge  or 
believe  that  such  was  intended  by  Congress ;  but  if  they  had  literally 
formed  a  ring  and  placed  champions  within  it  to  fight  out  the  con 
troversy,  the  fight  could  be  no  more  likely  to  come  off  than  it  is. 
And  if  this  fight  should  begin,  is  it  likely  to  take  a  very  peaceful, 
Union-saving  turn  ?  Will  not  the  first  drop  of  blood  so  shed  be  the 
real  knell  of  the  Union  ? 

The  Missouri  Compromise  ought  to  be  restored.  For  the  sake  of 
the  Union,  it  ought  to  be  restored.  We  ought  to  elect  a  House  of 
Representatives  which  will  vote  its  restoration.  If  by  any  means 
we  omit  to  do  this,  what  follows?  Slavery  may  or  may  not  be 
established  in  Nebraska.  But  whether  it  be  or  not,  we  shall  have  re 
pudiated — discarded  from  the  councils  of  the  nation — the  spirit  of 
compromise ;  for  who,  after  this,  will  ever  trust  in  a  national  com 
promise?  The  spirit  of  mutual  concession — that  spirit  which  first 
gave  us  the  Constitution,  and  which  has  thrice  saved  the  Union — we 
shall  have  strangled  and  cast  from  us  forever.  And  what  shall  we 
have  in  lieu  of  it  ?  The  South  flushed  with  triumph  and  tempted  to 
excess ;  the  North,  betrayed  as  they  believe,  brooding  on  wrong  and 
burning  for  revenge.  One  side  will  provoke,  the  other  resent.  The 
one  will  taunt,  the  other  defy ;  one  aggresses,  the  other  retaliates. 
Already  a  few  in  the  North  defy  all  constitutional  restraints,  re 
sist  the  execution  of  the  fugitive-slave  law,  and  even  menace  the 
institution  of  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists.  Already  a  few 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          201 

in  the  South  claim  the  constitutional  right  to  take  and  to  hold 
slaves  in  the  free  States — demand  the  revival  of  the  slave-trade — 
and  demand  a  treaty  with  Great  Britain  by  which  fugitive  slaves 
may  be  reclaimed  from  Canada.  As  yet  they  are  but  few  on  either 
side.  It  is  a  grave  question  for  lovers  of  the  Union,  whether  the 
final  destruction  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  with  it  the  spirit 
of  all  compromise,  will  or  will  not  embolden  and  embitter  each  of 
these,  and  fatally  increase  the  number  of  both. 

But  restore  the  compromise,  and  what  then  ?  We  thereby  restore 
the  national  faith,  the  national  confidence,  the  national  feeling  of 
brotherhood.  We  thereby  reinstate  the  spirit  of  concession  and 
compromise,  that  spirit  which  has  never  failed  us  in  past  perils,  and 
which  may  be  safely  trusted  for  all  the  future.  The  South  ought 
to  join  in  doing  this.  The  peace  of  the  nation  is  as  dear  to  them 
as  to  us.  In  memories  of  the  past  and  hopes  of  the  future,  they 
share  as  largely  as  we.  It  would  be  on  their  part  a  great  act — great 
in  its  spirit,  and  great  in  its  effect.  It  would  be  worth  to  the  nation 
a  hundred  years'  purchase  of  peace  and  prosperity.  And  what  of 
sacrifice  would  they  make  ?  They  only  surrender  to  us  what  they 
gave  us  for  a  consideration  long,  long  ago;  what  they  have  not 
now  asked  for,  struggled  or  cared  for ;  what  has  been  thrust  upon 
them,  not  less  to  their  astonishment  than  to  ours. 

But  it  is  said  we  cannot  restore  it;  that  though  we  elect  every 
member  of  the  lower  House,  the  Senate  is  still  against  us.  It  is 
quite  true  that  of  the  senators  who  passed  the  Nebraska  bill,  a 
majority  of  the  whole  Senate  will  retain  their  seats  in  spite  of  the 
elections  of  this  and  the  next  year.  But  if  at  these  elections  their 
several  constituencies  shall  clearly  express  their  will  against  Ne 
braska,  will  these  senators  disregard  their  will  ?  Will  they  neither 
obey  nor  make  room  for  those  who  will? 

But  even  if  we  fail  to  technically  restore  the  compromise,  it  is 
still  a  great  point  to  carry  a  popular  vote  in  favor  of  the  restora 
tion.  The  moral  weight  of  such  a  vote  cannot  be  estimated  too 
highly.  The  authors  of  Nebraska  are  not  at  all  satisfied  with  the 
destruction  of  the  compromise  —  an  indorsement  of  this  principle 
they  proclaim  to  be  the  great  object.  With  them,  Nebraska  alone 
is  a  small  matter — to  establish  a  principle  for  future  use  is  what 
they  particularly  desire. 

The  future  use  is  to  be  the  planting  of  slavery  wherever  in  the 
wide  world  local  and  unorganized  opposition  cannot  prevent  it. 
Now,  if  you  wish  to  give  them  this  indorsement,  if  you  wish  to  es 
tablish  this  principle,  do  so.  I  shall  regret  it,  but  it  is  your  right. 
On  the  contrary,  if  you  are  opposed  to  the  principle, — in  tend  to  give 
it  no  such  indorsement, — let  no  wheedling,  no  sophistry,  divert  you 
from  throwing  a  direct  vote  against  it. 

Some  men,  mostly  Whigs,  who  condemn  the  repeal  of  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise,  nevertheless  hesitate  to  go  for  its  restoration, 
lest  they  be  thrown  in  company  with  the  Abolitionists.  Will  they 
allow  me,  as  an  old  Whig,  to  tell  them,  good-hum  or  edly,  that  I  think 
this  is  very  silly?  Stand  with  anybody  that  stands  right.  Stand 
with  him  while  he  is  right,  and  part  with  him  when  he  goes  wrong. 


202          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Stand  with  the  Abolitionist  in  restoring  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
and  stand  against  him  when  he  attempts  to  repeal  the  fugitive-slave 
law.  In  the  latter  case  you  stand  with  the  Southern  disunionist. 
What  of  that  ?  you  are  still  right.  In  both  cases  you  are  right.  In 
both  cases  you  expose  the  dangerous  extremes.  In  both  you  stand 
on  middle  ground,  and  hold  the  ship  level  and  steady.)  In  both  you 
are  national,  and  nothing  less  than  national.  This  is  the  good  old 
Whig  ground.  To  desert  such  ground  because  of  any  company,  is 
to  be  less  than  a  Whig — less  than  a  man — less  than  an  American. 

I  particularly  object  to  the  new  position  which  the  avowed  prin 
ciple  of  this  Nebraska  law  gives  to  slavery  in  the  body  politic.  I 
object  to  it  because  it  assumes  that  there  can  be  moral  right  in  the 
enslaving  of  one  man  by  another.  I  object  to  it  as  a  dangerous 
dalliance  for  a  free  people — a  sad  evidence  that,  feeling  prosperity, 
we  forget  right;  that  liberty,  as  a  principle,  we  have  ceased  to  re 
vere.  OI  object  to\it)because  the  fathers  of  the  republic  eschewed 
and  rejected  it. 7  The  argument  of  "necessity"  was  the  only  argu 
ment  they  ever  admitted  in  favor  of  slavery  ;  and  so  far,  and  so  far 
only,  as  it  carried  them  did  they  ever  go.  They  found  the  institu 
tion  existing  among  us,  which  they  could  not  help  and  they  cast 
blame  upon  the  British  king  for  having  permitted  its  introduction. 
Before  the  Constitution  they  prohibited  its  introduction  into  the 
Northwestern  Territory,  the  only  country  we  owned  then  free  from 
it.  Ej  the  framing  and  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  they  forbore 
to  so  much  as  mention  the  word  "  slave  "  or  "  slavery  "  in  the  whole 
instrument^  Qh  the  provision  for  the  recovery  of  fugitives,  the 
slave  is  spoken  of  as  a  "  person  held  to  service  or  laborp  In  that 
prohibiting  the  abolition  of  the  African  slave-trade  "for  twenty 
years,  that  trade  is  spoken  of  as  "  the  migration  or  importation  of 
such  persons  as  any  of  the  States  now  existing  shall  think  proper  to 
admit,"  etc.  These  are  the  only  provisions  alluding  to  slavery. 
Thus  the  thing  is  hid  away  in  the  Constitution,  just  as  an  afflicted 
man  hides  away  a  wen  or  cancer  which  he  dares  not  cut  out  at 
once,  lest  he  bleed  to  death, — with  the  promise,  nevertheless,  that 
the  cutting  may  begin  at  a  certain  time.  O^ess  than 'this) our  fathers 
could  not  do,  and  more  they  would  not  do.  Necessity  drove  them 
so  far,  and  further  they  would  not  go.  But  this  is  not  all.  The 
earliest  Congress  under  the  Constitution  took  the  same  view  of 
slavery.  They  hedged  and  hemmed  it  in  to  the  narrowest  limits  of 
necessity^ 

In  lr/94  they  prohibited  an  outgoing  slave-trade — that  is,  the 
taking  of  slaves  from  the  United  States  to  sell.  In  1798  they  prohibi 
ted  the  bringing  of  slaves  from  Africa  into  the  Mississippi  Territory, 
this  Territory  then  comprising  what  are  now  the  States  of  Mississippi 
and  Alabama.  This  was  ten  years  before  they  had  the  authority  to 
do  the  same  thing  as  to  the  States  existing  at  the  adoption  of  the  Con 
stitution.  In  1800  they  prohibited  American  citizens  from  trading 
in  slaves  between  foreign  countries,  as,  for  instance,  from  Africa  to 
Brazil.  In  1803  they  passed  a  law  in  aid  of  one  or  two  slave-State 
laws,  in  restraint  of  the  internal  slave-trade.  In  1807,  in  apparent 
hot  haste,  they  passed  the  law,  nearly  a  year  in  advance, — to  take 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          203 

effect  the  first  day  of  1808,  the  very  first  day  the  Constitution  would 
permit, — prohibiting  the  African  slave-trade  by  heavy  pecuniary 
and  corporal  penalties.  In  1820,  finding  these  provisions  ineffectual, 
they  declared  the  slave-trade  piracy,  and  annexed  to  it  the  extreme 
penalty  of  death.  While  all  this  was  passing  in  the  General  Govern 
ment,  five  or  six  of  the  original  slave  States  had  adopted  systems 
of  gradual  emancipation,  by  which  the  institution  was  rapidly  becom 
ing  extinct  within  their  limits.  Thus  we  see  that  the  plain,  unmis 
takable  spirit  of  that  age  toward  slavery  was  hostility  to  the  prin 
ciple  and  toleration  only  by  necessity. 

But  now  it  is  to  be  transformed  into  a  "  sacred  right."  Nebraska 
brings  it  forth,  places  it  on  the  highroad  to  extension  and  perpe 
tuity,  and  with  a  pat  on  its  back  says  to  it,  "  Go,  and  God  speed  you." 
Henceforth  it  is  to  be  the  chief  jewel  of  the  nation — the  very  figure 
head  of  the  ship  of  state.  Little  by  little,  but  steadily  as  man's 
march  to  the  grave,  we  have  been  giving  up  the  old  for  the  new  faith. 
Near  eighty  years  ago  we  began  by  declaring  that  all  men  are  cre 
ated  equal;  but  now  from  that  beginning  we  have  run  down  to  the 
other  declaration,  that  for  some  men  to  enslave  others  is  a  u  sacred 
right  of  self-government."  These  principles  cannot  stand  together. 
They  are  as  opposite  as  God  and  Mammon ;  and  who  ever  holds  to  the 
one  must  despise  the  other.  When  Pettit,  in  connection  with  his 
support  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  called  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
"  a  self-evident  lie,"  he  only  did  what  consistency  and  candor  require 
all  other  Nebraska  men  to  do.  Of  the  forty-odd  Nebraska  senators 
who  sat  present  and  heard  him,  no  one  rebuked  him.  Nor  am  I 
apprised  that  any  Nebraska  newspaper,  or  any  Nebraska  orator,  in  the 
whole  nation  has  ever  yet  rebuked  him.  If  this  had  been  said  among 
Marion's  men,  Southerners  though  they  were,  what  would  have  be 
come  of  the  man  who  said  it?  If  this  had  been  said  to  the  men  who 
captured  Andre,  the  man  who  said  it  would  probably  have  been  hung 
sooner  than  Andre  was.  If  it  had  been  said  in  old  Independence  Hall 
seventy-eight  years  ago,  the  very  doorkeeper  would  have  throttled 
the  man  and  thrust  him  into  the  street.  Let  no  one  be  deceived. 
The  spirit  of  seventy-six  and  the  spirit  of  Nebraska  are  utter  antag 
onisms;  and  the  former  is  being  rapidly  displaced  by  the  latter. 

Fellow-countrymen,  Americans,  South  as  well  as  North,  shall  we 
make  no  effort  to  arrest  this?  Already  the  liberal  party  throughout 
the  world  express  the  apprehension  "  that  the  one  retrograde  insti 
tution  in  America  is  undermining  the  principles  of  progress,  and 
fatally  violating  the  noblest  political  system  the  world  ever  saw." 
This  is  not  the  taunt  of  enemies,  but  the  warning  of  friends.  Is  it 
quite  safe  to  disregard  it — to  despise  it?  Is  there  no  danger  to  lib 
erty  itself  in  discarding  the  earliest  practice  and  first  precept  of  our 
ancient  faith  ?  In  our  greedy  chase  to  make  profit  of  the  negro,  let 
us  beware  lest  we  " cancel  and  tear  in  pieces"  even  the  white  man's 
charter  of  freedom. 

Our  republican  robe  is  soiled  and  trailed  in  the  dust.  Let  us  re- 
purify  it.  Let  us  turn  and  wash  it  white  in  the  spirit,  if  not  the  blood, 
of  the  Revolution.  Let  us  turn  slavery  from  its  claims  of  "moral 
right"  back  upon  its  existing  legal  rights  and  its  arguments  of  "  ne- 


204         ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

cessity."  Let  us  return  it  to  the  position  our  fathers  gave  it,  and 
there  let  it  rest  in  peace.  Let  us  readopt  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  and  with  it  the  practices  and  policy  which  harmonize  with  it. 
Let  North  and  South — let  all  Americans — let  all  lovers  of  liberty 
everywhere  join  in  the  great  and  good  work.  If  we  do  this,  we 
shall  not  only  have  saved  the  Union,  but  we  shall  have  so  saved  it  as 
to  make  and  to  keep  it  forever  worthy  of  the  saving.  We  shall  have 
so  saved  it  that  the  succeeding  millions  of  free  happy  people,  the 
world  over,  shall  rise  up  and  call  us  blessed  to  the  latest  generations. 

At  Springfield,  twelve  days  ago,  where  I  had  spoken  substantially 
as  I  have  here,  Judge  Douglas  replied  to  me;  and  as  he  is  to  reply  to 
me  here,  I  shall  attempt  to  anticipate  him  by  noticing  some  of  the 
points  he  made  there.  He  commenced  by  stating  I  had  assumed  all 
the  way  through  that  the  principle  of  the  Nebraska  bill  would  have 
the  effect  of  extending  slavery.  He  denied  that  this  was  intended,  or 
that  this  effect  would  follow. 

I  will  not  reopen  the  argument  upon  this  point.  That  such  was 
the  intention  the  wrorld  believed  at  the  start,  and  will  continue  to 
believe.  This  was  the  countenance  of  the  thing,  and  both  friends  and 
enemies  instantly  recognized  it  as  such.  That  countenance  cannot 
now  be  changed  by  argument.  You  can  as  easily  argue  the  color 
out  of  the  negro's  skin.  Like  the  "bloody  hand/7  you  may  wash  it 
and  wash  it,  the  red  witness  of  guilt  still  sticks  and  stares  horribly 
at  you. 

Next  he  says  that  congressional  intervention  never  prevented 
slavery  anywhere ;  that  it  did  not  prevent  it  in  the  Northwestern 
Territory,  nor  in  Illinois ;  that,  in  fact,  Illinois  came  into  the  Union 
as  a  slave  State $  that  the  principle  of  the  Nebraska  bill  expelled  it 
from  Illinois,  from  several  old  States,  from  everywhere. 

Now  this  is  mere  quibbling  all  the  way  through.  If  the  ordinance 
of  JS7  did  not  keep  slavery  out  of  the  Northwest  Territory,  how 
happens  it  that  the  northwest  shore  of  the  Ohio  River  is  entirely 
free  from  it,  while  the  southeast  shore,  less  than  a  mile  distant, 
along  nearly  the  whole  length  of  the  river,  is  entirely  covered  with  it  ? 

If  that  ordinance  did  not  keep  it  out  of  Illinois,  what  was  it  that 
made  the  difference  between  Illinois  and  Missouri  ?  They  lie  side 
by  side,  the  Mississippi  River  only  dividing  them  while  their  early 
settlements  were  within  the  same  latitude.  Between  1810  and  1820, 
the  number  of  slaves  in  Missouri  increased  7211,  while  in  Illinois 
in  the  same  ten  years  they  decreased  51.  This  appears  by  the  census 
returns.  During  nearly  all  of  that  ten  years  both  were  Territories, 
not  States.  During  this  time  the  ordinance  forbade  slavery  to  go 
into  Illinois,  and  nothing  forbade  it  to  go  into  Missouri.  It  did  go 
into  Missouri,  and  did  not  go  into  Illinois.  That  is  the  fact.  Can 
any  one  doubt  as  to  the  reason  of  it  ?  But  he  says  Illinois  came 
into  the  Union  as  a  slave  State.  Silence,  perhaps,  would  be  the  best 
answer  to  this  flat  contradiction  of  the  known  history  of  the  country. 
What  are  the  facts  upon  which  this  bold  assertion  is  based  ?  When  we 
first  acquired  the  country,  as  far  back  as  1787,  there  were  some  slaves 
within  it  held  by  the  French  inhabitants  of  Kaskaskia.  The  terri 
torial  legislation  admitted  a  few  negroes  from  the  slave  States  as 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          205 

indentured  servants.  One  year  after  the  adoption  of  the  first  State 
constitution,  the  whole  number  of  them  was — what  do  you  think? 
Just  one  hundred  and  seventeen,  while  the  aggregate  free  popula 
tion  was  55,094, — about  four  hundred  and  seventy  to  one.  Upon 
this  state  of  facts  the  people  framed  their  constitution  prohibiting 
the  further  introduction  of  slavery,  with  a  sort  of  guarantee  to  the 
owners  of  the  few  indentured  servants,  giving  freedom  to  their  chil 
dren  to  be  born  thereafter,  and  making  no  mention  whatever  of  any 
supposed  slave  for  life.  Out  of  this  small  matter  the  judge  manu 
factures  his  argument  that  Illinois  came  into  the  Union  as  a  slave 
State.  Let  the  facts  be  the  answer  to  the  argument. 

The  principles  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  he  says,  expelled  slavery  from 
Illinois.  The  principle  of  that  bill  first  planted  it  here — that  is,  it 
first  came  because  there  was  no  law  to  prevent  it,  first  came  before 
we  owned  the  country ;  and  finding  it  here,  and  having  the  ordinance 
of  '87  to  prevent  its  increasing,  our  people  struggled  along,  and 
finally  got  rid  of  it  as  best  they  could. 

But  the  principle  of  the  Nebraska  bill  abolished  slavery  in  several 
of  the  old  States.  Well,  it  is  true  that  several  of  the  old  States,  in 
the  last  qimrter  of  the  last  century,  did  adopt  systems  of  gradual 
emancipation  by  which  the  institution  has  finally  become  extinct 
within  their  limits ;  but  it  may  or  may  not  be  true  that  the  principle 
of  the  Nebraska  bill  was  the  cause  that  led  to  the  adoption  of  these 
measures.  It  is  now  more  than  fifty  years  since  the  last  of  these 
States  adopted  its  system  of  emancipation. 

If  the  Nebraska  bill  is  the  real  author  of  the  benevolent  works,  it 
is  rather  deplorable  that  it  has  for  so  long  a  time  ceased  working  al 
together.  Is  there  not  some  reason  to  suspect  that  it  was  the  prin 
ciple  of  the  Revolution,  and  not  the  principle  of  the  Nebraska  bill, 
that  led  to  emancipation  in  these  old  States  ?  Leave  it  to  the  people 
of  these  old  emancipating  States,  and  I  am  quite  certain  they  will 
decide  that  neither  that  nor  any  other  good  thing  ever  did  or  ever 
will  come  of  the  Nebraska  bill. 

In  the  course  of  my  main  argument,  Judge  Douglas  interrupted 
me  to  say  that  the  principle  of  the  Nebraska  bill  was  very  old ;  that 
it  originated  when  God  made  man,  and  placed  good  and  evil  before 
him,  allowing  him  to  choose  for  himself,  being  responsible  for  the 
choice  he  should  make.  At  the  time  I  thought  this  was  merely  play 
ful,  and  I  answered  it  accordingly.  But  in  his  reply  to  me  he  renewed 
it  as  a  serious  argument.  In  seriousness,  then,  the  facts  of  this  prop 
osition  are  not  true  as  stated.  God  did  not  place  good  and  evil 
before  man,  telling  him  to  make  his  choice.  On  the  contrary,  he  did 
tell  him  there  was  one  tree  of  the  fruit  of  which  he  should  not  eat, 
upon  pain  of  certain  death.  I  should  scarcely  wish  so  strong  a  pro 
hibition  against  slavery  in  Nebraska. 

But  this  argument  strikes  me  as  not  a  little  remarkable  in  another 
particular — in  its  strong  resemblance  to  the  old  argument  for  the 
"  divine  right  of  kings."  By  the  latter,  the  king  is  to  do  just  as  he 
pleases  with  his  white  subjects,  being  responsible  to  God  alone.  By 
the  former,  the  white  man  is  to  do  just  as  he  pleases  with  his  black 
slaves,  being  responsible  to  God  alone.  The  two  things  are  pre- 


206          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

eisely  alike,  and  it  is  but  natural  that  they  should  find  similar  argu 
ments  to  sustain  them. 

I  had  argued  that  the  application  of  the  principle  of  self-govern 
ment,  as  contended  for,  would  require  the  revival  of  the  African 
slave-trade ;  that  no  argument  could  be  made  in  favor  of  a  man's 
right  to  take  slaves  to  Nebraska,  which  could  not  be  equally  well 
made  in  favor  of  his  right  to  bring  them  from  the  coast  of  Africa. 
The  judge  replied  that  the  Constitution  requires  the  suppression 
of  the  foreign  slave-trade,  but  does  not  require  the  prohibition  of 
slavery  in  the  Territories.  That  is  a  mistake  in  point  of  fact.  The 
Constitution  does  not  require  the  action  of  Congress  in  either  case, 
and  it  does  authorize  it  in  both.  And  so  there  is  still  no  difference 
between  the  cases. 

In  regard  to  what  I  have  said  of  the  advantage  the  slave  States 
have  over  the  free  in  the  matter  of  representation,  the  judge  re 
plied  that  we  in  the  free  States  count  five  free  negroes  as  five  white 
people,  while  in  the  slave  States  they  count  five  slaves  as  three 
whites  only  ;  and  that  the  advantage,  at  last,  was  on  the  side  of 
the  free  States. 

Now,  in  the  slave  States  they  count  free  negroes  just  as  we  do ; 
and  it  so  happens  that,  besides  their  slaves,  they  have  as  many  free 
negroes  as  we  have,  and  thirty  thousand  over.  Thus,  their  free  ne 
groes  more  than  balance  ours ;  and  their  advantage  over  us,  in  con 
sequence  of  their  slaves,  still  remains  as  I  stated  it. 

In  reply  to  my  argument  that  the  compromise  measures  of  1850 
were  a  system  of  equivalents,  and  that  the  provisions  of  no  one  of 
them  could  fairly  be  carried  to  other  subjects  without  its  corre 
sponding  equivalent  being  carried  with  it,  the  judge  denied  outright 
that  these  measures  had  any  connection  with  or  dependence  upon 
each  other.  This  is  mere  desperation.  If  they  had  no  connection, 
why  are  they  always  spoken  of  in  connection?  Why  has  he  so 
spoken  of  them  a  thousand  times?  Why  has  he  constantly  called 
them  a  series  of  measures  ?  Why  does  everybody  call  them  a  com 
promise  ?  Why  was  California  kept  out  of  the  Union  six  or  seven 
months,  if  it  was  not  because  of  its  connection  with  the  other 
measures?  Webster's  leading  definition  of  the  verb  "to  compro 
mise"  is  "to  adjust  and  settle  a  difference,  by  mutual  agreement, 
with  concessions  of  claims  by  the  parties.'7  This  conveys  precisely 
the  popular  understanding  of  the  word  "  compromise." 

We  knew,  before  the  judge  told  us,  that  these  measures  passed 
separately,  and  in  distinct  bills,  and  that  no  two  of  them  were 
passed  by  the  votes  of  precisely  the  same  members.  But  we  also 
know,  and  so  does  he  know,  that  no  one  of  them  could  have  passed 
both  branches  of  Congress  but  for  the  understanding  that  the  others 
were  to  pass  also.  Upon  this  understanding,  each  got  votes  which 
it  could  have  got  in  no  other  way.  It  is  this  fact  which  gives  to  the 
measures  their  true  character ;  and  it  is  the  universal  knowledge  of 
this  fact  that  has  given  them  the  name  of  "  compromises/'  so  expres 
sive  of  that  true  character. 

I  had  asked  "  if,  in  carrying  the  Utah  and  New  Mexico  laws  to 
Nebraska,  you  could  clear  away  other  objection,  how  could  you  leave 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN          207 

Nebraska  '  perfectly  free '  to  introduce  slavery  before  she  forms  a 
constitution  during  her  territorial  government,  while  the  Utah  and 
New  Mexico  laws  only  authorize  it  when  they  form  constitutions 
and  are  admitted  into  the  Union?"  To  this  Judge  Douglas  an 
swered  that  the  Utah  and  New  Mexico  laws  also  authorized  it  be 
fore  ;  and  to  prove  this  he  read  from  one  of  their  laws,  as  follows  : 
"  That  the  legislative  power  of  said  territory  shall  extend  to  all 
rightful  subjects  of  legislation,  consistent  with  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  and  the  provisions  of  this  act." 

Now  it  is  perceived  from  the  reading  of  this  that  there  is  nothing 
express  upon  the  subject,  but  that  the  authority  is  sought  to  be 
implied  merely  for  the  general  provision  of  "all  rightful  subjects 
of  legislation."  In  reply  to  this  I  insist,  as  a  legal  rule  of  construc 
tion,  as  well  as  the  plain,  popular  view  of  the  matter,  that  the  ex 
press  provision  for  Utah  and  New  Mexico  coming  in  with  slavery, 
if  they  choose,  when  they  shall  form  constitutions,  is  an  exclusion 
of  all  implied  authority  on  the  same  subject;  that  Congress,  having 
the  subject  distinctly  in  their  minds  when  they  made  the  express  pro 
vision,  they  therein  expressed  their  whole  meaning  on  that  subject. 

The  judge  rather  insinuated  that  I  had  found  it  convenient  to 
forget  the  Washington  territorial  law  passed  in  1853.  This  was  a 
division  of  Oregon  organizing  the  northern  part  as  the  Territory 
of  Washington.  He  asserted  that  by  this  act  the  ordinance  of  '87, 
theretofore  existing  in  Oregon,  was  repealed ;  that  nearly  all  the 
members  of  Congress  voted  for  it,  beginning  in  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives  with  Charles  Allen  of  Massachusetts,  and  ending  with 
Eichard  Yates  of  Illinois;  and  that  he  could  not  understand  how  those 
who  now  oppose  the  Nebraska  bill  so  voted  there,  unless  it  was  be 
cause  it  was  then  too  soon  after  both  the  great  political  parties  had 
ratified  the  compromises  of  1850,  and  the  ratification  therefore  was 
too  fresh  to  be  then  repudiated. 

Now  I  had  seen  the  Washington  act  before,  and  I  have  carefully 
examined  it  since;  and  I  aver  that  there  is  no  repeal  of  the  ordi 
nance  of  ?87,  or  of  any  prohibition  of  slavery,  in  it.  In  express 
terms,  there  is  absolutely  nothing  in  the  whole  law  upon  the  sub 
ject — in  fact,  nothing  to  lead  a  reader  to  think  of  the  subject.  To 
my  judgment  it  is  equally  free  from  everything  from  which  repeal 
can  be  legally  implied ;  but  however  this  may  be,  are  men  now  to 
be  entrapped  by  a  legal  implication,  extracted  from  covert  language, 
introduced  perhaps  for  the  very  purpose  of  entrapping  them?  I 
sincerely  wish  every  man  could  read  this  law  quite  through,  care 
fully  watching  every  sentence  and  every  line  for  a  repeal  of  the 
ordinance  of  '87,  or  anything  equivalent  to  it. 

Another  point  on  the  Washington  act.  If  it  was  intended  to  be 
modeled  after  the  Utah  and  New  Mexico  acts,  as  Judge  Douglas  in 
sists,  why  was  it  not  inserted  in  it,  as  in  them,  that  Washington  was 
to  come  in  with  or  without  slavery  as  she  may  choose  at  the  adop 
tion  of  her  constitution  ?  It  has  no  such  provision  in  it ;  and  I 
defy  the  ingenuity  of  man  to  give  a  reason  for  the  omission,  other 
than  that  it  was  not  intended  to  follow  the  Utah  and  New  Mexico 
laws  in  regard  to  the  question  of  slavery. 


208         ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

The  Washington  act  not  only  differs  vitally  from  the  Utah  and 
New  Mexico  acts,  but  the  Nebraska  act  differs  vitally  from  both. 
By  the  latter  act  the  people  are  left  " perfectly  free"  to  regulate 
their  own  domestic  concerns,  etc. ;  but  in  all  the  former,  all  their 
laws  are  to  be  submitted  to  Congress,  and  if  disapproved  are  to  be 
null.  The  Washington  act  goes  even  further  j  it  absolutely  pro 
hibits  the  territorial  legislature,  by  very  strong  and  guarded  lan 
guage,  from  establishing  banks  or  borrowing  money  on  the  faith  of 
the  Territory.  Is  this  the  sacred  right  of  self-government  we  hear 
vaunted  so  much  ?  No,  sir  ;  the  Nebraska  bill  finds  no  model  in  the 
acts  of  '50  or  the  Washington  act.  It  finds  no  model  in  any  law 
from  Adam  till  to-day.  As  Phillips  says  of  Napoleon,  the  Nebraska 
act  is  grand,  gloomy  and  peculiar,  wrapped  in  the  solitude  of  its  own 
originality,  without  a  model  and  without  a  shadow  upon  the  earth. 

In  the  course  of  his  reply  Senator  Douglas  remarked  in  substance 
that  he  had  always  considered  this  government  was  made  for  the 
white  people  and  not  for  the  negroes.  Why,  in  point  of  mere  fact, 
I  think  so  too.  But  in  this  remark  of  the  judge  there  is  a  signifi 
cance  which  I  think  is  the  key  to  the  great  mistake  (if  there  is  any 
such  mistake)  which  he  has  made  in  this  Nebraska  measure.  It 
shows  that  the  judge  has  no  very  vivid  impression  that  the  negro  is 
human,  and  consequently  has  no  idea  that  there  can  be  any  moral 
question  in  legislating  about  him.  In  his  view  the  question  of 
whether  a  new  country  shall  be  slave  or  free,  is  a  matter  of  as  utter 
indifference  as  it  is  whether  his  neighbor  shall  plant  his  farm  with 
tobacco  or  stock  it  with  horned  cattle.  Now,  whether  this  view  is 
right  or  wrong,  it  is  verv  certain  that  the  great  mass  of  mankind 
take  a  totally  different  view.  They  consider  slavery  a  great  moral 
wrong,  and  their  feeling  against  it  is  not  evanescent,  but  eternal.  It 
lies  at  the  very  foundation  of  their  sense  of  justice,  and  it  cannot  be 
trifled  with.  It  is  a  great  and  durable  element  of  popular  action,  and 
I  think  no  statesman  can  safely  disregard  it. 

Our  senator  also  objects  that  "those  who  oppose  him  in  this  matter 
do  not  entirely  agree  with  one  another.  He  reminds  me  that  in  my 
firm  adherence  to  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  slave  States,  I 
differ  widely  from  others  who  are  cooperating  with  me  in  opposing 
the  Nebraska  bill,  and  he  says  it  is  not  quite  fair  to  oppose  him  in 
this  variety  of  ways.  He  should  remember  that  he  took  us  by  sur 
prise  —  astounded  us  by  this  measure.  We  were  thunderstruck  and 
stunned,  and  we  reeled  and  fell  in  utter  confusion.  But  we  rose,  each 
fighting,  grasping  whatever  he  could  first  reach — a  scythe,  a  pitch 
fork,  a  chopping-ax,  or  a  butcher's  cleaver.  We  struck  in  the  direc 
tion  of  the  sound,  and  we  were  rapidly  closing  in  upon  him.  He 
must  not  think  to  divert  us  from  our  purpose  by  showing  us  that  our 
drill,  our  dress,  and  our  weapons  are  not  entirely  perfect  and  uni 
form.  When  the  storm  shall  be  past  he  shall  find  us  still  Americans, 
no  less  devoted  to  the  continued  union  and  prosperity  of  the  country 
than  heretofore. 

Finally,  the  judge  invokes  against  me  the  memory  of  Clay  and 
Webster.  They  were  great  men,  and  men  of  great  deeds.  But  where 
have  I  assailed  them?  For  what  is  it  that  their  life-long  enemy  shall 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN          209 

now  make  profit  by  assuming  to  defend  them  against  me,  their  life 
long  friend?  I  go  against  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise; 
did  they  ever  go  for  it?  They  went  for  the  compromise  of  1850;  did 
I  ever  go  against  them?  They  were  greatly  devoted  to  the  Union; 
to  the  small  measure  of  my  ability  was  I  ever  less  so?  Clay  and 
Webster  were  dead  before  this  question  arose ;  by  what  authority 
shall  our  senator  say  they  would  espouse  his  side  or  it  if  alive?  Mr. 
Clay  was  the  leading  spirit  in  making  the  Missouri  Compromise ;  is 
it  very  credible  that  if  now  alive  he  would  take  the  lead  in  the 
breaking  of  it?  The  truth  is  that  some  support  from  Whigs  is  now 
a  necessity  with  the  judge,  and  for  this  it  is  that  the  names  of  Clay 
and  Webster  are  invoked.  His  old  friends  have  deserted  him  in 
such  numbers  as  to  leave  too  few  to  live  by.  He  came  to  his  own, 
and  his  own  received  him  not;  and  lo!  he  turns  unto  the  Gentiles. 
A  word  now  as  to  the  judge's  desperate  assumption  that  the  com 
promises  of  1850  had  no  connection  with  one  another ;  that  Illinois 
came  into  the  Union  as  a  slave  State,  and  some  other  similar  ones. 
This  is  no  other  than  a  bold  denial  of  the  history  of  the  country.  If 
we  do  not  know  that  the  compromises  of  1850  were  dependent  on  each 
other ;  if  we  do  not  know  that  Illinois  came  into  the  Union  as  a  free 
State, — we  do  not  know  anything.  If  we  do  not  know  these  things, 
we  do  not  know  that  we  ever  had  a  Revolutionary  war  or  such  a 
chief  as  Washington.  To  deny  these  things  is  to  deny  our  national 
axioms, —  or  dogmas,  at  least, — and  it  puts  an  end  to  all  argument.  If 
a  man  will  stand  up  and  assert,  and  repeat  and  reassert,  that  two  and 
two  do  not  make  four,  I  know  nothing  in  the  power  of  argument 
that  can  stop  him.  I  think  I  can  answer  the  judge  so  long  as  he 
sticks  to  the  premises ;  but  when  he  flies  from  them,  I  cannot  work 
any  argument  into  the  consistency  of  a  mental  gag  and  actually  close 
his  mouth  with  it.  In  such  a  case  I  can  only  commend  him  to  the 
seventy  thousand  answers  just  in  from  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  and 
Indiana. 

November  27,  1854. — LETTER  TO  T.  J.  HENDERSON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  November  27,  1854. 
T.  J.  HENDERSON,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir :  It  has  come  round  that  a  Whig  may,  by  possibility, 
be  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate ;  and  I  want  the  chance  of 
being  the  man.  You  are  a  member  of  the  legislature,  and  have  a 
vote  to  give.  Think  it  over,  and  see  whether  you  can  do  better  than 
go  for  me.  Write  me  at  all  events,  and  let  this  be  confidential. 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

November  27,  1854. — LETTER  TO  I.  CODDING. 

SPRINGFIELD,  November  27,  1854. 
I.  CODDING,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir :  Your  note  of  the  13th  requesting  my  attendance  on  the 
Republican  State  Central  Committee,  on  the  17th  instant  at  Chicago, 
VOL.  I.— 14. 


210         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

was,  owing  to  my  absence  from  home,  received  on  the  evening  of 
that  day  (17th)  only.  While  I  have  pen  in  hand  allow  me  to  say  I 
have  been  perplexed  some  to  understand  why  my  name  was  placed 
on  that  committee.  I  was  not  consulted  on  the  subject,  nor  was  I 
apprised  of  the  appointment  until  I  discovered  it  by  accident  two 
or  three  weeks  afterward.  I  suppose  my  opposition  to  the  principle 
of  slavery  is  as  strong  as  that  of  any  member  of  the  Republican 
party;  but  I  have  also  supposed  that  the  extent  to  which  I  feel 
authorized  to  carry  that  opposition,  practically,  was  not  at  all  satis 
factory  to  that  party.  The  leading  men  who  organized  that  party 
were  present  on  the  4th  of  October  at  the  discussion  between  Doug 
las  and  myself  at  Springfield,  and  had  full  opportunity  to  not  mis 
understand  my  position.  Do  I  misunderstand  them  ?  Please  write 
and  inform  me.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


December  6,  1854. — LETTER  TO  JUSTICE  JOHN  MCLEAN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  6,  1854. 
HON.  JUSTICE  MCLEAN. 

Sir:  I  understand  it  is  in  contemplation  to  displace  the  present 
clerk,  and  appoint  a  new  one,  for  the  Circuit  and  District  Courts 
of  Illinois.  I  am  very  friendly  to  the  present  incumbent,  and  both 
for  his  own  sake  and  that  of  his  family,  I  wish  him  to  be  retained 
so  long  as  it  is  possible  for  the  court  to  do  so.  In  the  contingency 
of  his  removal,  however,  I  have  recommended  William  Butler  as 
his  successor,  and  I  do  not  wish  what  I  write  now  to  be  taken  as 
any  abatement  of  that  recommendation. 

William  J.  Black  is  also  an  applicant  for  the  appointment,  and  I 
write  this  at  the  solicitation  of  his  friends  to  say  that  he  is  every 
way  worthy  of  the  office,  and  that  I  doubt  not  the  conferring  it  upon 
him  will  give  great  satisfaction.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


December  11,  1854. — LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 


SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  11,  1854. 
HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

My  dear  Sir:  Your  note  of  the  5th  is  just  received.  It  is  too 
true  that  by  the  official  returns  Allen  beats  Colonel  Archer  one  vote. 
There  is  a  report  to-day  that  there  is  a  mistake  in  the  returns  from 
Clay  County,  giving  Allen  sixty  votes  more  than  he  really  has ;  but 
this,  I  fear,  is  itself  a  mistake.  I  have  just  examined  the  returns 
from  that  county  at  the  secretary's  office,  and  find  that  the  aggre 
gate  vote  for  sheriff  only  falls  short  by  three  votes  of  the  aggregate, 
as  reported,  of  Allen  and  Archer's  vote.  Our  friends,  however,  are 
hot  on  the  track,  and  will  probe  the  matter  to  the  bottom.  As  to 
my  own  matter,  things  continue  to  look  reasonably  well.  I  wrote 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          211 

your  friend,  George  Gage ;  and  three  days  ago  had  an  answer  from 
him,  in  which  he  talks  out  plainly,  as  your  letter  taught  me  to 
expect.  To-day  I  had  a  letter  from  Turner.  He  says  he  is  not  com 
mitted,  and  will  not  be  until  he  sees  how  most  effectually  to  oppose 
slavery  extension. 

I  have  not  ventured  to  write  all  the  members  in  your  district,  lest 
some  of  them  should  be  offended  by  the  indelicacy  of  the  thing — 
that  is,  coming  from  a  total  stranger.  Could  you  not  drop  some  of 
them  a  line  ?  Very  truly  your  friend, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


December  14,  1854. — LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  December  14,  1854. 
HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

My  dear  Sir :  So  far  as  I  am  concerned,  there  must  be  something 
wrong  about  United  States  senator  at  Chicago.  My  most  intimate 
friends  there  do  not  answer  my  letters,  and  I  cannot  get  a  word  from 
them.  Wentworth  has  a  knack  of  knowing  things  better  than  most 
men.  I  wish  you  would  pump  him,  and  write  me  what  you  get  from 
him.  Please  do  this  as  soon  as  you  can,  as  the  time  is  growing 
short.  Don't  let  any  one  know  I  have  written  you  this ;  for  there 
may  be  those  opposed  to  me  nearer  about  you  than  you  think. 

Very  truly  yours,  etc.,  A.  LINCOLN. 


December  15,  1854. — LETTER  TO  T.  J.  HENDERSON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  December  15,  1854. 
HON.  T.  J.  HENDERSON. 

Dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  llth  was  received  last  night,  and  for 
which  I  thank  you.  Of  course,  I  prefer  myself  to  all  others ;  yet  it 
is  neither  in  my  heart  nor  my  conscience  to  say  I  am  any  better 
man  than  Mr.  Williams.  We  shall  have  a  terrible  struggle  with  our 
adversaries.  They  are  desperate,  and  bent  on  desperate  deeds.  I 
accidentally  learned  of  one  of  the  leaders  here  writing  to  a  member 
south  of  here,  in  about  the  following  language : 

We  are  beaten.  They  have  a  clear  majority  of  at  least  nine  on  joint  bal 
lot.  They  outnumber  us,  but  we  must  outmanage  them.  Douglas  must  be 
sustained.  We  must  elect  the  Speaker;  and  we  must  elect  a  Nebraska  United 
States  senator,  or  elect  none  at  all. 

Similar  letters,  no  doubt,  are  written  to  every  Nebraska  member. 
Be  considering  how  we  can  best  meet,  and  foil,  and  beat  them. 

I  send  you  by  this  mail  a  copy  of  my  Peoria  speech.  You  may 
have  seen  it  before,  or  you  may  not  think  it  worth  seeing  now.  Do 
not  speak  of  the  Nebraska  letter  mentioned  above  j  I  do  not  wish  it 
to  become  public  that  I  receive  such  information. 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


212          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

December  19,  1854. —  LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  December  19, 1854. 
HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

My  dear  Sir  :  Yours  of  the  12th  just  received.  The  objection  of 
your  friend  at  Winnebago  rather  astonishes  me.  For  a  senator  to 
be  the  impartial  representative  of  his  whole  State  is  so  plain  a 
duty  that  I  pledge  myself  to  the  observance  of  it  without  hesita 
tion,  but  not  without  some  mortification  that  any  one  should  sus 
pect  me  of  an  inclination  to  the  contrary.  I  was  eight  years  a 
representative  of  Sangamon  County  in  the  legislature ;  and  al 
though  in  a  conflict  of  interests  between  that  and  other  counties  it 
perhaps  would  have  been  my  duty  to  stick  to  old  Sangamon,  yet 
it  is  not  within  my  recollection  that  the  northern  members  ever 
wanted  my  vote  for  any  interest  of  theirs  without  getting  it.  My 
distinct  recollection  is  that  the  northern  members  and  Sangamon 
members  were  always  on  good  terms,  and  always  cooperating  on 
measures  of  policy.  The  canal  was  then  the  great  northern  measure, 
and  it  from  first  to  last  had  our  votes  as  readily  as  the  votes  of  the 
north  itself.  Indeed,  I  shall  be  surprised  if  it  can  be  pointed  out 
that  in  any  instance  the  north  sought  our  aid  and  failed  to  get  it. 

Again,  I  was  a  member  of  Congress  one  term — the  term  when  Mr. 
Turner  was  the  legal  member  and  you  were  a  lobby  member  from 
your  then  district.  Now  I  think  I  might  appeal  to  Mr.  Turner  and 
yourself,  whether  you  did  not  always  have  my  feeble  service  for 
the  asking.  In  the  case  of  conflict,  I  might  without  blame  have 
preferred  my  own  district.  As  a  senator  I  should  claim  no  right, 
as  I  should  feel  no  inclination,  to  give  the  central  portion  of  the 
State  any  preference  over  the  north,  or  any  other  portion  of  it. 

Very  truly  your  friend,  A.  LINCOLN. 

January  6,  1855. — LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 
Confidential. 

SPRINGFIELD,  January  6, 1855. 
HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

My  dear  Sir :  I  telegraphed  you  as  to  the  organization  of  the  two 
houses.  T.  J.  Turner  elected  Speaker,  40  to  24 ;  House  not  full  j  Dr. 
Richmond  of  Schuyler  was  his  opponent ;  Anti-Nebraska  also  elected 
all  the  other  officers  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  In  the  Senate 
Anti-Nebraska  elected  George  T.  Brown,  of  the  "Alton  Courier," 
secretary ;  and  Dr.  Ray,  of  the  "  Galena  Jeffersonian,"  one  of  the 
clerks.  In  fact  they  elected  all  the  officers,  but  some  of  them  were 
Nebraska  men  elected  over  the  regular  Nebraska  nominees.  It  is 
said  that  by  this  they  get  one  or  two  Nebraska  senators  to  go  for 
bringing  on  the  senatorial  election.  I  cannot  vouch  for  this.  As 
to  the  senatorial  election,  I  think  very  little  more  is  known  than 
was  before  the  meeting  of  the  legislature.  Besides  the  ten  or  a 
dozen  on  our  side  who  are  willing  to  be  known  as  candidates,  I 
think  there  are  fifty  secretly  watching  for  a  chance.  I  do  not  know 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          213 

that  it  is  much  advantage  to  have  the  largest  number  of  votes  at 
the  start.  If  I  did  know  this  to  be  an  advantage,  I  should  feel  better, 
for  I  cannot  doubt  but  I  have  more  committals  than  any  other 
man.  Your  district  comes  up  tolerably  well  for  me,  but  not  unani 
mously  by  any  means.  George  Gage  is  for  me,  as  you  know.  J.  H. 
Adams  is  not  committed  to  me,  but  I  think  will  be  for  me.  Mr. 
Talcott  will  not  be  for  me  as  a  first  choice.  Dr.  Little  and  Mr.  Sar 
gent  are  openly  for  me.  Professor  Pinckney  is  for  me,  but  wishes 
to  be  quiet.  Dr.  Whitney  writes  me  that  Rev.  Mr.  Lawrence  will 
be  for  me,  and  his  manner  to  me  so  indicates,  but  he  has  not 
spoken  it  out.  Mr.  Swan  I  have  some  slight  hopes  of.  Turner 
says  he  is  not  committed,  and  I  shall  get  him  whenever  I  can  make 
it  appear  to  be  his  interest  to  go  for  me.  Dr.  Lyman  and  old  Mr. 
Diggins  will  never  go  for  me  as  a  first  choice.  M.  P.  Sweet  is  here 
as  a  candidate,  and  I  understand  he  claims  that  he  has  twenty-two 
members  committed  to  him.  I  think  some  part  of  his  estimate  must 
be  based  on  insufficient  evidence,  as  I  cannot  well  see  where  they 
are  to  be  found,  and  as  I  can  learn  the  name  of  one  only — Day  of 
La  Salle.  Still  it  may  be  so.  There  are  more  than  twenty-two  Anti- 
Nebraska  members  who  are  not  committed  to  me.  Tell  Norton 
that  Mr.  Strunk  and  Mr.  Wheeler  come  out  plump  for  me,  and  for 
which  I  thank  him.  Judge  Parks  I  have  decided  hopes  of,  but  he 
says  he  is  not  committed.  I  understand  myself  as  having  twenty- 
six  committals,  and  I  do  not  think  any  other  one  man  has  ten.  May 
be  mistaken,  though.  The  whole  legislature  stands : 

Senate A.  N.  13  N.  12 

House  of  Representatives "     44  "   31 

57  43 

43 

14  majority. 
All  here,  but  Kinney  of  St.  Glair. 

Our  special  election  here  is  plain  enough  when  understood.  Our 
adversaries  pretended  to  be  running  no  candidate,  secretly  notified 
all  their  men  to  be  on  hand,  and,  favored  by  a  very  rainy  day,  got 
a  complete  snap  judgment  on  us.  In  November  Sangamon  gave 
Yates  2166  votes.  On  the  rainy  day  she  gave  our  man  only  984, 
leaving  him  82  votes  behind.  After  all,  the  result  is  not  of  the  least 
consequence.  The  Locos  kept  up  a  great  chattering  over  it  till  the 
organization  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  since  which  they  all 
seem  to  have  forgotten  it.  G.'s  letter  to  L.,  I  think  has  not  been  re 
ceived.  Ask  him  if  he  sent  it.  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

February  9, 1855. — LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  February  9,  1855. 
HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

My  dear  Sir :  The  agony  is  over  at  last,  and  the  result  you  doubt 
less  know.  I  write  this  only  to  give  you  some  particulars  to  explain 


214         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

what  might  appear  difficult  of  understanding.  I  began  with  44 
votes,  Shields  41,  and  Trumbull  5, — yet  Trumbull  was  elected.  In 
fact,  47  different  members  voted  for  me, — getting  three  new  ones  on 
the  second  ballot,  and  losing  four  old  ones.  How  came  my  47  to 
yield  to  TrumbulPs  5  ?  It  was  Governor  Matteson's  work.  He  has 
been  secretly  a  candidate  ever  since  (before,  even)  the  fall  election. 
All  the  members  round  about  the  canal  were  Anti-Nebraska,  but 
were  nevertheless  nearly  all  Democrats  and  old  personal  friends  of 
his.  His  plan  was  to  privately  impress  them  with  the  belief  that  he 
was  as  good  Anti-Nebraska  as  any  one  else, —  at  least  could  be  se 
cured  to  be  so  by  instructions,  which  could  be  easily  passed.  In  this 
way  he  got  from  four  to  six  of  that  sort  of  men  to  really  prefer  his 
election  to  that  of  any  other  man — all  sub  rosa,  of  course.  One 
notable  instance  of  this  sort  was  with  Mr.  Strunk  of  Kankakee.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  session  he  came  a  volunteer  to  tell  me  he  was 
for  me  and  would  walk  a  hundred  miles  to  elect  me;  but  lo!  it  was 
not  long  before  he  leaked  it  out  that  he  was  going  for  me  the  first 
few  ballots  and  then  for  Governor  Matteson. 

The  Nebraska  men,  of  course,  were  not  for  Matteson  j  but  when 
they  found  they  could  elect  no  avowed  Nebraska  man,  they  tardily 
determined  to  let  him  get  whomever  of  our  men  he  could,  by  what 
ever  means  he  could,  and  ask  him  no  questions.  In  the  mean  time 
Osgood,  Don  Morrison,  and  Trapp  of  St.  Clair  had  openly  gone  over 
from  us.  With  the  united  Nebraska  force  and  their  recruits,  open 
and  covert,  it  gave  Matteson  more  than  enough  to  elect  him.  We 
saw  into  it  plainly  ten  days  ago,  but  with  every  possible  effort  could 
not  head  it  off.  All  that  remained  of  the  Anti-Nebraska  force,  ex 
cepting  Judd,  Cook,  Palmer,  Baker  and  Allen  of  Madison,  and  two 
or  three  of  the  secret  Matteson  men,  would  go  into  caucus,  and  I 
could  get  the  nomination  of  that  caucus.  But  the  three  senators  and 
one  of  the  two  representatives  above  named  "could  never  vote  for  a 
Whig,"  and  this  incensed  some  twenty  Whigs  to  "think"  they  would 
never  vote  for  the  man  of  the  five.  So  we  stood,  and  so  we  went  into 
the  fight  yesterday,  —  the  Nebraska  men  very  confident  of  the 
election  of  Matteson,  though  denying  that  he  was  a  candidate,  and 
we  very  much  believing  also  that  they  would  elect  him.  But  they 
wanted  first  to  make  a  show  of  good  faith  to  Shields  by  voting  for 
him  a  few  times,  and  our  secret  Matteson  men  also  wanted  to  make  a 
show  of  good  faith  by  voting  with  us  a  few  times.  So  we  led  off. 
On  the  seventh  ballot,  I  think,  the  signal  was  given  to  the  Nebraska 
men  to  turn  to  Matteson,  which  they  acted  on  to  a  man,  with  one 
exception,  my  old  friend  Strunk  going  with  them,  giving  him  44 
votes.  Next  ballot  the  remaining  Nebraska  man  and  one  pretended 
Anti  went  over  to  him,  giving  him  46.  The  next  still  another,  giving 
him  47,  wanting  only  three  of  an  election.  In  the  mean  time  our 
friends,  with  a  view  of  detaining  our  expected  bolters,  had  been 
turning  from  me  to  Trumbull  till  he  had  risen  to  35  and  I  had  been 
reduced  to  15.  These  would  never  desert  me  except  by  my  direc 
tion;  but  I  became  satisfied  that  if  we  could  prevent  Matteson's 
election  one  or  two  ballots  more,  we  could  not  possibly  do  so  a  single 
ballot  after  my  friends  should  begin  to  return  to  me  from  Trumbull. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          215 

So  I  determined  to  strike  at  once,  and  accordingly  advised  my  re 
maining  friends  to  go  for  him,  which  they  did  and  elected  him  on 
the  tenth  ballot, 

Such  is  the  way  the  thing  was  done.  I  think  you  would  have 
done  the  same  under  the  circumstances  j  though  Judge  Davis,  who 
came  down  this  morning,  declares  he  never  would  have  consented 
to  the  forty-seven  men  being  controlled  by  the  five.  I  regret  my 
defeat  moderately,  but  I  am  not  nervous  about  it.  I  could  have 
headed  off  every  combination  and  been  elected,  had  it  not  been  for 
Matteson's  double  game  —  and  his  defeat  now  gives  me  more 
pleasure  than  my  own  gives  me  pain.  On  the  whole,  it  is  perhaps 
as  well  for  our  general  cause  that  Trumbull  is  elected.  The  Ne 
braska  men  confess  that  they  hate  it  worse  than  anything  that  could 
have  happened.  It  is  a  great  consolation  to  see  them  worse  whipped 
than  I  am.  I  tell  them  it  is  their  own  fault  —  that  they  had  abundant 
opportunity  to  choose  between  him  and  me,  which  they  declined, 
and  instead  forced  it  on  me  to  decide  between  him  and  Matteson. 

With  my  grateful  acknowledgments  for  the  kind,  active,  and 
continued  interest  you  have  taken  for  me  in  this  matter,  allow  me 
to  subscribe  myself  Yours  forever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


August  15,  1855. —  LETTER  TO  GEORGE  ROBERTSON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  August  15,  1855. 
HON.  GEORGE  ROBERTSON,  Lexington,  Kentucky. 

My  dear  Sir :  The  volume  you  left  for  me  has  been  received.  I 
am  really  grateful  for  the  honor  of  your  kind  remembrance,  as  well 
as  for  the  book.  The  partial  reading  I  have  already  given  it  has 
afforded  me  much  of  both  pleasure  and  instruction.  It  was  new  to 
me  that  the  exact  question  which  led  to  the  Missouri  Compromise 
had  arisen  before  it  arose  in  regard  to  Missouri,  and  that  you  had 
taken  so  prominent  a  part  in  it.  Your  short  but  able  and  patriotic 
speech  upon  that  occasion  has  not  been  improved  upon  since  by 
those  holding  the  same  views,  and,  with  all  the  lights  you  then  had, 
the  views  you  took  appear  to  me  as  very  reasonable. 

You  are  not  a  friend  to  slavery  in  the  abstract.  In  that  speech 
you  spoke  of  "  the  peaceful  extinction  of  slavery,"  and  used  other 
expressions  indicating  your  belief  that  the  thing  was  at  some  time 
to  have  an  end.  Since  then  we  have  had  thirty-six  years  of  expe 
rience;  and  this  experience  has  demonstrated,  I  think,  that  there  is 
no  peaceful  extinction  of  slavery  in  prospect  for  us.  The  signal 
failure  of  Henry  Clay  and  other  good  and  great  men,  in  1849,  to 
effect  anything  in  favor  of  gradual  emancipation  in  Kentucky,  to 
gether  with  a  thousand  other  signs,  extinguished  that  hope  utterly. 
On  the  question  of  liberty  as  a  principle,  we  are  not  what  we  have 
been.  When  we  were  the  political  slaves  of  King  George,  and 
wanted  to  be  free,  we  called  the  maxim  that  "  all  men  are  created 
equal "  a  self-evident  truth,  but  now  when  we  have  grown  fat,  and 
have  lost  all  dread  of  being  slaves  ourselves,  we  have  become  so 


216         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

greedy  to  be  masters  that  we  call  the  same  maxim  "a  self-evident 
lie.77  The  Fourth  of  July  has  not  quite  dwindled  away ;  it  is  still  a 
great  day — for  burning  fire-crackers  ! ! ! 

That  spirit  which  desired  the  peaceful  extinction  of  slavery  has 
itself  become  extinct  with  the  occasion  and  the  men  of  the  Revolu 
tion.  Under  the  impulse  of  that  occasion,  nearly  half  the  States 
adopted  systems  of  emancipation  at  once,  and  it  is  a  significant 
fact  that  not  a  single  State  has  done  the  like  since.  So  far  as 
peaceful  voluntary  emancipation  is  concerned,  the  condition  of  the 
negro  slave  in  America,  scarcely  less  terrible  to  the  contemplation 
of  a  free  mind,  is  now  as  fixed  and  hopeless  of  change  for  the 
better,  as  that  of  the  lost  souls  of  the  finally  impenitent. /"The 
Autocrat  of  all  the  Russias  will  resign  his  crown  and  proclaim  his 
subjects  free  republicans  sooner  than  will  our  American  masters 
voluntarily  give  up  their  slaves. 

Our  political  problem  now  is,  "  Can  we  as  a  nation  continue  to 
gether  permanently — forever — half  slave  and  half  free?77  The 
problem  is  too  mighty  for  me  —  may  God,  in  his  mercy,  superin 
tend  the  solution.  Your  much  obliged  friend  and  humble  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


August  24,  1855. — LETTER  TO  JOSHUA  F.  SPEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  August  24,  1855. 

Dear  Speed:  You  know  what  a  poor  correspondent  I  am.  Ever 
since  I  received  your  very  agreeable  letter  of  the  22d  of  May  I  have 
been  intending  to  write  you  an  answer  to  it.  You  suggest  that  in 
political  action,  now,  you  and  I  would  differ.  I  suppose  we  would  j 
not  quite  as  much,  however,  as  you  may  think.  You  know  I  dis 
like  slavery,  and  you  fully  admit  the  abstract  wrong  of  it.  So  far 
there  is  no  cause  of  difference.  But  you  say  that  sooner  than  yield 
your  legal  right  to  the  slave,  especially  at  the  bidding  of  those  who 
are  not  themselves  interested,  you  would  see  the  Union  dissolved. 
I  am  not  aware  that  any  one  is  bidding  you  yield  that  right  5  very 
certainly  I  am  not.  I  leave  that  matter  entirely  to  yourself.  I  also 
acknowledge  your  rights  and  my  obligations  under  the  Constitu 
tion  in  regard  to  your  slaves.  I  confess  I  hate  to  see  the  poor  crea 
tures  hunted  down  and  caught  and  carried  back  to  their  stripes  and 
unrequited  toil;  but  I  bite  my  lips  and  keep  quiet.  In  1841  you 
and  I  had  together  a  tedious  low-water  trip  on  a  steamboat  from 
Louisville  to  St.  Louis.  You  may  remember,  as  I  well  do,  that  from 
Louisville  to  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio  there  were  on  board  ten  or  a 
dozen  slaves  shackled  together  with  irons.  That  sight  was  a  con 
tinued  torment  to  me,  and  I  see  something  like  it  every  time  I 
touch  the  Ohio  or  any  other  slave  border.  It  is  not  fair  for  you  to 
assume  that  I  have  no  interest  in  a  thing  which  has,  and  continually 
exercises,  the  power  of  making  me  miserable.  You  ought  rather^to 
appreciate  how  much  the  great  body  of  the  Northern  people  do  cru 
cify  their  feelings,  in  order  to  maintain  their  loyalty  to  the  Consti 
tution  and  the  Union.  I  do  oppose  the  extension  of  slavery  because 


ADDRESSES   AND  LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          217 

my  judgment  and  feeling  so  prompt  me,  and  I  am  under  no  obliga 
tions  to  the  contrary.  If  for  this  you  and  I  must  differ,  differ  we 
must.  You  say,  if  you  were  President,  you  would  send  an  army 
and  hang  the  leaders  of  the  Missouri  outrages  upon  the  Kansas 
elections ;  still,  if  Kansas  fairly  votes  herself  a  slave  State  she  must 
be  admitted,  or  the  Union  must  be  dissolved.  But  how  if  she  votes 
herself  a  slave  State  unfairly,  that  is,  by  the  very  means  for  which  you 
say  you  would  hang  men  ?  Must  she  still  be  admitted,  or  the  Union 
dissolved  ?  That  will  be  the  phase  of  the  question  when  it  first  be 
comes  a  practical  one.  In  your  assumption  that  there  may  be 
a  fair  decision  of  the  slavery  question  in  Kansas,  I  plainly  see 
you  and  I  would  differ  about  the  Nebraska  law.  I  look  upon  that 
enactment  not  as  a  law,  but  as  a  violence  from  the  beginning.  It 
was  conceived  in  violence,  is  maintained  in  violence,  and  is  being 
executed  in  violence.  I  say  it  was  conceived  in  violence,  because  the 
destruction  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  under  the  circumstances, 
was  nothing  less  than  violence.  It  was  passed  in  violence,  because 
it  could  not  have  passed  at  all  but  for  the  votes  of  many  members 
in  violence  of  the  known  will  of  their  constituents.  It  is  maintained 
in  violence,  because  the  elections  since  clearly  demand  its  repeal  j 
and  the  demand  is  openly  disregarded. 

You  say  men  ought  to  be  hung  for  the  way  they  are  executing 
the  law ;  I  say  the  way  it  is  being  executed  is  quite  as  good  as  any 
of  its  antecedents.  It  is  being  executed  in  the  precise  way  which 
was  intended  from  the  first,  else  why  does  no  Nebraska  man  express 
astonishment  or  condemnation?  Poor  Reeder  is  the  only  public 
man  who  has  been  silly  enough  to  believe  that  anything  like  fair 
ness  was  ever  intended,  and  he  has  been  bravely  undeceived. 

That  Kansas  will  form  a  slave  constitution,  and  with  it  will  ask  to 
be  admitted  into  the  Union,  I  take  to  be  already  a  settled  question, 
and  so  settled  by  the  very  means  you  so  pointedly  condemn.  By 
every  principle  of  law  ever  held  by  any  court  North  or  South, 
every  negro  taken  to  Kansas  is  free ;  yet,  in  utter  disregard  of 
this, — in  the  spirit  of  violence  merely, — that  beautiful  legislature 
gravely  passes  a  law  to  hang  any  man  who  shall  venture  to  inform 
a  negro  of  his  legal  rights.  This  is  the  subject  and  real  object  of 
the  law.  If,  like  Haman,  they  should  hang  upon  the  gallows  of 
their  own  building,  I  shall  not  be  among  the  mourners  for  their 
fate.  In  my  humble  sphere,  I  shall  advocate  the  restoration  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise  so  long  as  Kansas  remains  a  Territory,  and 
when,  by  all  these  foul  means,  it  seeks  to  come  into  the  Union  as  a 
slave  State,  I  shall  oppose  it.  I  am  very  loath  in  any  case  to  with 
hold  my  assent  to  the  enjoyment  of  property  acquired  or  located 
in  good  faith ;  but  I  do  not  admit  that  good  faith  in  taking  a  negro 
to  Kansas  to  be  held  in  slavery  is  a  probability  with  any  man. 
Any  man  who  has  sense  enough  to  be  the  controller  of  his  own 
property  has  too  much  sense  to  misunderstand  the  outrageous  char 
acter  of  the  whole  Nebraska  business.  But  I  digress.  In  my 
opposition  to  the  admission  of  Kansas  I  shall  have  some  company, 
but  we  may  be  beaten.  If  we  are,  I  shall  not  on  that  account 
attempt  to  dissolve  the  Union.  I  think  it  probable,  however,  we 


218         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

shall  be  beaten.  Standing  as  a  unit  among  yourselves,  you  can, 
directly  and  indirectly,  bribe  enough  of  our  men  to  carry  the  day, 
as  you  could  on  the  open  proposition  to  establish  a  monarchy.  Get 
hold  of  some  man  in  the  North  whose  position  and  ability  is  such 
that  he  can  make  the  support  of  your  measure,  whatever  it  may  be, 
a  Democratic  party  necessity,  and  the  thing  is  done.  Apropos  of 
this,  let  me  tell  you  an  anecdote.  Douglas  introduced  the  Nebraska 
bill  in  January.  In  February  afterward  there  was  a  called  session 
of  the  Illinois  legislature.  Of  the  one  hundred  members  compos 
ing  the  two  branches  of  that  body,  about  seventy  were  Democrats. 
These  latter  held  a  caucus,  in  which  the  Nebraska  bill  was  talked 
of,  if  not  formally  discussed.  It  was  thereby  discovered  that  just 
three,  and  no  more,  were  in  favor  of  the  measure.  In  a  day  or  two 
Douglas's  orders  came  on  to  have  resolutions  passed  approving  the 
bill ;  and  they  were  passed  by  large  majorities ! ! !  The  truth  of  this 
is  vouched  for  by  a  bolting  Democratic  member.  The  masses,  too, 
Democratic  as  well  as  Whig,  were  even  nearer  unanimous  against 
it;  but,  as  soon  as  the  party  necessity  of  supporting  it  became  appa 
rent,  the  way  the  Democrats  began  to  see  the  wisdom  and  justice 
of  it  was  perfectly  astonishing. 

You  say  that  if  Kansas  fairly  votes  herself  a  free  State,  as  a 
Christian  you  will  rejoice  at  it.  All  decent  slaveholders  talk  that 
way,  and  I  do  not  doubt  their  candor.  But  they  never  vote  that 
way.  Although  in  a  private  letter  or  conversation  you  will  express 
your  preference  that  Kansas  shall  be  free,  you  would  vote  for  no 
man  for  Congress  who  would  say  the  same  thing  publicly.  No  such 
man  could  be  elected  from  any  district  in  a  slave  State.  You  think 
Stringfellow  and  company  ought  to  be  hung ;  and  yet  at  the  next 
presidential  election  you  will  vote  for  the  exact  type  and  represen 
tative  of  Stringfellow.  The  slave-breeders  and  slave-traders  are  a 
small,  odious,  and  detested  class  among  you;  and  yet  in  politics 
they  dictate  the  course  of  all  of  you,  and  are  as  completely  your 
masters  as  you  are  the  master  of  your  own  negroes.  You  inquire 
where  I  now  stand.  That  is  a  disputed  point.  I  think  I  am  a 
Whig;  but  others  say  there  are  no  Whigs,  and  that  I  am  an 
Abolitionist.  When  I  was  at  Washington,  I  voted  for  the  Wilmot 
proviso  as  good  as  forty  times;  and  I  never  heard  of  any  one 
attempting  to  unwhig  me  for  that.  I  now  do  no  more  than  op 
pose  the  extension  of  slavery.  I  am  not  a  Know-nothing;  that 
is  certain.  How  could  I  be?  How  can  any  one  who  abhors  the 
oppression  of  negroes  be  in  favor  of  degrading  classes  of  white 
people?  Our  progress  in  degeneracy  appears  to  me  to  be  pretty 
rapid.  As  a  nation  we  began  by  declaring  that  "  all  men  are  created 
equal."  We  now  practically  read  it  "  all  men  are  created  equal, 
except  negroes.7'  When  the  Know-nothings  get  control,  it  will  read 
"  all  men  are  created  equal,  except  negroes  and  foreigners  and  Cath 
olics."  When  it  comes  to  this,  I  shall  prefer  emigrating  to  some 
country  where  they  make  no  pretense  of  loving  liberty, —  to  Russia, 
for  instance,  where  despotism  can  be  taken  pure,  and  without  the 
base  alloy  of  hypocrisy. 

Mary  will  probably  pass  a  day  or  two  in  Louisville  in  October. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN          219 

My  kindest  regards  to  Mrs.  Speed.  On  the  leading  subject  of  this 
letter,  I  have  more  of  her  sympathy  than  I  have  of  yours ;  and  yet 
let  me  say  I  am  Your  friend  forever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

December  [15?],  1855. —  BILL  FOR  SERVICES  RENDERED  THE 
ILLINOIS  CENTRAL  RAILROAD  COMPANY. 

THE  ILLINOIS  CENTRAL  RAILROAD  COMPANY, 

To  A.  LINCOLN  Dr. 

To  professional  services  in  the  case  of  the  Illinois  Central 
Railroad  Company  against  the  County  of  McLean,  ar 
gued  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  of  Illinois  at 

December  term,  1855 $5000.00 

We,  the  undersigned  members  of  the  Illinois  Bar,  understanding 
that  the  above  entitled  cause  was  twice  argued  in  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  that  the  judgment  therein  decided  the  question  of  the 
claim  of  counties  and  other  minor  municipal  corporations  to  tax 
the  property  of  said  railroad  company,  and  settled  said  question 
against  said  claim  and  in  favor  of  said  railroad  company,  are  of 
opinion  the  sum  above  charged  as  a  fee  is  not  unreasonable. 
GRANT  GOODRICH,  N.  H.  PURPLE, 

N.  B.  JUDD,  O.  H.  BROWNING, 

ARCHIBALD  WILLIAMS,  R.  S.  BLACKWELL. 


June  27,  1856. — LETTER  TO  JOHN  VAN  DYKE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  June  27,  1856. 
HON.  JOHN  VAN  DYKE. 

My  dear  Sir :  Allow  me  to  thank  you  for  your  kind  notice  of  me 
in  the  Philadelphia  Convention. 

When  you  meet  Judge  Dayton  present  my  respects,  and  tell  him 
I  think  him  a  far  better  man  than  I  for  the  position  he  is  in,  and 
that  I  shall  support  both  him  and  Colonel  Fremont  most  cordially. 
Present  my  best  respects  to  Mrs.  Van  Dyke,  and  believe  me 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

July  9,  1856. — LETTER  TO  WHITNEY. 

SPRINGFIELD,  July  9,  1856. 

Dear  Whitney :  I  now  expect  to  go  to  Chicago  on  the  15th,  and  I 
probably  shall  remain  there  or  thereabouts  for  about  two  weeks. 

It  turned  me  blind  when  I  first  heard  Swett  was  beaten  and  Love- 
joy  nominated ;  but,  after  much  reflection,  I  really  believe  it  is  best 
to  let  it  stand.  This,  of  course,  I  wish  to  be  confidential. 

Lamon  did  get  your  deeds.  I  went  with  him  to  the  office,  got 
them,  and  put  them  in  his  hands  myself.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


220          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

August  [1?],  1856. — FRAGMENT  OF  SPEECH  AT  GALENA,  ILLINOIS, 
IN  THE  FREMONT  CAMPAIGN. 

You  further  charge  us  with  being  disunionists.  If  you  mean  that 
it  is  our  aim  to  dissolve  the  Union,  I  for  myself  answer  that  it  is  un 
true;  for  those  who  act  with  me  I  answer  that  it  is  untrue.  Have 
you  heard  us  assert  that  as  our  aim  ?  Do  you  really  believe  that 
such  is  our  aim  ?  Do  you  find  it  in  our  platform,  our  speeches,  our 
conventions,  or  anywhere  ?  If  not,  withdraw  the  charge. 

But  you  may  say  that  though  it  is  not  our  aim,  it  will  be  the 
result  if  we  succeed,  and  that  we  are  therefore  disunionists  in  fact. 
This  is  a  grave  charge  you  make  against  us,  and  we  certainly  have 
a  right  to  demand  that  you  specify  in  what  way  we  are  to  dissolve 
the  Union.  How  are  we  to  effect  this? 

The  only  specification  offered  is  volunteered  by  Mr.  Fillmore  in 
his  Albany  speech.  His  charge  is  that  if  we  elect  a  President  and 
Vice-President  both  from  the  free  States,  it  will  dissolve  the  Union. 
This  is  open  folly.  The  Constitution  provides  that  the  President 
arid  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  shall  be  of  different  States  ; 
but  says  nothing  as  to  the  latitude  and  longitude  of  those  States. 
In  1828  Andrew  Jackson,  of  Tennessee,  and  John  C.  Calhoun,  of 
South  Carolina,  were  elected  President  and  Vice-President,  both 
from  slave  States  j  but  no  one  thought  of  dissolving  the  Union  then 
on  that  account.  In  1840  Harrison,  of  Ohio,  and  Tyler,  of  Virginia, 
were  elected.  In  1841  Harrison  died  and  John  Tyler  succeeded  to 
the  presidency,  and  William  R.  King,  of  Alabama,  was  elected  acting 
Vice-President  by  the  Senate;  but  no  one  supposed  that  the  Union 
was  in  danger.  In  fact,  at  the  very  time  Mr.  Fillmore  uttered  this 
idle  charge,  the  state  of  things  in  the  United  States  disproved  it- 
Mr.  Pierce,  of  New  Hampshire,  and  Mr.  Bright,  of  Indiana,  both 
from  free  States,  are  President  and  Vice-President,  and  the  Union 
stands  and  will  stand.  You  do  not  pretend  that  it  ought  to  dis 
solve  the  Union,  and  the  facts  show  that  it  won't;  therefore  the 
charge  may  be  dismissed  without  further  consideration. 

No  other  specification  is  made,  and  the  only  one  that  could  be 
made  is  that  the  restoration  of  the  restriction  of  1820,  making  the 
United  States  territory  free  territory,  would  dissolve  the  Union. 
Gentlemen,  it  will  require  a  decided  majority  to  pass  such  an  act. 
We,  the  majority,  being  able  constitutionally  to  do  all  that  we  pur 
pose,  would  have  no  desire  to  dissolve  the  Union.  Do  you  say  that 
such  restriction  of  slavery  would  be  unconstitutional,  and  that  some 
of  the  States  would  not  submit  to  its  enforcement  ?  I  grant  you 
that  an  unconstitutional  act  is  not  a  law ;  but  I  do  not  ask  and  will 
not  take  your  construction  of  the  Constitution.  The  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  is  the  tribunal  to  decide  such  a  question,  and 
we  will  submit  to  its  decisions ;  and  if  you  do  also,  there  will  be  an 
end  of  the  matter.  Will  you  ?  If  not,  who  are  the  disunionists — you 
or  we?  We,  the  majority,  would  not  strive  to  dissolve  the  Union ; 
and  if  any  attempt  is  made,  it  must  be  by  you,  who  so  loudly  stig 
matize  us  as  disunionists.  But  the  Union,  in  any  event,  will  not  be 
dissolved.  We  don't  want  to  dissolve  it,  and  if  you  attempt  it  we 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          221 

won't  let  you.  With  the  purse  and  sword,  the  army  and  navy  and 
treasury,  in  our  hands  and  at  our  command,  you  could  not  do  it. 
This  government  would  be  very  weak  indeed  if  a  majority  with  a 
disciplined  army  and  navy  and  a  well-filled  treasury  could  not  pre 
serve  itself  when  attacked  by  an  unarmed,  undisciplined,  unorgan 
ized  minority.  All  this  talk  about  the  dissolution  of  the  Union  is 
humbug,  nothing  but  folly.  We  do  not  want  to  dissolve  the  Union  ; 
you  shall  not. 

September  8,  1856. — LETTER  TO  HARBISON  MALTBY. 
Confidential. 

SPRINGFIELD,  September  8,  1856. 
HARRISON  MALTBY,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir:  I  understand  you  are  a  Fillmore  man.  Let  me  prove 
to  you  that  every  vote  withheld  from  Fremont  and  given  to  Fill- 
more  in  this  State  actually  lessens  Fillmore's  chance  of  being  Presi 
dent.  Suppose  Buchanan  gets  all  the  slave  States  and  Pennsylva 
nia,  and  any  other  one  State  besides ;  then  he  is  elected,  no  matter 
who  gets  all  the  rest.  But  suppose  Fillmore  gets  the  two  slave 
States  of  Maryland  and  Kentucky ;  then  Buchanan  is  not  elected ; 
Fillmore  goes  into  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  may  be  made 
President  by  a  compromise.  But  suppose,  again,  Fillmore's  friends 
throw  away  a  few  thousand  votes  on  him  in  Indiana  and  Illinois ; 
it  will  inevitably  give  these  States  to  Buchanan,  which  will  more 
than  compensate  him  for  the  loss  of  Maryland  and  Kentucky,  will 
elect  him,  and  leave  Fillmore  no  chance  in  the  House  of  Represen 
tatives  or  out  of  it. 

This  is  as  plain  as  adding  up  the  weight  of  three  small  hogs.  As 
Mr.  Fillmore  has  no  possible  chance  to  carry  Illinois  for  himself,  it 
is  plainly  to  his  interest  to  let  Fremont  take  it,  and  thus  keep  it  out 
of  the  hands  of  Buchanan.  Be  not  deceived.  Buchanan  is  the  hard 
horse  to  beat  in  this  race.  Let  him  have  Illinois,  and  nothing  can 
beat  him  j  and  he  will  get  Illinois  if  men  persist  in  throwing  away 
votes  upon  Mr.  Fillmore.  Does  some  one  persuade  you  that  Mr. 
Fillmore  can  carry  Illinois?  Nonsense!  There  are  over  seventy 
newspapers  in  Illinois  opposing  Buchanan,  only  three  or  four  of 
which  support  Mr.  Fillmore,  all  the  rest  going  for  Fremont.  Are 
not  these  newspapers  a  fair  index  of  the  proportion  of  the  votes  ? 
If  not,  tell  me  why. 

Again,  of  these  three  or  four  Fillmore  newspapers,  two,  at  least, 
are  supported  in  part  by  the  Buchanan  men,  as  I  understand.  Do 
not  they  know  where  the  shoe  pinches?  They  know  the  Fillmore 
movement  helps  them,  and  therefore  they  help  it.  Do  think  these 
things  over,  and  then  act  according  to  your  judgment. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

October  1,  1856. —  FRAGMENT  ON  SECTIONALISM. 

It  is  constantly  objected  to  Fremont  and  Dayton,  that  they  are 
supported  by  a  sectional  party,  who  by  their  sectionalism  endanger 


222          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

the  national  union.  This  objection,  more  than  all  others,  causes 
men  really  opposed  to  slavery  extension  to  hesitate.  Practically,  it 
is  the  most  difficult  objection  we  have  to  meet.  For  this  reason  I 
now  propose  to  examine  it  a  little  more  carefully  than  I  have  here 
tofore  done,  or  seen  it  done  by  others.  First,  then,  what  is  the 
question  between  the  parties  respectively  represented  by  Buchanan 
and  Fremont  ?  Simply  this,  "  Shall  slavery  be  allowed  to  extend 
into  United  States  territories  now  legally  free?"  Buchanan  says 
it  shall,  and  Fremont  says  it  shall  not. 

That  is  the  naked  issue,  and  the  whole  of  it.  Lay  the  respective 
platforms  side  by  side,  and  the  difference  between  them  will  be 
found  to  amount  to  precisely  that.  True,  each  party  charges  upon 
the  other  designs  much  beyond  what  is  involved  in  the  issue  as 
stated ;  but  as  these  charges  cannot  be  fully  proved  either  way,  it  is 
probably  better  to  reject  them  on  both  sides,  and  stick  to  the  naked 
issue  as  it  is  clearly  made  up  on  the  record. 

And  now  to  restate  the  question,  "  Shall  slavery  be  allowed  to 
extend  into  United  States  territories  now  legally  free  VI  beg  to 
know  how  one  side  of  that  question  is  more  sectional  than  the 
other!  Of  course  I  expect  to  effect  nothing  with  the  man  who 
makes  the  charge  of  sectionalism  without  caring  whether  it  is  just 
or  not.  But  of  the  candid,  fair  man  who  has  been  puzzled  with  this 
charge,  I  do  ask  how  is  one  side  of  this  question  more  sectional 
than  the  other  ?  I  beg  of  him  to  consider  well,  and  answer  calmly. 

If  one  side  be  as  sectional  as  the  other,  nothing  is  gained,  as  to 
sectionalism,  by  changing  sides  j  so  that  each  must  choose  sides  of 
the  question  on  some  other  ground,  as  I  should  think,  according  as 
the  one  side  or  the  other  shall  appear  nearest  right.  If  he  shall 
really  think  slavery  ought  to  be  extended,  let  him  go  to  Buchanan ; 
if  he  think  it  ought  not,  let  him  go  to  Fremont. 

But  Fremont  and  Dayton  are  both  residents  of  the  free  States, 
and  this  fact  has  been  vaunted  in  high  places  as  excessive  sectional 
ism.  While  interested  individuals  become  indignant  and  excited 
against  this  manifestation  of  sectionalism,  I  am  very  happy  to  know 
that  the  Constitution  remains  calm  —  keeps  cool — upon  the  subject. 
It  does  say  that  President  and  Vice-President  shall  be  residents  of 
different  States,  but  it  does  not  say  that  one  must  live  in  a  slave 
and  the  other  in  a  free  State. 

It  has  been  a  custom  to  take  one  from  a  slave  and  the  other  from 
a  free  State ;  but  the  custom  has  not  at  all  been  uniform.  In  1828 
General  Jackson  and  Mr.  Calhoun,  both  from  slave  States,  were 
placed  on  the  same  ticket;  and  Mr.  Adams  and  Dr.  Rush,  both  from 
free  States,  were  pitted  against  them.  General  Jackson  and  Mr. 
Calhoun  were  elected,  and  qualified  and  served  under  the  election, 
yet  the  whole  thing  never  suggested  the  idea  of  sectionalism.  In 
1841  the  President,  General  Harrison,  died,  by  which  Mr.  Tyler, 
the  Vice-President  and  a  slave-State  man,  became  President.  Mr. 
Man  gum,  another  slave-State  man,  was  placed  in  the  vice-presiden 
tial  chair,  served  out  the  term,  and  no  fuss  about  it,  no  sectionalism 
thought  of.  In  1853  the  present  President  came  into  office.  He  is 
a  free-State  man.  Mr.  King,  the  new  Vice-President  elect,  was  a 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          223 

slave-State  man  ;  but  he  died  without  entering  on  the  duties  of  his 
office.  At  first  his  vacancy  was  filled  by  Atchison,  another  slave- 
State  man ;  but  he  soon  resigned,  and  the  place  was  supplied  by 
Bright,  a  free-State  man.  So  that  right  now,  and  for  the  half  year 
last  past,  our  President  and  Vice-President  are  both  actually  free- 
State  men.  But  it  is  said  the  friends  of  Fremont  avow  the  purpose 
of  electing  him  exclusively  by  free-State  votes,  and  that  this  is  unen 
durable  sectionalism. 

This  statement  of  fact  is  not  exactly  true.  With  the  friends  of 
Fremont  it  is  an  expected  necessity,  but  it  is  not  an  "  avowed  pur 
pose/'  to  elect  him,  if  at  all,  principally  by  free-State  votes ;  but  it 
is  with  equal  intensity  true  that  Buchanan's  friends  expect  to  elect 
him,  if  at  all,  chiefly  by  slave-State  votes.  Here,  again,  the  section 
alism  is  just  as  much  on  one  side  as  the  other. 

The  thing  which  gives  most  color  to  the  charge  of  sectionalism, 
made  against  those  who  oppose  the  spread  of  slavery  into  free  terri 
tory,  is  the  fact  that  they  can  get  no  votes  in  the  slave  States,  while 
their  opponents  get  all,  or  nearly  so,  in  the  slave  States,  and  also  a 
large  number  in  the  free  States.  To  state  it  in  another  way,  the 
extensionists  can  get  votes  all  over  the  nation,  while  the  restric- 
tionists  can  get  them  only  in  the  free  States. 

This  being  the  fact,  why  is  it  so  ?  It  is  not  because  one  side  of 
the  question  dividing  them  is  more  sectional  than  the  other,  nor 
because  of  any  difference  in  the  mental  or  moral  structure  of  the 
people  North  and  South.  It  is  because  in  that  question  the  people 
of  the  South  have  an  immediate  palpable  and  immensely  great 
pecuniary  interest,  while  with  the  people  of  the  North  it  is  merely 
an  abstract  question  of  moral  right,  with  only  slight  and  remote 
pecuniary  interest  added. 

The  slaves  of  the  South,  at  a  moderate  estimate,  are  worth  a  thou 
sand  millions  of  dollars.  Let  it  be  permanently  settled  that  this 
property  may  extend  to  new  territory  without  restraint,  and  it 
greatly  enhances,  perhaps  quite  doubles,  its  value  at  once.  This  im 
mense  palpable  pecuniary  interest  on  the  question  of  extending  sla 
very  unites  the  Southern  people  as  one  man.  But  it  cannot  be  demon 
strated  that  the  North  will  gain  a  dollar  by  restricting  it.  Moral 
principle  is  all,  or  nearly  all,  that  unites  us  of  the  North.  Pity  7t  is, 
it  is  so,  but  this  is  a  looser  bond  than  pecuniary  interest.  Right 
here  is  the  plain  cause  of  their  perfect  union  and  our  want  of  it. 
And  see  how  it  works.  If  a  Southern  man  aspires  to  be  President, 
they  choke  him  down  instantly,  in  order  that  the  glittering  prize  of 
the  presidency  may  be  held  up  on  Southern  terms  to  the  greedy  eyes 
of  Northern  ambition.  With  this  they  tempt  us  and  break  in  upon  us. 

The  Democratic  party  in  1844  elected  a  Southern  president.  Since 
then  they  have  neither  had  a  Southern  candidate  for  election  nor 
nomination.  Their  conventions  of  1848,  1852  and  1856  have  been 
struggles  exclusively  among  Northern  men,  each  vying  to  outbid 
the  other  for  the  Southern  vote ;  the  South  standing  calmly  by  to 
finally  cry  " Going,  going,  gone"  to  the  highest  bidder,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  make  its  power  more  distinctly  seen,  and  thereby  to 
secure  a  still  higher  bid  at  the  next  succeeding  struggle. 


224          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

"  Actions  speak  louder  than  words  "  is  the  maxim,  and  if  true  the 
South  now  distinctly  says  to  the  North,  "  Give  us  the  measures  and 
you  take  the  men.'5  The  total  withdrawal  of  Southern  aspirants 
for  the  presidency  multiplies  the  number  of  Northern  ones.  These 
last,  in  competing  with  each  other,  commit  themselves  to  the  utmost 
verge  that,  through  their  own  greediness,  they  have  the  least  hope 
their  Northern  supporters  will  bear.  Having  got  committed  in  a 
race  of  competition,  necessity  drives  them  into  union  to  sustain 
themselves.  Each  at  first  secures  all  he  can  on  personal  attach 
ments  to  him  and  through  hopes  resting  on  him  personally.  Next 
they  unite  with  one  another  and  with  the  perfectly  banded  South, 
to  make  the  offensive  position  they  have  got  into  "  a  party  measure." 
This  done,  large  additional  numbers  are  secured. 

When  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  first  proposed, 
at  the  North  there  was  literally  "  nobody  "  in  favor  of  it.  In  Feb 
ruary,  1854,  our  legislature  met  in  called,  or  extra,  session.  From  them 
Douglas  sought  an  indorsement  of  his  then  pending  measure  of  re 
peal.  In  our  legislature  were  about  seventy  Democrats  to  thirty 
Whigs.  The  former  held  a  caucus,  in  which  it  was  resolved  to  give 
Douglas  the  desired  indorsement.  Some  of  the  members  of  the 
caucus  bolted, — would  not  stand  it, — and  they  now  divulge  the 
secrets.  They  say  that  the  caucus  fairly  confessed  that  the  repeal 
was  wrong,  and  they  pleaded  the  determination  to  indorse  it  solely  on 
the  ground  that  it  was  necessary  to  sustain  Douglas.  Here  we  have 
the  direct  evidence  of  how  the  Nebraska  bill  obtained  its  strength 
in  Illinois.  It  was  given,  not  in  a  sense  of  right,  but  in  the  teeth 
of  a  sense  of  wrong,  to  sustain  Douglas.  So  Illinois  was  divided. 
So  New  England  for  Pierce,  Michigan  for  Cass,  Pennsylvania  for 
Buchanan,  and  all  for  the  Democratic  party. 

And  when  by  such  means  they  have  got  a  large  portion  of  the 
Northern  people  into  a  position  contrary  to  their  own  honest  im 
pulses  and  sense  of  right,  they  have  the  impudence  to  turn  upon 
those  who  do  stand  firm,  and  call  them  sectional.  Were  it  not  too 
serious  a  matter,  this  cool  impudence  would  be  laughable,  to  say  the 
least.  Recurring  to  the  question, "  Shall  slavery  be  allowed  to  extend 
into  United  States  territory  now  legally  free?"  This  is  a  sectional 
question — that  is  to  say,  it  is  a  question  in  its  nature  calculated  to 
divide  the  American  people  geographically.  Who  is  to  blame  for  that  ? 
Who  can  help  it  ?  Either  side  can  help  it  ;  but  how  ?  Simply  by  yield 
ing  to  the  other  side;  there  is  no  other  way;  in  the  whole  range  of 
possibility  there  is  no  other  way.  Then,  which  side  shall  yield  ?  To 
this,  again,  there  can  be  but  one  answer, — the  side  which  is  in  the 
wrong.  True,  we  differ  as  to  which  side  is  wrong,  and  we  boldly 
say,  let  all  who  really  think  slavery  ought  to  be  spread  into  free  ter 
ritory,  openly  go  over  against  us ;  there  is  where  they  rightfully  be 
long.  But  why  should  any  go  who  really  think  slavery  ought  not 
to  spread"?  Do  they  really  think  the  right  ought  to  yield  to  the 
wrong  ?  Are  they  afraid  to  stand  by  the  right  ?  Do  they  fear  that 
the  Constitution  is  too  weak  to  sustain  them  in  the  right  ?  Do  they 
really  think  that  by  right  surrendering  to  wrong  the  hopes  of  our 
Constitution,  our  Union,  and  our  liberties  can  possibly  be  bettered  ? 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          225 


December  10,  1856. —  FRAGMENT  OF  SPEECH  AT  A  REPUBLICAN 
BANQUET  IN  CHICAGO. 

We  have  another  annual  presidential  message.  Like  a  rejected 
lover  making  merry  at  the  wedding  of  his  rival,  the  President  felici 
tates  himself  hugely  over  the  late  presidential  election.  He  con 
siders  the  result  a  signal  triumph  of  good  principles  and  good  men, 
and  a  very  pointed  rebuke  of  bad  ones.  He  says  the  people  did  it. 
He  forgets  that  the  "  people,"  as  he  complacently  calls  only  those 
who  voted  for  Buchanan,  are  in  a  minority  of  the  whole  people  by 
about  four  hundred  thousand  votes — one  full  tenth  of  all  the  votes. 
Remembering  this,  he  might  perceive  that  the  "  rebuke  "  may  not  be 
quite  as  durable  as  he  seems  to  think — that  the  majority  may  not 
choose  to  remain  permanently  rebuked  by  that  minority. 

The  President  thinks  the  great  body  of  us  Fremonters,  being 
ardently  attached  to  liberty,  in  the  abstract,  were  duped  by  a  few 
wicked  and  designing  men.  There  is  a  slight  diiference  of  opinion 
on  this.  We  think  he,  being  ardently  attached  to  the  hope  of  a 
second  term,  in  the  concrete,  was  duped  by  men  who  had  liberty 
every  way.  He  is  the  cat's-paw.  By  much  dragging  of  chestnuts 
from  the  fire  for  others  to  eat,  his  claws  are  burnt  off  to  the  gristle, 
and  he  is  thrown  aside  as  unfit  for  further  use.  As  the  fool  said  of 
King  Lear,  when  his  daughters  had  turned  him  out  of  doors,  "  He  7s 
a  shelled  peascod"  ["That 's  a  sheal'd  peascod"]. 

So  far  as  the  President  charges  us  "  with  a  desire  to  change 
the  domestic  institutions  of  existing  States/7  and  of  "  doing  every 
thing  in  our  power  to  deprive  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  of 
moral  authority,"  for  the  whole  party  on  belief,  and  for  myself  on 
knowledge,  I  pronounce  the  charge  an  unmixed  and  unmitigated 
falsehood. 

Our  government  rests  in  public  opinion.  Whoever  can  change 
public  opinion  can  change  the  government  practically  just  so  much. 
Public  opinion,  on  any  subject,  always  has  a  "  central  idea,"  from 
which  all  its  minor  thoughts  radiate.  That  "central  idea"  in  our 
political  public  opinion  at  the  beginning  was,  and  until  recently  has 
continued  to  be,  "  the  equality  of  men."  And  although  it  has  al 
ways  submitted  patiently  to  whatever  of  inequality  there  seemed  to 
be  as  matter  of  actual  necessity,  its  constant  working  has  been  a 
steady  progress  toward  the  practical  equality  of  all  men.  The  late 
presidential  election  was  a  struggle  by  one  party  to  discard  that 
central  idea  and  to  substitute  for  it  the  opposite  idea  that  slavery  is 
right  in  the  abstract,  the  workings  of  which  as  a  central  idea  may 
be  the  perpetuity  of  human  slavery  and  its  extension  to  all  countries 
and  colors.  Less  than  a  year  ago  the  Richmond  "Enquirer,"  an 
avowed  advocate  of  slavery,  regardless  of  color,  in  order  to  favor 
his  views,  invented  the  phrase  "  State  equality,"  and  now  the  Presi 
dent,  in  his  message,  adopts  the  "  Enquirer's  "  catch-phrase,  telling 
us  the  people  "have  asserted  the  constitutional  equality  of  each  and 
all  of  the  States  of  the  Union  as  States."  The  President  flatters 
himself  that  the  new  central  idea  is  completely  inaugurated ;  and  so 
VOL.  I.— 15. 


226          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

indeed  it  is,  so  far  as  the  mere  fact  of  a  presidential  election  can 
inaugurate  it.  To  us  it  is  left  to  know  that  the  majority  of  the 
people  have  not  yet  declared  for  it,  and  to  hope  that  they  never  will. 
All  of  us  who  did  not  vote  for  Mr.  Buchanan,  taken  together,  are  a 
majority  of  four  hundred  thousand.  But  in  the  late  contest  we  were 
divided  between  Fremont  and  Fillmore.  Can  we  not  come  together 
for  the  future  ?  Let  every  one  who  really  believes,  and  is  resolved, 
that  free  society  is  not  and  shall  not  be  a  failure,  and  who  can  con 
scientiously  declare  that  in  the  past  contest  he  has  done  only  what 
he  thought  best — let  every  such  one  have  charity  to  believe  that 
every  other  one  can  say  as  much.  Thus  let  bygones  be  bygones  ; 
let  past  differences  as  nothing  be  j  and  with  steady  eye  on  the  real 
issue,  let  us  reinaugurate  the  good  old  "  central  ideas "  of  the  re 
public.  We  can  do  it.  The  hum  an 'heart  is  with  us  ;  God  is  with 
us.  We  shall  again  be  able  not  to  declare  that  "  all  States  as  States 
are  equal,"  nor  yet  that  "all  citizens  as  citizens  are  equal,"  but  to 
renew  the  broader,  better  declaration,  including  both  these  and 
much  more,  that  "  all  men  are  created  equal." 

June  26,  1857. —  SPEECH  IN  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS. 

Fellow-citizens  :  I  am  here  to-night,  partly  by  the  invitation  of 
some  of  you,  and  partly  by  my  own  inclination.  Two  weeks  ago 
Judge  Douglas  spoke  here  on  the  several  subjects  of  Kansas,  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  and  Utah.  I  listened  to  the  speech  at  the  time, 
and  have  the  report  of  it  since.  It  was  intended  to  controvert 
opinions  which  I  think  just,  and  to  assail  (politically,  not  personally) 
those  men  who,  in  common  with  me,  entertain  those  opinions.  For 
this  reason  I  wished  then,  and  still  wish,  to  make  some  answer  to  it, 
which  I  now  take  the  opportunity  of  doing. 

I  begin  with  Utah.  If  it  prove  to  be  true,  as  is  probable,  that  the 
people  of  Utah  are  in  open  rebellion  to  the  United  States,  then 
Judge  Douglas  is  in  favor  of  repealing  their  territorial  organiza 
tion,  and  attaching  them  to  the  adjoining  States  for  judicial  pur 
poses.  I  say,  too,  if  they  are  in  rebellion,  they  ought  to  be  some 
how  coerced  to  obedience ;  and  I  am  not  now  prepared  to  admit  or 
deny  that  the  judge's  mode  of  coercing  them  is  not  as  good  as  any. 
The  Republicans  can  fall  in  with  it  without  taking  back  anything 
they  have  ever  said.  To  be  sure,  it  would  be  a  considerable  back 
ing  down  by  Judge  Douglas  from  his  much-vaunted  doctrine  of 
self-government  for  the  Territories ;  but  this  is  only  additional 
proof  of  what  was  very  plain  from  the  beginning,  that  that  doctrine 
was  a  mere  deceitful  pretense  for  the  benefit  of  slavery.  Those 
who  could  not  see  that  much  in  the  Nebraska  act  itself,  which  forced 
governors,  and  secretaries,  and  judges  on  the  people  of  the  Terri 
tories  without  their  choice  or  consent,  could  not  be  made  to  see, 
though  one  should  rise  from  the  dead. 

But  in  all  this,  it  is  very  plain  the  judge  evades  the  only  question 
the  Republicans  have  ever  pressed  upon  the  Democracy  in  regard 
to  Utah.  That  question  the  judge  well  knew  to  be  this :  "  If  the 
people  of  Utah  shall  peacefully  form  a  State  constitution  tolerating 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          227 

polygamy,  will  the  Democracy  admit  them  into  the  Union  ?  "  There 
is  nothing  in  the  United  States  Constitution  or  law  against  polyg 
amy  ;  and  why  is  it  not  a  part  of  the  judge's  "  sacred  right  of  self- 
government  "  for  the  people  to  have  it,  or  rather  to  keep  it,  if  they 
choose  ?  These  questions,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  judge  never  answers. 
It  might  involve  the  Democracy  to  answer  them  either  way,  and 
they  go  unanswered. 

As  to  Kansas.  The  substance  of  the  judge's  speech  on  Kansas  is 
an  effort  to  put  the  free-State  men  in  the  wrong  for  not  voting  at 
the  election  of  delegates  to  the  constitutional  convention.  He  says : 
"  There  is  every  reason  to  hope  and  believe  that  the  law  will  be  fairly 
interpreted  and  impartially  executed,  so  as  to  insure  to  every  bona 
fide  inhabitant  the  free  and  quiet  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise." 

It  appears  extraordinary  that  Judge  Douglas  should  make  such  a 
statement.  He  knows  that,  by  the  law,  no  one  can  vote  who  has 
not  been  registered ;  and  he  knows  that  the  free-State  men  place 
their  refusal  to  vote  on  the  ground  that  but  few  of  them  have  been 
registered.  It  is  possible  that  this  is  not  true,  but  Judge  Douglas 
knows  it  is  asserted  to  be  true  in  letters,  newspapers,  and  public 
speeches,  and  borne  by  every  mail  and  blown  by  every  breeze  to 
the  eyes  and  ears  of  the  world.  He  knows  it  is  boldly  declared  that 
the  people  of  many  whole  counties,  and  many  whole  neighborhoods 
in  others,  are  left  unregistered;  yet  he  does  not  venture  to  con 
tradict  the  declaration,  or  to  point  out  how  they  can  vote  without 
being  registered  j  but  he  just  slips  along,  not  seeming  to  know  there 
is  any  such  question  of  fact,  and  complacently  declares :  "  There  is 
every  reason  to  hope  and  believe  that  the  law  will  be  fairly  and  im 
partially  executed,  so  as  to  insure  to  every  bona  fide  inhabitant  the 
free  and  quiet  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise." 

I  readily  agree  that  if  all  had  a  chance  to  vote,  they  ought  to  have 
voted.  If,  on  the  contrary,  as  they  allege,  and  Judge  Douglas 
ventures  not  to  particularly  contradict,  few  only  of  the  free-State 
men  had  a  chance  to  vote,  they  were  perfectly  right  in  staying  from 
the  polls  in  a  body. 

By  the  way,  since  the  judge  spoke,  the  Kansas  election  has  come 
off.  The  judge  expressed  his  confidence  that  all  the  Democrats  in 
Kansas  would  do  their  duty — including  "  free-State  Democrats,"  of 
course.  The  returns  received  here  as  yet  are  very  incomplete ;  but 
so  far  as  they  go,  they  indicate  that  only  about  one  sixth  of  the  re 
gistered  voters  have  really  voted  ;  and  this,  too,  when  not  more,  per 
haps,  than  one  half  of  the  rightful  voters  have  been  registered,  thus 
showing  the  thing  to  have  been  altogether  the  most  exquisite  farce 
ever  enacted.  I  am  watching  with  considerable  interest  to  ascer 
tain  what  figure  "the  free-State  Democrats7'  cut  in  the  concern. 
Of  course  they  voted, —  all  Democrats  do  their  duty, —  and  of  course 
they  did  not  vote  for  slave-State  candidates.  We  soon  shall  know 
how  many  delegates  they  elected,  how  many  candidates  they  had 
pledged  to  a  free  State,  and  how  many  votes  were  cast  for  them. 

Allow  me  to  barely  whisper  my  suspicion  that  there  were  no  such 
things  in  Kansas  as  "free-State  Democrats" — that  they  were  alto 
gether  mythical,  good  only  to  figure  in  newspapers  and  speeches  in 


228          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

the  free  States.  If  there  should  prove  to  be  one  real  living  free- 
State  Democrat  in  Kansas,  I  suggest  that  it  might  be  well  to  catch 
him,  and  stuff  and  preserve  his  skin  as  an  interesting  specimen  of 
that  soon-to-be-extinct  variety  of  the  genus  Democrat. 

And  now  as  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  That  decision  declares 
two  propositions — first,  that  a  negro  cannot  sue  in  the  United  States 
courts  5  and  secondly,  that  Congress  cannot  prohibit  slavery  in  the 
Territories.  It  was  made  by  a  divided  court — dividing  differently 
on  the  different  points.  Judge  Douglas  does  not  discuss  the  merits 
of  the  decision,  and  in  that  respect  I  shall  follow  his  example,  be 
lieving  I  could  no  more  improve  on  McLean  and  Curtis  than  he 
could  on  Taney. 

He  denounces  all  who  question  the  correctness  of  that  decision, 
as  offering  violent  resistance  to  it.  But  who  resists  it?  Who  has, 
in  spite  of  the  decision,  declared  Dred  Scott  free,  and  resisted  the 
authority  of  his  master  over  him  ? 

Judicial  decisions  have  two  uses — first,  to  absolutely  determine 
the  case  decided;  and  secondly,  to  indicate  to  the  public  how  other 
similar  cases  will  be  decided  when  they  arise.  For  the  latter  use, 
they  are  called  "  precedents  "  and  "  authorities." 

We  believe  as  much  as  Judge  Douglas  (perhaps  more)  in  obedi 
ence  to,  and  respect  for,  the  judicial  department  of  government. 
We  think  its  decisions  on  constitutional  questions,  when  fully  set 
tled,  should  control  not  only  the  particular  cases  decided,  but  the 
general  policy  of  the  country,  subject  to  be  disturbed  only  by 
amendments  of  the  Constitution  as  provided  in  that  instrument  it 
self.  More  than  this  would  be  revolution.  But  we  think  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  is  erroneous.  We  know  the  court  that  made  it  has 
often  overruled  its  own  decisions,  and  we  shall  do  what  we  can  to 
have  it  to  overrule  this.  We  offer  no  resistance  to  it. 

Judicial  decisions  are  of  greater  or  less  authority  as  precedents 
according  to  circumstances.  That  this  should  be  so  accords  both 
with  common  sense  and  the  customary  understanding  of  the  legal 
profession. 

If  this  important  decision  had  been  made  by  the  unanimous  con 
currence  of  the  judges,  and  without  any  apparent  partizan  bias,  and 
in  accordance  with  legal  public  expectation  and  with  the  steady 
practice  of  the  departments  throughout  our  history,  and  had  been 
in  no  part  based  on  assumed  historical  facts  which  are  not  really 
true  j  or,  if  wanting  in  some  of  these,  it  had  been  before  the  court 
more  than  once,  and  had  there  been  affirmed  and  reaffirmed  through 
a  course  of  years,  it  then  might  be,  perhaps  would  be,  factious,  nay, 
even  revolutionary,  not  to  acquiesce  in  it  as  a  precedent. 

But  when,  as  is  true,  we  find  it  wanting  in  all  these  claims  to  the 
public  confidence,  it  is  not  resistance,  it  is  not  factious,  it  is  not  even 
disrespectful,  to  treat  it  as  not  having  yet  quite  established  a  settled 
doctrine  for  the  country.  But  Judge  Douglas  considers  this  view 
awful.  Hear  him : 

The  courts  are  the  tribunals  prescribed  by  the  Constitution  and  created 
by  the  authority  of  the  people  to  determine,  expound,  and  enforce  the  law. 
Hence,  whoever  resists  the  final  decision  of  the  highest  judicial  tribunal 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN         229 

aims  a  deadly  blow  at  our  whole  republican  system  of  government  —  a 
blow  which,  if  successful,  would  place  all  our  rights  and  liberties  at  the 
mercy  of  passion,  anarchy,  and  violence.  I  repeat,  therefore,  that  if  re 
sistance  to  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  in  a 
matter  like  the  points  decided  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  clearly  within  their 
jurisdiction  as  denned  by  the  Constitution,  shall  be  forced  upon  the  country 
as  a  political  issue,  it  will  become  a  distinct  and  naked  issue  between  the 
friends  and  enemies  of  the  Constitution — the  friends  and  the  enemies  of  the 
supremacy  of  the  laws. 

Why,  this  same  Supreme  Court  once  decided  a  national  bank  to  be 
constitutional;  but  General  Jackson,  as  President  of  the  United 
States,  disregarded  the  decision,  and  vetoed  a  bill  for  a  recharter, 
partly  on  constitutional  ground  declaring  that  each  public  function 
ary  must  support  the  Constitution,  "  as  he  understands  it.'7  But  hear 
the  general's  own  words.  Here  they  are,  taken  from  his  veto  message : 

It  is  maintained  by  the  advocates  of  the  bank,  that  its  constitutionality, 
in  all  its  features,  ought  to  be  considered  as  settled  by  precedent,  and  by 
the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court.  To  this  conclusion  I  cannot  assent. 
Mere  precedent  is  a  dangerous  source  of  authority,  and  should  not  be  re 
garded  as  deciding  questions  of  constitutional  power,  except  where  the 
acquiescence  of  the  people  and  the  States  can  be  considered  as  well  settled. 
So  far  from  this  being  the  case  on  this  subject,  an  argument  against  the 
bank  might  be  based  on  precedent.  One  Congress,  in  1791,  decided  in  fa 
vor  of  a  bank  ;  another,  in  1811,  decided  against  it.  One  Congress,  in  1815, 
decided  against  a  bank  ;  another,  in  1816,  decided  in  its  favor.  Prior  to 
the  present  Congress,  therefore,  the  precedents  drawn  from  that  source 
were  equal.  If  we  resort  to  the  States,  the  expressions  of  legislative, 
judicial,  and  executive  opinions  against  the  bank  have  been  probably  to 
those  in  its  favor  as  four  to  one.  There  is  nothing  in  precedent,  therefore, 
which,  if  its  authority  were  admitted,  ought  to  weigh  in  favor  of  the  act 
before  me. 

I  drop  the  quotations  merely  to  remark  that  all  there  ever  was  in 
the  way  of  precedent  up  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  on  the  points 
therein  decided,  had  been  against  that  decision.  But  hear  General 
Jackson  further : 

If  the  opinion  of  the  Supreme  Court  covered  the  whole  ground  of  this 
act,  it  ought  not  to  control  the  coordinate  authorities  of  this  government. 
The  Congress,  the  executive,  and  the  court  must,  each  for  itself,  be  guided 
by  its  own  opinion  of  the  Constitution.  Each  public  officer  who  takes  an 
oath  to  support  the  Constitution  swears  that  he  wiU  support  it  as  he  under 
stands  it,  and  not  as  it  is  understood  by  others. 

Again  and  again  have  I  heard  Judge  Douglas  denounce  that  bank 
decision  and  applaud  General  Jackson  for  disregarding  it.  It  would 
be  interesting  for  him  to  look  over  his  recent  speech,  and  see  how 
exactly  his  fierce  philippics  against  us  for  resisting  Supreme  Court 
decisions  fall  upon  his  own  head.  It  will  call  to  mind  a  long 
and  fierce  political  war  in  this  country,  upon  an  issue  which,  in  his 
own  language,  and,  of  course,  in  his  own  changeless  estimation,  was 
"  a  distinct  issue  between  the  friends  and  the  enemies  of  the  Consti 
tution,"  and  in  which  war  he  fought  in  the  ranks  of  the  enemies  of 
the  Constitution. 


230          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

I  have  said,  in  substance,  that  the  Dred  Scott  decision  was  in  part 
based  on  assumed  historical  facts  which  were  not  really  true,  and  I 
ought  not  to  leave  the  subject  without  giving  some  reasons  for  say 
ing  this;  I  therefore  give  an  instance  or  two,  which  I  think  fully 
sustain  me.  Chief  Justice  Taney,  in  delivering  the  opinion  of  the 
majority  of  the  court,  insists  at  great  length  that  negroes  were 
no  part  of  the  people  who  made,  or  for  whom  was  made,  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  or  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

On  the  contrary,  Judge  Curtis,  in  his  dissenting  opinion,  shows 
that  in  five  of  the  then  thirteen  States — to  wit,  New  Hampshire, 
Massachusetts,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  North  Carolina — free 
negroes  were  voters,  and  in  proportion  to  their  numbers  had  the 
same  part  in  making  the  Constitution  that  the  white  people  had. 
He  shows  this  with  so  much  particularity  as  to  leave  no  doubt  of 
its  truth ;  and  as  a  sort  of  conclusion  on  that  point,  holds  the  fol 
lowing  language : 

The  Constitution  was  ordained  and  established  by  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  through  the  action,  in  each  State,  of  those  persons  who  were 
qualified  by  its  laws  to  act  thereon  in  behalf  of  themselves  and  all  other  citi 
zens  of  the  State.  In  some  of  the  States,  as  we  have  seen,  colored  persons 
were  among  those  qualified  by  law  to  act  on  the  subject.  These  colored 
persons  were  not  only  included  in  the  body  of  "the  people  of  the  United 
States  "  by  whom  the  Constitution  was  ordained  and  established ;  but  in  at 
least  five  of  the  States  they  had  the  power  to  act,  and  doubtless  did  act,  by 
their  suffrages,  upon  the  question  of  its  adoption. 

Again,  Chief  Justice  Taney  says : 

It  is  difficult  at  this  day  to  realize  the  state  of  public  opinion,  in  relation 
to  that  unfortunate  race,  which  prevailed  in  the  civilized  and  enlightened 
portions  of  the  world  at  the  time  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and 
when  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  framed  and  adopted. 

And  again,  after  quoting  from  the  Declaration,  he  says  : 

The  general  words  above  quoted  would  seem  to  include  the  whole  hu 
man  family,  and  if  they  were  used  in  a  similar  instrument  at  this  day, 
would  be  so  understood. 

In  these  the  Chief  Justice  does  not  directly  assert,  but  plainly  as 
sumes,  as  a  fact,  that  the  public  estimate  of  the  black  man  is  more 
favorable  now  than  it  was  in  the  days  of  the  Revolution.  This  as 
sumption  is  a  mistake.  In  some  trifling  particulars  the  condition  of 
that  race  has  been  ameliorated ;  but  as  a  whole,  in  this  country,  the 
change  between  then  and  now  is  decidedly  the  other  way;  and  their 
ultimate  destiny  has  never  appeared  so  hopeless  as  in  the  last  three 
or  four  years.  In  two  of  the  five  States — New  Jersey  and  North 
Carolina — that  then  gave  the  free  negro  the  right  of  voting,  the 
right  has  since  been  taken  away,  and  in  a  third — New  York — it 
has  been  greatly  abridged ;  while  it  has  not  been  extended,  so  far  as 
I  know,  to  a  single  additional  State,  though  the  number  of  the  States 
has  more  than  doubled.  In  those  days,  as  I  understand,  masters 
could,  at  their  own  pleasure,  emancipate  their  slaves  ;  but  since  then 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          231 

such  legal  restraints  have  been  made  upon  emancipation  as  to 
amount  almost  to  prohibition.  In  those  days  legislatures  held  the 
unquestioned  power  to  abolish  slavery  in  their  respective  States,  but 
now  it  is  becoming  quite  fashionable  for  State  constitutions  to  with 
hold  that  power  from  the  legislatures.  In  those  days,  by  common 
consent,  the  spread  of  the  black  man's  bondage  to  the  new  countries 
was  prohibited,  but  now  Congress  decides  that  it  will  not  continue 
the  prohibition,  and  the  Supreme  Court  decides  that  it  could  not  if 
it  would.  In  those  days  our  Declaration  of  Independence  was  held 
sacred  by  all,  and  thought  to  include  all;  but  now,  to  aid  in  making 
the  bondage  of  the  negro  universal  and  eternal,  it  is  assailed  and 
sneered  at  and  construed,  and  hawked  at  and  torn,  till,  if  its  f ramers 
could  rise  from  their  graves,  they  could  not  at  all  recognize  it.  All 
the  powers  of  earth.seem  rapidly  combining  against  him.  Mammon 
is  after  him,  ambition  follows,  philosophy  follows,  and  the  theology 
of  the  day  is  fast  joining  the  cry.  They  have  him  in  his  prison- 
house  ;  they  have  searched  his  person,  and  left  no  prying  instrument 
with  him.  One  after  another  they  have  closed  the  heavy  iron  doors 
upon  him ;  and  now  they  have  him,  as  it  were,  bolted  in  with  a 
lock  of  a  hundred  keys,  which  can  never  be  unlocked  without  the 
concurrence  of  every  key — the  keys  in  the  hands  of  a  hundred  differ 
ent  men,  and  they  scattered  to  a  hundred  different  and  distant 
places;  and  they  stand  musing  as  to  what  invention,  in  all  the  do 
minions  of  mind  and  matter,  can  be  produced  to  make  the  impossi 
bility  of  his  escape  more  complete  than  it  is. 

It  is  grossly  incorrect  to  say  or  assume  that  the  public  estimate 
of  the  negro  is  more  favorable  now  than  it  was  at  the  origin  of  the 
government. 

Three  years  and  a  half  ago,  Judge  Douglas  brought  forward  his 
famous  Nebraska  bill.  The  country  was  at  once  in  a  blaze.  He 
scorned  all  opposition,  and  carried  it  through  Congress.  Since  then 
he  has  seen  himself  superseded  in  a  presidential  nomination  by  one 
indorsing  the  general  doctrine  of  his  measure,  but  at  the  same  time 
standing  clear  of  the  odium  of  its  untimely  agitation  and  its  gross 
breach  of  national  faith ;  and  he  has  seen  that  successful  rival  con 
stitution  ally  elected,  not  by  the  strength  of  friends,  but  by  the  divis 
ion  of  adversaries,  being  in  a  popular  minority  of  nearly  four  hundred 
thousand  votes.  He  has  seen  his  chief  aids  in  his  own  State,  Shields 
and  Richardson,  politically  speaking,  successively  tried,  convicted, 
and  executed  for  an  offense  not  their  own,  but  his.  And  now  he 
sees  his  own  case  standing  next  on  the  docket  for  trial. 

There  is  a  natural  disgust  in  the  minds  of  nearly  all  white  people 
at  the  idea  of  an  indiscriminate  amalgamation  of  the  white  and  black 
races;  and  Judge  Douglas  evidently  is  basing  his  chief  hope  upon 
the  chances  of  his  being  able  to  appropriate  the  benefit  of  this  dis 
gust  to  himself.  If  he  can,  by  much  drumming  and  repeating,  fasten 
the  odium  of  that  idea  upon  his  adversaries,  he  thinks  he  can  struggle 
through  the  storm.  He  therefore  clings  to  this  hope,  as  a  drowning 
man  to  the  last  plank.  He  makes  an  occasion  for  lugging  it  in  from 
the  opposition  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  He  finds  the  Republicans 
insisting  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  includes  all  men, 


232          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

black  as  well  as  white,  and  forthwith  he  boldly  denies  that  it  includes 
negroes  at  all,  and  proceeds  to  argue  gravely  that  all  who  contend  it 
does,  do  so  only  because  they  want  to  vote,  and  eat,  and  sleep,  and 
marry  with  negroes!  He  will  have  it  that  they  cannot  be  consistent 
else.  Now  I  protest  against  the  counterfeit  logic  which  concludes 
that,  because  I  do  not  want  a  black  woman  for  a  slave  I  must  neces 
sarily  want  her  for  a  wife.  I  need  not  have  her  for  either.  I  can  just 
leave  her  alone.  In  some  respects  she  certainly  is  not  my  equal;  but 
in  her  natural  right  to  eat  the  bread  she  earns  with  her  own  hands 
without  asking  leave  of  any  one  else,  she  is  my  equal,  and  the  equal 
of  all  others. 

Chief  Justice  Taney,  in  his  opinion  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  admits 
that  the  language  of  the  Declaration  is  broad  enough  to  include  the 
whole  human  family,  but  he  and  Judge  Douglas  argue  that  the  au 
thors  of  that  instrument  did  not  intend  to  include  negroes,  by  the 
fact  that  they  did  not  at  once  actually  place  them  on  an  equality  with 
the  whites.  Now  this  grave  argument  comes  to  just  nothing  at  all, 
by  the  other  fact  that  they  did  not  at  once,  or  ever  afterward,  actu 
ally  place  all  white  people  on  an  equality  with  one  another.  And 
this  is  the  staple  argument  of  both  the  chief  justice  and  the  senator 
for  doing  this  obvious  violence  to  the  plain,  unmistakable  language 
of  the  Declaration. 

1  think  the  authors  of  that  notable  instrument  intended  to  include 
all  men,  but  they  did  not  intend  to  declare  all  men  equal  in  all  re 
spects.  They  did  not  mean  to  say  all  were  equal  in  color,  size,  intel 
lect,  moral  developments,  or  social  capacity.  They  denned  with 
tolerable  distinctness  in  what  respects  they  did  consider  all  men 
created  equal —  equal  with  "  certain  inalienable  rights,  among  which 
are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  This  they  said,  and 
this  they  meant.  They  did  not  mean  to  assert  the  obvious  untruth 
that  all  were  then  actually  enjoying  that  equality,  nor  yet  that  they 
were  about  to  confer  it  immediately  upon  them.  In  fact,  they  had 
no  power  to  confer  such  a  boon.  They  meant  simply  to  declare  the 
right,  so  that  enforcement  of  it  might  follow  as  fast  as  circumstances 
should  permit. 

They  meant  to  set  up  a  standard  maxim  for  free  society,  which 
should  be  familiar  to  all,  and  revered  by  all  5  constantly  looked  to, 
constantly  labored  for,  and  even  though  never  perfectly  attained, 
constantly  approximated,  and  thereby  constantly  spreading  and 
deepening  its  influence  and  augmenting  the  happiness  and  value  of 
life  to  all  people  of  all  colors  everywhere.  The  assertion  that  "  all 
men  are  created  equal"  was  of  no  practical  use  in  effecting  our  sepa 
ration  from  Great  Britain ;  and  it  was  placed  in  the  Declaration  not 
for  that,  but  for  future  use.  Its  authors  meant  it  to  be  —  as,  thank 
God,  it  is  now  proving  itself — a  stumbling-block  to  all  those  who 
in  after  times  might  seek  to  turn  a  free  people  back  into  the  hateful 
paths  of  despotism.  They  knew  the  proneness  of  prosperity  to  breed 
tyrants,  and  they  meant  when  such  should  reappear  in  this  fair  land 
and  commence  their  vocation,  they  should  find  left  for  them  at  least 
one  hard  nut  to  crack. 

I  have  now  briefly  expressed  my  view  of  the  meaning  and  object 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN          233 

of  that  part  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  which  declares  that 
"all  men  are  created  equal." 

Now  let  us  hear  Judge  Douglas's  view  of  the  same  subject,  as  I 
find  it  in  the  printed  report  of  his  late  speech.  Here  it  is : 

No  man  can  vindicate  the  character,  motives,  and  conduct  of  the  signers 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  except  upon  the  hypothesis  that  they 
referred  to  the  white  race  alone,  and  not  to  the  African,  when  they  de 
clared  all  men  to  have  been  created  equal;  that  they  were  speaking  of 
British  subjects  on  this  continent  being  equal  to  British  subjects  born  and 
residing  in  Great  Britain ;  that  they  were  entitled  to  the  same  inalienable 
rights,  and  among  them  were  enumerated  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness.  The  Declaration  was  adopted  for  the  purpose  of  justifying  the 
colonists  in  the  eyes  of  the  civilized  world  in  withdrawing  their  alle 
giance  from  the  British  crown,  and  dissolving  their  connection  with  the 
mother  country. 

My  good  friends,  read  that  carefully  over  some  leisure  hour,  and 
ponder  well  upon  it;  see  what  a  mere  wreck — mangled  ruin  —  it 
makes  of  our  once  glorious  Declaration. 

"They  were  speaking  of  British  subjects  on  this  continent  being 
equal  to  British  subjects  born  and  residing  in  Great  Britain  ! "  Why, 
according  to  this,  not  only  negroes  but  white  people  outside  of  Great 
Britain  and  America  were  not  spoken  of  in  that  instrument.  The 
English,  Irish,  and  Scotch,  along  with  white  Americans,  were  included, 
to  be  sure,  but  the  French,  Germans,  and  other  white  people  of  the 
world  are  all  gone  to  pot  along  with  the  judge's  inferior  races ! 

I  had  thought  the  Declaration  promised  something  better  than  the 
condition  of  British  subjects;  but  no,  it  only  meant  that  we  should 
be  equal  to  them  in  their  own  oppressed  and  unequal  condition.  Ac 
cording  to  that,  it  gave  no  promise  that,  having  kicked  off  the  king 
and  lords  of  Great  Britain,  we  should  not  at  once  be  saddled  with  a 
king  and  lords  of  our  own. 

I  had  thought  the  Declaration  contemplated  the  progressive  im 
provement  in  the  condition  of  all  men  everywhere  j  but  no,  it  merely 
"  was  adopted  for  the  purpose  of  justifying  the  colonists  in  the 
eyes  of  the  civilized  world  in  withdrawing  their  allegiance  from  the 
British  crown,  and  dissolving  their  connection  with  the  mother 
country."  Why,  that  object  having  been  effected  some  eighty  years 
ago,  the  Declaration  is  of  no  practical  use  now — mere  rubbish — old 
wadding  left  to  rot  on  the  battle-field  after  the  victory  is  won. 

I  understand  you  are  preparing  to  celebrate  the  "Fourth,"  to 
morrow  week.  What  for!  The  doings  of  that  day  had  no  reference 
to  the  present ;  and  quite  half  of  you  are  not  even  descendants  of 
those  who  were  referred  to  at  that  day.  But  I  suppose  you  will  cele 
brate,  and  will  even  go  so  far  as  to  read  the  Declaration.  Suppose, 
after  you  read  it  once  in  the  old-fashioned  way,  you  read  it  once 
more  with  Judge  Douglas's  version.  It  will  then  run  thus:  "We 
hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  all  British  subjects  who  were 
on  this  continent  eighty-one  years  ago,  were  created  equal  to  all  Brit 
ish  subjects  born  and  then  residing  in  Great  Britain." 

And  now  I  appeal  to  all — to  Democrats  as  well  as  others  — are  you 
really  willing  that  the  Declaration  shall  thus  be  frittered  away*!  — 


234          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

thus  left  no  more,  at  most,  than  an  interesting  memorial  of  the 
dead  past? — thus  shorn  of  its  vitality  and  practical  value,  and  left 
without  the  germ  or  even  the  suggestion  of  the  individual  rights  of 
man  in  it  ? 

But  Judge  Douglas  is  especially  horrified  at  the  thought  of  the 
mixing  of  blood  by  the  white  and  black  races.  Agreed  for  once  — 
a  thousand  times  agreed.  There  are  white  men  enough  to  marry 
all  the  white  women,  and  black  men  enough  to  marry  all  the  black 
women  ;  and  so  let  them  be  married.  On  this  point  we  fully  agree 
with  the  judge,  and  when  he  shall  show  that  his  policy  is  better 
adapted  to  prevent  amalgamation  than  ours,  we  shall  drop  ours  and 
adopt  his.  Let  us  see.  In  1850  there  were  in  the  United  States 
405,751  mulattos.  Very  few  of  these  are  the  offspring  of  whites  and 
free  blacks;  nearly  all  have  sprung  from  black  slaves  and  white 
masters.  A  separation  of  the  races  is  the  only  perfect  preventive  of 
amalgamation  •  but  as  an  immediate  separation  is  impossible,  the 
next  best  thing  is  to  keep  them  apart  where  they  are  not  already  to 
gether.  If  white  and  black  people  never  get  together  in  Kansas,  they 
will  never  mix  blood  in  Kansas.  That  is  at  least  one  self-evident 
truth.  A  few  free  colored  persons  may  get  into  the  free  States,  in 
any  event  j  but  their  number  is  too  insignificant  to  amount  to  much 
in  the  way  of  mixing  blood.  In  1850  there  were  in  the  free  States 
56,649  mulattos;  but  for  the  most  part  they  were  not  born  there — 
they  came  from  the  slave  States,  ready  made  up.  In  the  same  year 
the  slave  States  had  348,874  mulattos,  all  of  home  production.  The 
proportion  of  free  mulattos  to  free  blacks — the  only  colored  classes 
in  the  free  States  —  is  much  greater  in  the  slave  than  in  the  free 
States.  It  is  worthy  of  note,  too,  that  among  the  free  States  those 
which  make  the  colored  man  the  nearest  equal  to  the  white  have 
proportionably  the  fewest  mulattos,  the  least  of  amalgamation.  In 
New  Hampshire,  the  State  which  goes  farthest  toward  equality  be 
tween  the  races,  there  are  just  184  mulattos,  while  there  are  in  Vir 
ginia — how  many  do  you  think! — 79,775,  being  23,126  more  than  in 
all  the  free  States  together. 

These  statistics  show  that  slavery  is  the  greatest  source  of  amal 
gamation,  and  next  to  it,  not  the  elevation,  but  the  degradation  of  the 
free  blacks.  Yet  Judge  Douglas  dreads  the  slightest  restraints  on 
the  spread  of  slavery,  and  the  slightest  human  recognition  of  the 
negro,  as  tending  horribly  to  amalgamation. 

The  very  Dred  Scott  case  affords  a  strong  test  as  to  which  party 
most  favors  amalgamation,  the  Republicans  or  the  dear  Union-sav 
ing  Democracy.  Dred  Scott,  his  wife,  and  two  daughters  were  all 
involved  in  the  suit.  We  desired  the  court  to  have  held  that  they  were 
citizens  so  far  at  least  as  to  entitle  them  to  a  hearing  as  to  whether 
they  were  free  or  not;  and  then,  also,  that  they  were  in  fact  and  in 
law  really  free.  Could  we  have  had  our  way,  the  chances  of  these 
black  girls  ever  mixing  their  blood  with  that  of  white  people  would 
have  been  diminished  at  least  to  the  extent  that  it  could  not  have 
been  without  their  consent.  But  Judge  Douglas  is  delighted  to  have 
them  decided  to  be  slaves,  and  not  human  enough  to  have  a  hearing, 
even  if  they  were  free,  and  thus  left  subject  to  the  forced  concubinage 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          235 

of  their  masters,  and  liable  to  become  the  mothers  of  mulattos  iu 
spite  of  themselves :  the  very  state  of  case  that  produces  nine  tenths 
of  all  the  mulattos — all  the  mixing  of  blood  in  the  nation. 

Of  course,  I  state  this  case  as  an  illustration  only,  not  meaning  to 
say  or  intimate  that  the  master  of  Dred  Scott  and  his  family,  or  any 
more  than  a  percentage  of  masters  generally,  are  inclined  to  exer 
cise  this  particular  power  which  they  hold  over  their  female  slaves. 

I  have  said  that  the  separation  of  the  races  is  the  only  perfect 
preventive  of  amalgamation.  I  have  no  right  to  say  all  the  mem 
bers  of  the  Republican  party  are  in  favor  of  this,  nor  to  say  that  as 
a  party  they  are  in  favor  of  it.  There  is  nothing  in  their  platform 
directly  on  the  subject.  But  I  can  say  a  very  large  proportion  of 
its  members  are  for  it,  and  that  the  chief  plank  in  their  platform 
— opposition  to  the  spread  of  slavery — is  most  favorable  to  that 
separation. 

Such  separation,  if  ever  effected  at  all,  must  be  effected  by  colon 
ization;  and  no  political  party,  as  such,  is  now  doing  anything 
directly  for  colonization.  Party  operations  at  present  only  favor  or 
retard  colonization  incidentally.  The  enterprise  is  a  difficult  one; 
but  "  where  there  is  a  will  there  is  a  way,"  and  what  colonization 
needs  most  is  a  hearty  will.  Will  springs  from  the  two  elements  of 
moral  sense  and  self-interest.  Let  us  be  brought  to  believe  it  is 
morally  right,  and  at  the  same  time  favorable  to,  or  at  least  not 
against,  our  interest  to  transfer  the  African  to  his  native  clime,  and 
we  shall  find  a  way  to  do  it,  however  great  the  task  may  be.  The 
children  of  Israel,  to  such  numbers  as  to  include  four  hundred 
thousand  fighting  men,  went  out  of  Egyptian  bondage  in  a  body. 

How  differently  the  respective  courses  of  the  Democratic  and  Re 
publican  parties  incidentally  bear  on  the  question  of  forming  a  will 
—  a  public  sentiment — for  colonization,  is  easy  to  see.  The  Repub 
licans  inculcate,  with  whatever  of  ability  they  can,  that  the  negro  is 
a  man,  that  his  bondage  is  cruelly  wrong,  and  that  the  field  of  his 
oppression  ought  not  to  be  enlarged.  The  Democrats  deny  his 
manhood ;  deny,  or  dwarf  to  insignificance,  the  wrong  of  his  bon 
dage  ;  so  far  as  possible,  crush  all  sympathy  for  him,  and  cultivate 
and  excite  hatred  and  disgust  against  him ;  compliment  themselves 
as  Union-savers  for  doing  so ;  and  call  the  indefinite  outspreading 
of  his  bondage  "  a  sacred  right  of  self-government." 

The  plainest  print  cannot  be  read  through  a  gold  eagle ;  and  it 
will  be  ever  hard  to  find  many  men  who  will  send  a  slave  to  Liberia, 
and  pay  his  passage,  while  they  can  send  him  to  a  new  country— 
Kansas,  for  instance  —  and  sell  him  for  fifteen  hundred  dollars,  and 
the  rise. 

April  26,  1858. — LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

URBANA,  ILLINOIS,  April  26,  1858. 
HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

My  dear  Sir :  I  am  rather  a  poor  correspondent,  but  I  think  per 
haps  I  ought  to  write  you  a  letter  just  now.  I  am  here  at  this  time, 
but  I  was  at  home  during  the  sitting  of  the  two  Democratic  conven- 


236          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

tions.  The  day  before  those  conventions  I  received  a  letter  from 
Chicago,  having  among  other  things  on  other  subjects  the  follow 
ing  in  it : 

A  reliable  Republican,  but  an  old-line  Whig  lawyer,  in  this  city  told  me 
to-day  that  he  himself  had  seen  a  letter  from  one  of  our  Republican  con 
gressmen,  advising  us  all  to  go  for  the  reelection  of  Judge  Douglas.  He 
said  he  was  enjoined  to  keep  the  author  a  secret,  and  he  was  going  to  do  so. 
From  him  I  learned  that  he  was  not  an  old-line  Democrat  or  Abolitionist. 
This  narrows  the  contest  down  to  the  congressmen  from  the  Galena  and 
Fulton  districts. 

The  above  is  a  literal  copy  of  all  the  letter  contained  on  that  sub 
ject.  The  morning  of  the  conventions,  Mr.  Herndon  showed  me 
your  letter  of  the  15th  to  him,  which  convinced  me  that  the  story 
in  the  letter  from  Chicago  was  based  upon  some  mistake,  miscon 
struction  of  language,  or  the  like.  Several  of  our  friends  were 
down  from  Chicago,  and  they  had  something  of  the  same  story 
amongst  them,  some  half  suspecting  that  you  were  inclined  to  favor 
Douglas,  and  others  thinking  there  was  an  effort  to  wrong  you. 

I  thought  neither  was  exactly  the  case  ;  that  the  whole  had  origi 
nated  in  some  misconstruction  coupled  with  a  high  degree  of  sensi 
tiveness  on  the  point,  and  that  the  whole  matter  was  not  worth 
another  moment's  consideration. 

Such  is  my  opinion  now,  and  I  hope  you  will  have  no  concern 
about  it.  I  have  written  this  because  Charley  Wilson  told  me  he 
was  wrriting  you,  and  because  I  expect  Dr.  Ray  (who  was  a  little 
excited  about  the  matter)  has  also  written  you ;  and  because  I  think 
I,  perhaps,  have  taken  a  calmer  view  of  the  thing  than  they  may 
have  done.  I  am  satisfied  you  have  done  no  wrong,  and  nobody 
has  intended  any  wrong  to  you. 

A  word  about  the  conventions.     The  Democracy  parted  in  not  a 

very  encouraged  state  of  mind.    On  the  contrary,  our  friends,  a  good 

many  of  whom  were  present,  parted  in  high  spirits.     They  think  if 

we  do  not  triumph,  the  fault  will  be  our  own,  and  so  I  really  think. 

Your  friend  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 


May  10,  1858. —  LETTER  TO  J.  M.  LUCAS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  May  10,  1858. 
J.  M.  LUCAS,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir :  Your  long  and  kind  letter  was  received  to-day.  It 
came  upon  me  as  an  agreeable  old  acquaintance.  Politically  speak 
ing,  there  is  a  curious  state  of  things  here.  The  impulse  of  almost 
every  Democrat  is  to  stick  to  Douglas ;  but  it  horrifies  them  to  have 
to  follow  him  out  of  the  Democratic  party.  A  good  many  are  an 
noyed  that  he  did  not  go  for  the  English  contrivance,  and  thus  heal 
the  breach.  They  begin  to  think  there  is  a  "  negro  in  the  fence," — 
that  Douglas  really  wants  to  have  a  fuss  with  the  President ;  —  that 
sticks  in  their  throats.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          237 

May  10,  1858. — LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  May  10,  1858. 
HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

My  dear  Sir:  I  have  just  reached  home  from  the  circuit,  and 
found  your  letter  of  the  2d,  for  which  I  thank  you.  My  other 
letter  to  you  was  meant  for  nothing  but  to  hedge  against  bad  feel 
ing  being  gotten  up  between  those  who  ought  to  be  friends,  out  of 
the  incident  mentioned  in  that  letter.  I  sent  you  an  extract  from 
the  Chicago  letter  in  order  to  let  you  see  that  the  writer  did  not  pro 
fess  to  know  anything  himself  j  and  I  now  add  that  his  informant 
told  me  that  he  did  tell  him  exactly  what  he  wrote  me — at  least 
I  distinctly  so  understood  him.  The  informant  is  an  exceedingly 
clever  fellow ;  and  I  think  he,  having  had  a  hasty  glance  at  your 
letter  to  Charley  Wilson,  misconstrued  it,  and  consequently  misre- 
ported  it  to  the  writer  of  the  letter  to  me.  I  must  repeat  that  I 
think  the  thing  did  not  originate  in  malice  to  you,  or  to  any  one, 
and  that  the  best  way  all  round  is  to  now  forget  it  entirely.  Will 
you  not  adjourn  in  time  to  be  here  at  our  State  convention  in  June? 
Your  friend  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 


May  15,  1858. — LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  May  15,  1858. 
HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

My  dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  6th,  accompanied  by  yours  of  April 
12th  to  C.  L.  Wilson,  was  received  day  before  yesterday.  There 
certainly  is  nothing  in  the  letter  to  Wilson  which  I  in  particular,  or 
Republicans  in  general,  could  complain  of.  Of  that  I  was  quite  sat 
isfied  before  I  saw  the  letter.  I  believe  there  has  been  no  malicious 
intent  to  misrepresent  you  •  I  hope  there  is  no  longer  any  misunder 
standing,  and  that  the  matter  may  drop. 

Eight  or  ten  days  ago  I  wrote  Kellogg  from  Beardstown.  Get 
him  to  show  you  the  letter.  It  gave  my  view  of  the  field  as  it  ap 
peared  then.  Nothing  has  occurred  since,  except  that  it  grows  more 
and  more  quiet  since  the  passage  of  the  English  contrivance. 

The  "State  Register "  here  is  evidently  laboring  to  bring  its  old 
friends  into  what  the  doctors  call  the  "comatose  state,"  —  that  is,  a 
sort  of  drowsy,  dreamy  condition,  in  which  they  may  not  perceive  or 
remember  that  there  has  ever  been,  or  is,  any  difference  between 
Douglas  and  the  President.  This  could  be  done  if  the  Buchanan 
men  would  allow  it — which,  however,  the  latter  seem  determined 
not  to  do. 

I  think  our  prospects  gradually  and  steadily  grow  better,  though 
we  are  not  yet  clear  out  of  the  woods  by  a  great  deal.  There  is 
still  some  effort  to  make  trouble  out  of  "Americanism."  If  that 
were  out  of  the  way,  for  all  the  rest,  I  believe  we  should  be  "  out  of 
the  woods."  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


238          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


May  27, 1858. — LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  May  27,  1858. 
HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

My  dear  Sir :  Yours  requesting  me  to  return  you  the  now  some 
what  noted  "  Charley  Wilson  letter,"  is  received,  and  I  herewith 
return  that  letter.  Political  matters  just  now  bear  a  very  mixed 
and  incongruous  aspect.  For  several  days  the  signs  have  been  that 
Douglas  and  the  President  have  probably  buried  the  hatchet, — 
Douglas's  friends  at  Washington  going  over  to  the  President's  side, 
and  his  friends  here  and  South  of  here  talking  as  if  there  never  had 
been  any  serious  difficulty,  while  the  President  himself  does  nothing 
for  his  own  peculiar  friends  here.  But  this  morning  my  partner, 
Mr.  Herndon,  receives  a  letter  from  Mr.  Medill  of  the  "  Chicago 
Tribune,"  showing  the  writer  to  be  in  great  alarm  at  the  prospect 
North  of  Republicans  going  over  to  Douglas,  on  the  idea  that 
Douglas  is  going  to  assume  steep  Free-soil  ground,  and  furiously 
assail  the  administration  on  the  stump  when  he  comes  home.  There 
certainly  is  a  double  game  being  played  somehow.  Possibly — even 
probably — Douglas  is  temporarily  deceiving  the  President  in  order 
to  crush  out  the  8th  of  June  convention  here.  Unless  he  plays  his 
double  game  more  successfully  than  we  have  often  seen  done,  he 
cannot  carry  many  Republicans  North,  without  at  the  same  time 
losing  a  larger  number  of  his  old  friends  South.  Let  this  be  con 
fidential.  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


June  1,  1858.— LETTER  TO  CHARLES  L.WILSON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  June  1,  1858. 
CHARLES  L.  WILSON,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir:  Yours  of  yesterday,  with  the  inclosed  newspaper 
slip,  is  received.  I  have  never  said  or  thought  more,  as  to  the  incli 
nation  of  some  of  our  Eastern  Republican  friends  to  favor  Douglas, 
than  I  expressed  in  your  hearing  on  the  evening  of  the  21st  of 
April,  at  the  State  library  in  this  place.  I  have  believed  —  I  do 
believe  now  —  that  Greeley,  for  instance,  would  be  rather  pleased  to 
see  Douglas  reflected  over  me  or  any  other  Republican ;  and  yet  I 
do  not  believe  it  is  so  because  of  any  secret  arrangement  with  Doug 
las.  It  is  because  he  thinks  Douglas's  superior  position,  reputation, 
experience,  ability,  if  you  please,  would  more  than  compensate  for 
his  lack  of  a  pure  Republican  position,  and  therefore  his  reelection 
do  the  general  cause  of  Republicanism  more  good  than  would  the 
election  of  any  one  of  our  better  undistinguished  pure  Republicans. 
I  do  not  know  how  you  estimate  Greeley,  but  I  consider  him  incapable 
of  corruption  or  falsehood.  He  denies  that  he  directly  is  taking  part 
in  favor  of  Douglas,  and  I  believe  him.  Still  his  feeling  constantly 
manifests  itself  in  his  paper,  which,  being  so  extensively  read  in 
Illinois,  is,  and  will  continue  to  be,  a  drag  upon  us.  I  have  also 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          239 

thought  that  Governor  Seward,  too,  feels  about  as  Greeley  does,  but 
not  being  a  newspaper  editor,  his  feeling  in  this  respect  is  not  much 
manifested.  I  have  no  idea  that  he  is,  by  conversation  or  by  letter, 
urging  Illinois  Republicans  to  vote  for  Douglas. 

As  to  myself,  let  me  pledge  you  my  word  that  neither  I,  nor  any 
friend  so  far  as  I  know,  has  been  setting  stake  against  Governor 
Seward.  No  combination  has  been  made  with  me,  or  proposed  to 
me,  in  relation  to  the  next  presidential  candidate.  The  same  thing 
is  true  in  regard  to  the  next  governor  of  our  State.  I  am  not 
directly  or  indirectly  committed  to  any  one,  nor  has  any  one  made 
any  advance  to  me  upon  the  subject.  I  have  had  many  free  con 
versations  with  John  Wentworth ;  but  he  never  dropped  a  remark 
that  led  me  to  suspect  that  he  wishes  to  be  governor.  Indeed,  it  is 
due  to  truth  to  say  that  while  he  has  uniformly  expressed  himself 
for  me,  he  has  never  hinted  at  any  condition. 

The  signs  are  that  we  shall  have  a  good  convention  on  the  16th 
and  I  think  our  prospects  generally  are  improving  some  every 
day.  I  believe  we  need  nothing  so  much  as  to  get  rid  of  unjust 
suspicions  of  one  another.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


June  15,  1858. — NOTES  OF  ARGUMENT  IN  LAW  CASE. 

Legislation  and  adjudication  must  follow  and  conform  to  the 
progress  of  society.  The  progress  of  society  now  begins  to  produce 
cases  of  the  transfer  for  debts  of  the  entire  property  of  railroad  cor 
porations  ;  and  to  enable  transferees  to  use  and  enjoy  the  trans 
ferred  property,  legislation  and  adjudication  begin  to  be  necessary. 
Shall  this  class  of  legislation  just  now  beginning  with  us  be  general 
or  special  ?  Section  ten  of  our  Constitution  requires  that  it  should 
be  general,  if  possible.  [Read  the  section.]  Special  legislation  al 
ways  trenches  upon  the  judicial  department,  and  in  so  far  violates 
section  two  of  the  Constitution.  [Read  it.] 

Just  reasoning — policy — is  in  favor  of  general  legislation,  else 
the  legislature  will  be  loaded  down  with  the  investigation  of  smaller 
cases — a  work  which  the  courts  ought  to  perform,  and  can  perform 
much  more  perfectly.  How  can  the  legislature  rightly  decide  the 
facts  between  P.  and  B.  and  S.  C.  and  Co. 

It  is  said  that  under  a  general  law,  whenever  a  railroad  company 
gets  tired  of  its  debts  it  may  transfer  fraudulently  to  get  rid  of 
them.  So  they  may — so  may  individuals;  and  which,  the  legis 
lature  or  the  courts,  is  best  suited  to  try  the  question  of  fraud  in 
either  case  ? 

It  is  said,  if  a  purchaser  have  acquired  legal  rights,  let  him  not  be 
robbed  of  them;  but  if  he  needs  legislation,  let  him  submit  to  just 
terms  to  obtain  it. 

Let  him,  say  we,  have  general  law  in  advance  (guarded  in  every 
possible  way  against  fraud),  so  that  when  he  acquires  a  legal  right 
he  will  have  no  occasion  to  wait  for  additional  legislation ;  and  if 
he  has  practised  fraud,  let  the  courts  so  decide. 


240          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


June  [15?],  1858. —  BRIEF  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

The  compiler  of  the  "  Dictionary  of  Congress  "  states  that  while 
preparing  that  work  for  publication,  in  1858,  he  sent  to  Mr.  Lincoln 
the  usual  request  for  a  sketch  of  his  life,  and  received  the  following 
reply : 

Born,  February  12, 1809,  in  Hardin  County,  Kentucky. 
Education  defective. 
Profession,  a  lawyer. 

Have  been  a  captain  of  volunteers  in  Black  Hawk  war. 
Postmaster  at  a  very  small  office. 

Four  times  a  member  of  the  Illinois  legislature,  and  was  a  member  of  the 
lower  house  of  Congress.  Yours,  etc., 

A.  LINCOLN. 


June  16,  1858. —  SPEECH  DELIVERED  AT  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  AT 
THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  STATE  CONVENTION  BY  WHICH 
MR.  LINCOLN  HAD  BEEN  NAMED  AS  THEIR  CANDIDATE  FOR  UNITED 
STATES  SENATOR. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Convention :  If  we  could  first 
know  where  we  are,  and  whither  we  are  tending,  we  could  better 
judge  what  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it.  We  are  now  far  into  the  fifth 
year  since  a  policy  was  initiated  with  the  avowed  object  and  con 
fident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation.  Under  the 
operation  of  that  policy,  that  agitation  has  not  only  not  ceased,  but 
has  constantly  augmented.  In  my  opinion,  it  will  not  cease  until 
a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached  and  passed.  "A  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand."  I  believe  this  government  cannot  en 
dure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the 
Union  to  be  dissolved — I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall — but  I  do 
expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing,  or 
all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further 
spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  be 
lief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction ;  or  its  advocates 
will  push  it  forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States, 
old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South. 

Have  we  no  tendency  to  the  latter  condition? 

Let  any  one  who  doubts  carefully  contemplate  that  now  almost 
complete  legal  combination — piece  of  machinery,  so  to  speak— 
compounded  of  the  Nebraska  doctrine  and  the  Dred  Scott  decision. 
Let  him  consider  not  only  what  work  the  machinery  is  adapted  to 
do,  and  how  well  adapted ;  but  also  let  him  study  the  history  of  its 
construction,  and  trace,  if  he  can,  or  rather  fail,  if  he  can,  to  trace 
the  evidences  of  design  and  concert  of  action  among  its  chief  archi 
tects,  from  the  beginning. 

The  new  year  of  1854  found  slavery  excluded  from  more  than  half 
the  States  by  State  constitutions,  and  from  most  of  the  national 
territory  by  congressional  prohibition.  Four  days  later  commenced 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          241 

the  struggle  which  ended  in  repealing  that  congressional  prohibi 
tion.  This  opened  all  the  national  territory  to  slavery,  and  was  the 
first  point  gained. 

But,  so  far,  Congress  only  had  acted  j  and  an  indorsement  by  the 
people,  real  or  apparent,  was  indispensable  to  save  the  point  already 
gained  and  give  chance  for  more. 

This  necessity  had  not  been  overlooked,  but  had  been  provided 
for,  as  well  as  might  be,  in  the  notable  argument  of  "  squatter  sov 
ereignty/'  otherwise  called  "  sacred  right  of  self-government/7  which 
latter  phrase,  though  expressive  of  the  only  rightful  basis  of  any 
government,  was  so  perverted  in  this  attempted  use  of  it  as  to  amount 
to  just  this :  That  if  any  one  man  choose  to  enslave  another,  no 
third  man  shall  be  allowed  to  object.  That  argument  was  incor 
porated  into  the  Nebraska  bill  itself,  in  the  language  which  follows : 
"  It  being  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  this  act  not  to  legislate 
slavery  into  any  Territory  or  State,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom ;  but 
to  leave  the  people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their 
domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States.77  Then  opened  the  roar  of  loose  decla 
mation  in  favor  of  "squatter  sovereignty77  and  "sacred  right  of 
self-government.77  "  But,'7  said  opposition  members,  "  let  us  amend 
the  bill  so  as  to  expressly  declare  that  the  people  of  the  Territory 
may  exclude  slavery.77  "  Not  we,77  said  the  friends  of  the  measure ; 
and  down  they  voted  the  amendment. 

While  the  Nebraska  bill  was  passing  through  Congress,  a  law 
case  involving  the  question  of  a  negro7s  freedom,  by  reason  of  his 
owner  having  voluntarily  taken  him  first  into  a  free  State  and  then 
into  a  Territory  covered  by  the  congressional  prohibition,  and  held 
him  as  a  slave  for  a  long  time  in  each,  was  passing  through  the 
United  States  Circuit  Court  for  the  District  of  Missouri ;  and  both 
Nebraska  bill  and  lawsuit  were  brought  to  a  decision  in  the  same 
month  of  May,  1854.  The  negro's  name  was  Dred  Scott,  which 
name  now  designates  the  decision  finally  made  in  the  case.  Before 
the  then  next  presidential  election,  the  law  case  came  to  and  was 
argued  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States ;  but  the  decision 
of  it  was  deferred  until  after  the  election.  Still,  before  the  election, 
Senator  Trumbull,  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  requested  the  leading 


Court.7'  aU 

The  election  came.  Mr.  Buchanan  was  elected,  ana  the  indorse 
ment,  such  as  it  was,  secured.  That  was  the  second  point  gained. 
The  indorsement,  however,  fell  short  of  a  clear  popular  majority  by 
nearly  four  hundred  thousand  votes,  and  so,  perhaps,  was  not  over 
whelmingly  reliable  and  satisfactory.  The  outgoing  President,  in  his 
last  annual  message,  as  impressively  as  possible  echoed  back  upon 
the  people  the  weight  and  authority  of  the  indorsement.  The  Su 
preme  Court  met  again  ;  did  not  announce  their  decision,  but  ordered 
a  reargument.  The  presidential  inauguration  came,  and  still  no 
decision  of  the  court ;  but  the  incoming  President  in  his  inaugural 
VOL.  I.— 16. 


242          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

address  fervently  exhorted  the  people  to  abide  by  the  forthcoming 
decision,  whatever  it  might  be.  Then,  in  a  few  days,  came  the 
decision. 

The  reputed  author  of  the  Nebraska  bill  finds  an  early  occasion 
to  make  a  speech  at  this  capital  indorsing  the  Dred  Scott  decision, 
and  vehemently  denouncing  all  opposition  to  it.  The  new  Presi 
dent,  too,  seizes  the  early  occasion  of  the  Silliman  letter  to  indorse 
and  strongly  construe  that  decision,  and  to  express  his  astonishment 
that  any  different  view  had  ever  been  entertained ! 

At  length  a  squabble  springs  up  between  the  President  and  the 
author  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  on  the  mere  question  of  fact,  whether 
the  Lecompton  constitution  was  or  was  not,  in  any  just  sense,  made 
by  the  people  of  Kansas ;  and  in  that  quarrel  the  latter  declares  that 
all  he  wants  is  a  fair  vote  for  the  people,  and  that  he  cares  not 
whether  slavery  be  voted  down  or  voted  up.  I  do  not  understand 
his  declaration  that  he  cares  not  whether  slavery  be  voted  down  or 
voted  up  to  be  intended  by  him  other  than  as  an  apt  definition  of  the 
policy  he  would  impress  upon  the  public  mind — the  principle  for 
which  he  declares  he  has  suffered  so  much,  and  is  ready  to  suffer  to 
the  end.  And  well  may  he  cling  to  that  principle.  If  he  has  any 
parental  feeling,  well  may  he  cling  to  it.  That  principle  is  the  only 
shred  left  of  his  original  Nebraska  doctrine.  Under  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  "  squatter  sovereignty  "  squatted  out  of  existence,  tumbled 
down  like  temporary  scaffolding, — like  the  mold  at  the  foundry, 
served  through  one  blast  and  fell  back  into  loose  sand, — helped  to 
carry  an  election,  and  then  was  kicked  to  the  winds.  His  late  joint 
struggle  with  the  Republicans  against  the  Lecompton  constitution 
involves  nothing  of  the  original  Nebraska  doctrine.  That  struggle 
was  made  on  a  point — the  right  of  a  people  to  make  their  own  con 
stitution — upon  which  he  and  the  Republicans  have  never  differed. 

The  several  points  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  in  connection  with 
Senator  Douglas's  "care  not"  policy,  constitute  the  piece  of  ma 
chinery  in  its  present  state  of  advancement.  This  was  the  third 
point  gained.  The  working  points  of  that  machinery  are : 

(1)  That  no  negro  slave,  imported  as  such  from  Africa,  and  no 
descendant  of  such  slave,  can  ever  be  a  citizen  of  any  State,  in  the 
sense  of  that  term  as  used  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
This  point  'or  *nade  in  order  to  deprive  the  negro  in  every  possible 
event  of  the  n*  nefit  of  that  provision  of  the  United  States  Consti 
tution  which  t'eclares  that  "the  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  en 
titled  to  all  tfc  e  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens  in  the  several 
States." 

(2)  That,  "subject  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States," 
neither  Congress  nor  a  territorial  legislature  can  exclude  slavery 
from  any  United  States  Territory.    This  point  is  made  in  order  that 
individual  men  may  fill  up  the  Territories  with  slaves,  without 
danger  of  losing  them  as  property,  and  thus  enhance  the  chances  of 
permanency  to  the  institution  through  all  the  future. 

(3)  That  whether  the  holding   a  negro  in  actual  slavery  in  a 
free  State  makes  him  free  as  against  the  holder,  the  United  States 
courts  will  not  decide,  but  will  leave  to  be  decided  by  the  courts  of 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          243 

any  slave  State  the  negro  may  be  forced  into  by  the  master.  This 
point  is  made  not  to  be  pressed  immediately,  but,  if  acquiesced  in 
for  a  while,  and  apparently  indorsed  by  the  people  at  an  election, 
then  to  sustain  the  logical  conclusion  that  what  Dred  Scott's  master 
might  lawfully  do  with  Dred  Scott  in  the  free  State  of  Illinois,  every 
other  master  may  lawfully  do  with  any  other  one  or  one  thousand 
slaves  in  Illinois  or  in  any  other  free  State. 

Auxiliary  to  all  this,  and  working  hand  in  hand  with  it,  the  Ne 
braska  doctrine,  or  what  is  left  of  it,  is  to  educate  and  mold  public 
opinion,  at  least  Northern  public  opinion,  not  to  care  whether 
slavery  is  voted  down  or  voted  up.  This  shows  exactly  where  we 
now  are,  and  partially,  also,  whither  we  are  tending. 

It  will  throw  additional  light  on  the  latter,  to  go  back  and  run 
the  mind  over  the  string  of  historical  facts  already  stated.  Several 
things  will  now  appear  less  dark  and  mysterious  than  they  did  when 
they  were  transpiring.  The  people  were  to  be  left  "  perfect!}7  free/7 
"  subject  only  to  the  Constitution.7'  What  the  Constitution  had  to  do 
with  it  outsiders  could  not  then  see.  Plainly  enough  now,  it  was  an 
exactly  fitted  niche  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision  to  afterward  come 
in,  and  declare  the  perfect  freedom  of  the  people  to  be  just  no  free 
dom  at  all.  Why  was  the  amendment  expressly  declaring  the  right 
of  the  people  voted  down?  Plainly  enough  now,  the  adoption  of  it 
would  have  spoiled  the  niche  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Why  was 
the  court  decision  held  up  ?  Why  even  a  senator's  individual  opin 
ion  withheld  till  after  the  presidential  election  ?  Plainly  enough  now, 
the  speaking  out  then  would  have  damaged  the  "perfectly  free'7 
argument  upon  which  the  election  was  to  be  carried.  Why  the  out 
going  President's  felicitation  on  the  indorsement  ?  Why  the  delay 
of  a  reargument?  Why  the  incoming  President's  advance  exhor 
tation  in  favor  of  the  decision  ?  These  things  look  like  the  cautious 
patting  and  petting  of  a  spirited  horse  preparatory  to  mounting 
him,  when  it  is  dreaded  that  he  may  give  the  rider  a  fall.  And  why 
the  hasty  after-indorsement  of  the  decision  by  the  President  and 
others  ? 

We  cannot  absolutely  know  that  all  these  exact  adaptations  are 
the  result  of  preconcert.  But  when  we  see  a  lot  of  framed  timbers, 
different  portions  of  which  we  know  have  been  gotten  out  at  dif 
ferent  times  and  places  and  by  different  workmen, — Stephen,  Frank 
lin,  Roger,  and  James,  for  instance, —  and  we  se3  these  timbers 
joined  together,  and  see  they  exactly  make  the  fram>>,  of  a  house  or 
a  mill,  all  the  tenons  and  mortises  exactly  fitting,  and  all  the  lengths 
and  proportions  of  the  different  pieces  exactly  adapted  to  their  re 
spective  places,  and  not  a  piece  too  many  or  too  few,  not  omitting 
even  scaffolding — or,  if  a  single  piece  be  lacking,  we  see  the  place 
in  the  frame  exactly  fitted  and  prepared  yet  to  bring  such  piece  in— 
in  such  a  case  we  find  it  impossible  not  to  believe  that  Stephen  and 
Franklin  and  Roger  and  James  all  understood  one  another  from  the 
beginning,  and  all  worked  upon  a  common  plan  or  draft  drawn  up 
before  the  first  blow  was  struck. 

It  should  not  be  overlooked  that,  by  the  Nebraska  bill,  the  people 
of  a  State  as  well  as  Territory  were  to  be  left  "  perfectly  free,'7 "  sub- 


244          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN 

ject  only  to  the  Constitution."  Why  mention  a  State?  They  were 
legislating  for  Territories,  and  not  for  or  about  States.  Certainly 
the  people  of  a  State  are  and  ought  to  be  subject  to  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States ;  but  why  is  mention  of  this  lugged  into 
this  merely  territorial  law  ?  Why  are  the  people  of  a  Territory  and 
the  people  of  a  State  therein  lumped  together,  and  their  relation  to 
the  Constitution  therein  treated  as  being  precisely  the  same  ?  While 
the  opinion  of  the  court,  by  Chief  Justice  Taney,  in  the  Dred  Scott 
case,  and  the  separate  opinions  of  all  the  concurring  judges,  ex 
pressly  declare  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  neither 
permits  Congress  nor  a  territorial  legislature  to  exclude  slavery 
from  any  United  States  Territory,  they  all  omit  to  declare  whether 
or  not  the  same  Constitution  permits  a  State,  or  the  people  of  a 
State,  to  exclude  it.  Possibly,  this  is  a  mere  omission ;  but  who  can 
be  quite  sure,  if  McLean  or  Curtis  had  sought  to  get  into  the 
opinion  a  declaration  of  unlimited  power  in  the  people  of  a  State  to 
exclude  slavery  from  their  limits,  just  as  Chase  and  Mace  sought  to 
get  such  declaration,  in  behalf  of  the  people  of  a  Territory,  into  the 
Nebraska  bill — I  ask,  who  can  be  quite  sure  that  it  would  not  have 
been  voted  down  in  the  one  case  as  it  had  been  in  the  other  ?  The 
nearest  approach  to  the  point  of  declaring  the  power  of  a  State  over 
slavery  is  made  by  Judge  Nelson.  He  approaches  it  more  than 
once,  using  the  precise  idea,  and  almost  the  language  too,  of  the 
Nebraska  act.  On  one  occasion  his  exact  language  is:  "Except  in 
cases  where  the  power  is  restrained  by  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  the  law  of  the  State  is  supreme  over  the  subject  of 
slavery  within  its  jurisdiction."  In  what  cases  the  power  of  the 
States  is  so  restrained  by  the  United  States  Constitution  is  left  an 
open  question,  precisely  as  the  same  question  as  to  the  restraint  on 
the  power  of  the  Territories  was  left  open  in  the  Nebraska  act. 
Put  this  and  that  together,  and  we  have  another  nice  little  niche, 
which  we  may,  ere  long,  see  filled  with  another  Supreme  Court  de 
cision  declaring  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  does  not 
permit  a  State  to  exclude  slavery  from  its  limits.  And  this  may  es 
pecially  be  expected  if  the  doctrine  of  "  care  not  whether  slavery  be 
voted  down  or  voted  up"  shall  gain  upon  the  public  mind  suffi 
ciently  to  give  premise  that  such  a  decision  can  be  maintained  when 
made. 

Such  a  decision  is  all  that  slavery  now  lacks  of  being  alike  law 
ful  in  all  the  Rotates.  Welcome,  or  unwelcome,  such  decision  is 
probably  coming,  and  will  soon  be  upon  us,  unless  the  power  of 
the  present  political  dynasty  shall  be  met  and  overthrown.  We 
shall  lie  down  pleasantly  dreaming  that  the  people  of  Missouri  are 
on  the  verge  of  making  their  State,  free,  and  we  shall  awake  to  the 
reality  instead  that  the  Supreme  Court  has  made  Illinois  a  slave 
State.  To  meet  and  overthrow  the  power  of  that  dynasty  is  the 
work  now  before  all  those  who  would  prevent  that  consummation. 
That  is  what  we  have  to  do.  How  can  we  best  do  it  ? 

There  are  those  who  denounce  us  openly  to  their  own  friends,  and 
yet  whisper  us  softly  that  Senator  Douglas  is  the  aptest  instrument 
there  is  with  which  to  effect  that  object.  They  wish  us  to  infer  all 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          245 

from  the  fact  that  he  now  has  a  little  quarrel  with  the  present  head 
of  the  dynasty ;  and  that  he  has  regularly  voted  with  us  on  a  single 
point  upon  which  he  and  we  have  never  differed.  They  remind  us 
that  he  is  a  great  man,  and  that  the  largest  of  us  are  very  small 
ones.  Let  this  be  granted.  But  "  a  living  dog  is  better  than  a  dead 
lion."  Judge  Douglas,  if  not  a  dead  lion  for  this  work,  is  at  least 
a  caged  and  toothless  one.  How  can  he  oppose  the  advances  of 
slavery  ?  He  don't  care  anything  about  it.  His  avowed  mission  is 
impressing  the  "  public  heart  n  to  care  nothing  about  it.  A  leading 
Douglas  Democratic  newspaper  thinks  Douglas's  superior  talent 
will  be  needed  to  resist  the  revival  of  the  African  slave-trade.  Does 
Douglas  believe  an  effort  to  revive  that  trade  is  approaching?  He 
has  not  said  so.  Does  he  really  think  so  ?  But  if  it  is,  how  can  he 
resist  it?  For  years  he  has  labored  to  prove  it  a  sacred  right  of 
white  men  to  take  negro  slaves  into  the  new  Territories.  Can  he 
possibly  show  that  it  is  less  a  sacred  right  to  buy  them  where  they 
can  be  bought  cheapest  ?  And  unquestionably  they  can  be  bought 
cheaper  in  Africa  than  in  Virginia.  He  has  done  all  in  his  power  to 
reduce  the  whole  question  of  slavery  to  one  of  a  mere  right  of  prop 
erty  5  and  as  such,  how  can  he  oppose  the  foreign  slave-trade.  How 
can  he  refuse  that  trade  in  that  "property77  shall  be  "perfectly 
free,"  unless  he  does  it  as  a  protection  to  the  home  production? 
And  as  the  home  producers  will  probably  not  ask  the  protection,  he 
will  be  wholly  without  a  ground  of  opposition. 

Senator  Douglas  holds,  we  know,  that  a  man  may  rightfully  be 
wiser  to-day  than  he  was  yesterday — that  he  may  rightfully  change 
when  he  finds  himself  wrong.  But  can  we,  for  that  reason,  run 
ahead,  and  infer  that  he  will  make  any  particular  change  of  which 
he,  himself,  has  given  no  intimation  ?  Can  we  safely  base  our  action 
upon  any  such  vague  inference  ?  Now,  as  ever,  I  wish  not  to  mis 
represent  Judge  Douglas's  position,  question  his  motives,  or  do 
aught  that  can  be  personally  offensive  to  him.  Whenever,  if  ever,  he 
and  we  can  come  together  on  principle  so  that  our  great  cause  may 
have  assistance  from  his  great  ability,  I  hope  to  have  interposed  no 
adventitious  obstacle.  But  clearly,  he  is  not  now  with  us — he  does 
not  pretend  to  be — he  does  not  promise  ever  to  be. 

Our  cause,  then,  must  be  intrusted  to,  and  conducted  by,  its  own 
undoubted  friends — those  whose  hands  are  free,  whose  hearts  are 
in  the  work,  who  do  care  for  the  result.  Two  years  ago  the  Re 
publicans  of  the  nation  mustered  over  thirteen  hundred  thousand 
strong.  We  did  this  under  the  single  impulse  of  esistance  to  a 
common  danger,  with  every  external  circumstance  against  us.  Of 
strange,  discordant,  and  even  hostile  elements,  we  gathered  from 
the  four  winds,  and  formed  and  fought  the  battle  through,  under 
the  constant  hot  fire  of  a  disciplined,  proud,  and  pampered  enemy. 
Did  we  brave  all  then  to  falter  now? — now,  when  that  same  enemy 
is  wavering,  dissevered,  and  belligerent  ?  The  result  is  not  doubtful. 
We  shall  not  fail  —  if  we  stand  firm,  we  shall  not  fail.  Wise  coun 
sels  may  accelerate  or  mistakes  delay  it,  but,  sooner  or  later,  the 
victory  is  sure  to  come. 


246          ADDBESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABEAHAM  LINCOLN 


June  25,  1858. — LETTER  TO  J.  W.  SOMERS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  June  25,  1858. 
JAMES  W.  SOMERS,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  22d,  inclosing  a  draft  of  two  hundred 
dollars,  was  duly  received.  I  have  paid  it  on  the  judgment,  and  here 
with  you  have  the  receipt.  I  do  not  wish  to  say  anything  as  to  who 
shall  be  the  Republican  candidate  for  the  legislature  in  your  district, 
further  than  that  I  have  full  confidence  in  Dr.  Hull.  Have  you  ever 
got  in  the  way  of  consulting  with  McKinley  in  political  matters? 
He  is  true  as  steel,  and  his  judgment  is  very  good.  The  last  I  heard 
from  him,  he  rather  thought  Weldon,  of  De  Witt,  was  our  best  timber 
for  representative,  all  things  considered.  But  you  there  must  settle 
it  among  yourselves.  It  may  well  puzzle  older  heads  than  yours  to 
understand  how,  as  the  Dred  Scott  decision  holds,  Congress  can 
authorize  a  territorial  legislature  to  do  everything  else,  and  cannot 
authorize  them  to  prohibit  slavery.  That  is  one  of  the  things  the 
court  can  decide,  but  can  never  give  an  intelligible  reason  for. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


June  25, 1858. —  LETTER  TO  A.  CAMPBELL. 

SPRINGFIELD,  June  25,  1858. 
A.  CAMPBELL,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir :  In  1856  you  gave  me  authority  to  draw  on  you  for 
any  sum  not  exceeding  five  hundred  dollars.  I  see  clearly  that  such 
a  privilege  would  be  more  available  now  than  it  was  then.  I  am 
aware  that  times  are  tighter  now  than  they  were  then.  Please  write 
me,  at  all  events;  and  whether  you  can  now  do  anything  or  not,  I 
shall  continue  grateful  for  the  past.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

July  7,  1858. — LETTER  TO  J.  J.  CRITTENDEN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  July  7,  1858. 
To  THE  HONORABLE  J.  J.  CRITTENDEN. 

Dear  Sir :  I  "'ryg  you  will  pardon  me  for  the  liberty  in  addressing 
you  upon  onlyr  p  limited  an  acquaintance,  and  that  acquaintance 
so  long  past.fcj,  am  prompted  to  do  so  by  a  story  being  whispered 
about  here  t^ai  you  are  anxious  for  the  reelection  of  Mr.  Douglas 
to  the  United  States  Senate,  and  also  of  Harris,  of  our  district,  to  the 
House  of  Representatives,  and  that  you  are  pledged  to  write  letters 
to  that  effect  to  your  friends  here  in  Illinois,  if  requested.  I  do  not 
believe  the  story,  but  still  it  gives  me  some  uneasiness.  If  such 
was  your  inclination,  I  do  not  believe  you  would  so  express  yourself. 
It  is  not  in  character  with  you  as  I  have  always  estimated  you. 

You  have  no  warmer  friends  than  here  in  Illinois,  and  I  assure 
you  nine  tenths — I  believe  ninety-nine  hundredths — of  them  would 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          247 

be  mortified  exceedingly  by  anything  of  the  sort  from  you.  When  I 
tell  you  this,  make  such  allowance  as  you  think  just  for  my  position, 
which,  I  doubt  not,  you  understand.  Nor  am  I  fishing  for  a  letter 
on  the  other  side.  Even  if  such  could  be  had,  my  judgment  is  that 
you  would  better  be  hands  off ! 

Please  drop  me  a  line ;  and  if  your  purposes  are  as  I  hope  they 
are  not,  please  let  me  know.  The  confirmation  would  pain  me  much, 
but  I  should  still  continue  your  friend  and  admirer. 

Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINCOLN. 

P.  S.  I  purposely  fold  this  sheet  within  itself  instead  of  an 
envelop. 

July  10,  1858. —  SPEECH  AT  CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS. 

My  Fellow-citizens  :  On  yesterday  evening,  upon  the  occasion  of 
the  reception  given  to  Senator  Douglas,  I  was  furnished  with  a 
seat  very  convenient  for  hearing  him,  and  was  otherwise  very  cour 
teously  treated  by  him  and  his  friends,  and  for  which  I  thank  him  and 
them.  During  the  course  of  his  remarks  my  name  was  mentioned 
in  such  a  way  as,  I  suppose,  renders  it  at  least  not  improper  that  I 
should  make  some  sort  of  reply  to  him.  I  shall  not  attempt  to 
follow  him  in  the  precise  order  in  which  he  addressed  the  assembled 
multitude  upon  that  occasion,  though  I  shall  perhaps  do  so  in  the 
main. 

There  was  one  question  to  which  he  asked  the  attention  of  the 
crowd,  which  I  deem  of  somewhat  less  importance  —  at  least  of 
propriety  for  me  to  dwell  upon — than  the  others,  which  he  brought 
in  near  the  close  of  his  speech,  and  which  I  think  it  would  not  be 
entirely  proper  for  me  to  omit  attending  to ;  and  yet  if  I  were  not  to 
give  some  attention  to  it  now,  I  should  probably  forget  it  altogether. 
While  I  am  upon  this  subject,  allow  me  to  say  that  I  do  not  intend 
to  indulge  in  that  inconvenient  mode  sometimes  adopted  in  public 
speaking,  of  reading  from  documents ;  but  I  shall  depart  from  that 
rule  so  far  as  to  read  a  little  scrap  from  his  speech,  which  notices 
this  first  topic  of  which  I  shall  speak  —  that  is,  provided  I  can  find 
it  in  the  paper. 

I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  appeal  to  the  people  against  the  combination 
that  has  been  made  against  me.  The  Republican  leaders  have  formed  an 
alliance,  an  unholy  and  unnatural  alliance,  with  a  portion  of  unscrupulous 
federal  office-holders.  I  intend  to  fight  that  allied  army  wherever  I  meet 
them.  I  know  they  deny  the  alliance,  but  yet  these  men  who  are  trying  to 
divide  the  Democratic  party  for  the  purpose  of  electing  a  Republican  sena 
tor  in  my  place,  are  just  so  much  the  agents  and  tools  of  the  supporters  of 
Mr.  Lincoln.  Hence  I  shall  deal  with  this  allied  army  just  as  the  Russians 
dealt  with  the  allies  at  Sebastopol — that  is,  the  Russians  did  not  stop  to 
inquire,  when  they  fired  a  broadside,  whether  it  hit  an  Englishman,  a 
Frenchman,  or  a  Turk.  Nor  will  I  stop  to  inquire,  nor  shall  I  hesitate, 
whether  my  blows  shall  hit  these  Republican  leaders  or  their  allies,  who  are 
holding  the  federal  offices  and  yet  acting  in  concert  with  them. 

Well,  now,  gentlemen,  is  not  that  very  alarming  ?  Just  to  think 
of  it !  right  at  the  outset  of  his  canvass,  I,  a  poor,  kind,  amiable, 


248          ADDRESSES  AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

intelligent  gentleman — I  am  to  be  slain  in  this  way.  Why,  my  friend 
the  judge  is  not  only,  as  it  turns  out,  not  a  dead  lion,  nor  even  a 
living  one  —  he  is  the  rugged  Russian  bear. 

But  if  they  will  have  it  —  for  he  says  that  we  deny  it  —  that  there 
is  any  such  alliance,  as  he  says  there  is, —  and  I  don't  propose  hang 
ing  very  much  upon  this  question  of  veracity, —  but  if  he  will  have  it 
that  there  is  such  an  alliance,  that  the  administration  men  and 
we  are  allied,  and  we  stand  in  the  attitude  of  English,  French,  and 
Turk,  he  occupying  the  position  of  the  Russian, —  in  that  case  1  beg 
he  will  indulge  us  while  we  barely  suggest  to  him  that  these  allies 
took  Sebastopol. 

Gentlemen,  only  a  few  more  words  as  to  this  alliance.  For  my 
part,  I  have  to  say  that  whether  there  be  such  an  alliance  depends, 
so  far  as  I  know,  upon  what  may  be  a  right  definition  of  the  term 
alliance.  If  for  the  Republican  party  to  see  the  other  great  party  to 
which  they  are  opposed  divided  among  themselves  and  not  try  to 
stop  the  division,  and  rather  be  glad  of  it, — if  that  is  an  alliance,  I 
confess  I  am  in  ;  but  if  it  is  meant  to  be  said  that  the  Republicans 
had  formed  an  alliance  going  beyond  that,  by  which  there  is  con 
tribution  of  money  or  sacrifice  of  principle  on  the  one  side  or  the 
other,  so  far  as  the  Republican  party  is  concerned,  if  there  be  any 
such  thing,  I  protest  that  I  neither  know  anything  of  it  nor  do  I 
believe  it.  I  will,  however,  say — as  I  think  this  branch  of  the 
argument  is  lugged  in — I  would  before  I  leave  it  state,  for  the 
benefit  of  those  concerned,  that  one  of  those  same  Buchanan  men 
did  once  tell  me  of  an  argument  that  he  made  for  his  opposition  to 
Judge  Douglas.  He  said  that  a  friend  of  our  Senator  Douglas  had 
been  talking  to  him,  and  had  among  other  things  said  to  him :  "  Why, 
you  don't  want  to  beat  Douglas?"  "  Yes,"  said  he,  "I  do  want  to 
beat  him,  and  I  will  tell  you  why.  I  believe  his  original  Nebraska 
bill  was  right  in  the  abstract,  but  it  was  wrong  in  the  time  that  it  was 
brought  forward.  It  was  wrong  in  the  application  to  a  Territory 
in  regard  to  which  the  question  had  been  settled ;  it  was  brought 
forward  at  a  time  when  nobody  asked  him;  it  was  tendered  to  the 
South  when  the  South  had  not  asked  for  it,  but  when  they  could  not 
well  refuse  it  j  and  for  this  same  reason  he  forced  that  question  upon 
our  party.  It  has  sunk  the  best  men  all  over  the  nation,  everywhere  j 
and  now  when  our  President,  struggling  with  the  difficulties  of  this 
man's  getting  up,  has  reached  the  very  hardest  point  to  turn  in  the 
case,  he  deserts  him,  and  I  am  for  putting  him  where  he  will  trouble 
us  no  more." 

Now,  gentlemen,  that  is  not  my  argument  —  that  is  not  my  argu 
ment  at  all.  I  have  only  been  stating  to  you  the  argument  of  a 
Buchanan  man.  You  will  judge  if  there  is  any  force  in  it. 

Popular  sovereignty !  everlasting  popular  sovereignty !  Let  us 
for  a  moment  inquire  into  this  vast  matter  of  popular  sovereignty. 
What  is  popular  sovereignty  ?  We  recollect  that  at  an  early  period 
in  the  history  of  this  struggle,  there  was  another  name  for  the  same 
thing  —  squatter  sovereignty.  It  was  not  exactly  popular  sov 
ereignty,  but  squatter  sovereignty.  What  did  those  terms  mean  ? 
What  do  those  terms  mean  when  used  now  ?  And  vast  credit  is 


ADDRESSES   AND  LETTERS   OF  ABKAHAM  LINCOLN          249 

taken  by  our  friend  the  judge  in  regard  to  his  support  of  it,  when 
he  declares  the  last  years  of  his  life  have  been,  and  all  the  future 
years  of  his  life  shall  be,  devoted  to  this  matter  of  popular  sov 
ereignty.  What  is  it  ?  Why,  it  is  the  sovereignty  of  the  people ! 
What  was  squatter  sovereignty  ?  I  suppose  if  it  had  any  signifi 
cance  at  all,  it  was  the  right  of  the  people  to  govern  themselves,  to  be 
sovereign  in  their  own  affairs  while  they  were  squatted  down  in  a 
country  not  their  own,  while  they  had  squatted  on  a  Territory  that 
did  not  belong  to  them,  in  the  sense  that  a  State  belongs  to  the  peo 
ple  who  inhabit  it — when  it  belonged  to  the  nation  —  such  right  to 
govern  themselves  was  called  "squatter  sovereignty." 

Now  I  wish  you  to  mark  what  has  become  of  that  squatter 
sovereignty.  What  has  become  of  it?  Can  you  get  anybody  to 
tell  you  now  that  the  people  of  a  Territory  have  any  authority  to 
govern  themselves,  in  regard  to  this  mooted  question  of  slavery, 
before  they  form  a  State  constitution?  No  such  thing  at  all, 
although  there  is  a  general  running  fire,  and  although  there  has 
been  a  hurrah  made  in  every  speech  on  that  side,  assuming  that 
policy  had  given  the  people  of  a  Territory  the  right  to  govern 
themselves  upon  this  question ;  yet  the  point  is  dodged.  To-day  it 
has  been  decided  —  no  more  than  a  year  ago  it  was  decided  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  and  is  insisted  upon  to-day — 
that  the  people  of  a  Territory  have  no  right  to  exclude  slavery  from 
a  Territory ;  that  if  any  one  man  chooses  to  take  slaves  into  a 
Territory,  all  the  rest  of  the  people  have  no  right  to  keep  them  out. 
This  being  so,  and  this  decision  being  made  one  of  the  points  that 
the  judge  approved,  and  one  in  the  approval  of  which  he  says  he 
means  to  keep  me  down  —  put  me  down  I  should  not  say,  for  I  have 
never  been  up ;  he  says  he  is  in  favor  of  it,  and  sticks  to  it,  and 
expects  to  win  his  battle  on  that  decision,  which  says  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  squatter  sovereignty,  but  that  any  one  man  may  take 
slaves  into  a  Territory,  and  all  the  other  men  in  the  Territory 
may  be  opposed  to  it,  and  yet  by  reason  of  the  Constitution  they 
cannot  prohibit  it.  When  that  is  so,  how  much  is  left  of  this  vast 
matter  of  squatter  sovereignty,  I  should  like  to  know  ? 

When  we  get  back,  we  get  to  the  point  of  the  right  of  the  people 
to  make  a  constitution.  Kansas  was  settled,  for  example,  in  1854. 
It  was  a  Territory  yet,  without  having  formed  a  constitution,  in  a 
very  regular  way,  for  three  years.  All  this  time  negro  slavery  could 
be  taken  in  by  any  few  individuals,  and  by  that  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  which  the  judge  approves,  all  the  rest  of  the  people 
cannot  keep  it  out;  but  when  they  come  to  make  a  constitution 
they  may  say  they  will  not  have  slavery.  But  it  is  there ;  they  are 
obliged  to  tolerate  it  some  way,  and  all  experience  shows  it  will 
be  so — for  they  will  not  take  the  negro  slaves  and  absolutely  deprive 
the  owners  of  them.  All  experience  shows  this  to  be  so.  All  that 
space  of  time  that  runs  from  the  beginning  of  the  settlement  of  the 
Territory  until  there  is  sufficiency  of  people  to  make  a  State  consti 
tution —  all  that  portion  of  time  popular  sovereignty  is  given  up. 
The  seal  is  absolutely  put  down  upon  it  by  the  court  decision,  and 
Judge  Douglas  puts  his  own  upon  the  top  of  that;  yet  he  is  appeal- 


250          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

ing  to  the  people  to  give  him  vast  credit  for  his  devotion  to  popular 
sovereignty. 

Again,  when  we  get  to  the  question  of  the  right  of  the  people  to 
form  a  State  constitution  as  they  please,  to  form  it  with  slavery  or 
without  slavery — if  that  is  anything  new,  I  confess  I  don't  know  it. 
Has  there  ever  been  a  time  when  anybody  said  that  any  other  than 
the  people  of  a  Territory  itself  should  form  a  constitution  ?  What 
is  now  in  it  that  Judge  Douglas  should  have  fought  several  years  of 
his  life,  and  pledge  himself  to  fight  all  the  remaining  years  of  his 
life,  for  ?  Can  Judge  Douglas  find  anybody  on  earth  that  said  that 
anybody  else  should  form  a  constitution  for  a  people!  [A  voice: 
"  Yes."]  Well,  I  should  like  you  to  name  him  j  I  should  like  to  know 
who  he  was.  [Same  voice :  "  John  Calhoun."]  No,  sir;  I  never  heard 
of  even  John  Calhoun  saying  such  a  thing.  He  insisted  on  the 
same  principle  as  Judge  Douglas  ;  but  his  mode  of  applying  it,  in 
fact,  was  wrong.  It  is  enough  for  my  purpose  to  ask  this  crowd 
whenever  a  Republican  said  anything  against  it  ?  They  never  said 
anything  against  it,  but  they  have  constantly  spoken  for  it;  and 
whosoever  will  undertake  to  examine  the  platform  and  the  speeches 
of  responsible  men  of  the  party,  and  of  irresponsible  men,  too,  if  you 
please,  will  be  unable  to  find  one  word  from  anybody  in  the  Republi 
can  ranks  opposed  to  that  popular  sovereignty  which  Judge  Douglas 
thinks  he  has  invented.  I  suppose  that  Judge  Douglas  will  claim 
in  a  little  while  that  he  is  the  inventor  of  the  idea  that  the  people 
should  govern  themselves ;  that  nobody  ever  thought  of  such  a 
thing  until  he  brought  it  forward.  We  do  not  remember  that  in 
that  old  Declaration  of  Independence  it  is  said  that  "  We  hold  these 
truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  all  men  are  created  equal ;  that  they 
are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights ;  that 
among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness ;  that  to 
secure  these  rights,  governments  are  instituted  among  men,  deriving 
their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed."  There  is  the 
origin  of  popular  sovereignty.  Who,  then,  shall  come  in  at  this  day 
and  claim  that  he  invented  it  ? 

The  Lecompton  constitution  connects  itself  with  this  question,  for 
it  is  in  this  matter  of  the  Lecompton  constitution  that  our  friend 
Judge  Douglas  claims  such  vast  credit.  I  agree  that  in  opposing 
the  Lecompton  constitution,  so  far  as  I  can  perceive,  he  was  right. 
I  do  not  deny  that  at  all ;  and,  gentlemen,  you  will  readily  see  why  I 
could  not  deny  it,  even  if  I  wanted  to.  But  I  do  not  wish  to ;  for  all 
the  Republicans  in  the  nation  opposed  it,  and  they  would  have  op 
posed  it  just  as  much  without  Judge  Douglas's  aid  as  with  it.  They 
had  all  taken  ground  against  it  long  before  he  did.  Why,  the  reason 
that  he  urges  against  that  constitution  I  urged  against  him  a  year 
before.  I  have  the  printed,  speech  in  my  hand.  The  argument  that 
he  makes  why  that  constitution  should  not  be  adopted,  that  the 
people  were  not  fairly  represented  nor  allowed  to  vote,  I  pointed  out 
in  a  speech  a  year  ago,  which  I  hold  in  my  hand  now,  that  no  fair 
chance  was  to  be  given  to  the  people.  ["Read  it;  read  it."]  I 
shall  not  waste  your  time  by  trying  to  read  it.  ["  Read  it ;  read 
it."]  Gentlemen,  reading  from  speeches  is  a  very  tedious  business, 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          251 

particularly  for  an  old  man  who  has  to  put  on  spectacles,  and  more 
so  if  the  man  be  so  tall  that  he  has  to  bend  over  to  the  light. 

A  little  more  now  as  to  this  matter  of  popular  sovereignty  and 
the  Lecompton  constitution.  The  Lecompton  constitution,  as  the 
judge  tells  us,  was  defeated.  The  defeat  of  it  was  a  good  thing,  or  it 
was  not.  He  thinks  the  defeat  of  it  was  a  good  thing,  and  so  do  I, 
and  we  agree  in  that.  Who  defeated  it  ?  [A  voice :  "  Judge  Douglas."] 
Yes,  he  furnished  himself,  and  if  you  suppose  he  controlled  the  other 
Democrats  that  went  with  him,  he  furnished  three  votes,  while  the 
Republicans  furnished  twenty. 

That  is  what  he  did  to  defeat  it.  In  the  House  of  Representatives 
he  and  his  friends  furnished  some  twenty  votes,  and  the  Republicans 
furnished  ninety  odd.  Now,  who  was  it  that  did  the  work  ?  [A  voice : 
"  Douglas.7']  Why,  yes,  Douglas  did  it !  To  be  sure  he  did. 

Let  us,  however,  put  that  proposition  another  way.  The  Republi 
cans  could  not  have  done  it  without  Judge  Douglas.  Could  he  have 
done  it  without  them  ?  Which  could  have  come  the  nearest  to  doing 
it  without  the  other?  [A  voice:  "Who  killed  the  bill!"  Another 
voice :  "  Douglas."]  Ground  was  taken  against  it  by  the  Republicans 
long  before  Douglas  did  it.  The  proportion  of  opposition  to  that 
measure  is  about  five  to  one.  [A  voice:  "  Why  don't  they  come  out 
on  it?"]  You  don't  know  what  you  are  talking  about,  my  friend. 
I  am  quite  willing  to  answer  any  gentleman  in  the  crowd  who  asks 
an  intelligent  question. 

Now,  who,  in  all  this  country,  has  ever  found  any  of  our  friends  of 
Judge  Douglas's  way  of  thinking,  and  who  have  acted  upon  this 
main  question,  that  have  ever  thought  of  uttering  a  word  in  behalf 
of  Judge  Trumbull?  [A  voice:  "We  have.'7]  I  defy  you  to  show  a 
printed  resolution  passed  in  a  Democratic  meeting.  I  take  it  upon 
myself  to  defy  any  man  to  show  a  printed  resolution  of  a  Democratic 
meeting,  large  or  small,  in  favor  of  Judge  Trumbull,  or  any  of  the 
five  to  one  Republicans  who  beat  that  bill.  Everything  must  be  for 
the  Democrats  !  They  did  everything,  and  the  five  to  the  one  that 
really  did  the  thing  they  snub  over,  and  they  do  not  seem  to  remem 
ber  that  they  have  an  existence  upon  the  face  of  the  earth. 

Gentlemen,  I  fear  that  I  shall  become  tedious.  I  leave  this  branch 
of  the  subject  to  take  hold  of  another.  I  take  up  that  part  of  Judge 
Douglas's  speech  in  which  he  respectfully  attended  to  me. 

Judge  Douglas  made  two  points  upon  my  recent  speech  at  Spring 
field.  He  says  they  are  to  be  the  issues  of  this  campaign.  The  first 
one  of  these  points  he  bases  upon  the  language  in  a  speech  which  I 
delivered  at  Springfield,  which  I  believe  I  can  quote  correctly  from 
memory.  I  said  there  that  "  we  are  now  far  into  the  fifth  year  since 
a  policy  was  instituted  for  the  avowed  object  and  with  the  confident 
promise  of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation  ;  under  the  operation 
of  that  policy,  that  agitation  has  not  only  not  ceased,  but  has  con 
stantly  augmented.  I  believe  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have 
been  reached  and  passed.  l  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand.'  I  believe  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently  half 
slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved  " — 
I  am  quoting  from  my  speech — "I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall, 


252          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one 
thing  or  all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest 
the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest 
in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its 
advocates  will  push  it  forward  until  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in 
all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new.  North  as  well  as  South." 

That  is  the  paragraph !  In  this  paragraph  which  I  have  quoted 
in  your  hearing,  and  to  which  I  ask  the  attention  of  all,  Judge  Doug 
las  thinks  he  discovers  great  political  heresy.  I  want  your  attention 
particularly  to  what  he  has  inferred  from  it.  He  says  I  am  in  favor 
of  making  all  the  States  of  this  Union  uniform  in  all  their  internal 
regulations ;  that  in  all  their  domestic  concerns  I  am  in  favor  of 
making  them  entirely  uniform.  He  draws  this  inference  from  the 
language  I  have  quoted  to  you.  He  says  that  I  am  in  favor  of  making 
war  by  the  North  upon  the  South  for  the  extinction  of  slavery;  that 
I  am  also  in  favor  of  inviting  (as  he  expresses  it)  the  South  to  a  war 
upon  the  North,  for  the  purpose  of  nationalizing  slavery.  Now,  it  is 
singular  enough,  if  you  will  carefully  read  that  passage  over,  that  I 
did  not  say  that  I  was  in  favor  of  anything  in  it.  I  only  said  what 
I  expected  would  take  place.  I  made  a  prediction  only — it  may  have 
been  a  foolish  one,  perhaps.  I  did  not  even  say  that  I  desired  that 
slavery  should  be  put  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  I  do  say  so 
now,  however,  so  there  need  be  no  longer  any  difficulty  about  that. 
It  may  be  written  down  in  the  great  speech. 

Gentlemen,  Judge  Douglas  informed  you  that  this  speech  of  mine 
was  probably  carefully  prepared.  I  admit  that  it  was.  I  am  not 
master  of  language;  1  have  not  a  fine  education;  I  am  not  capable 
of  entering  into  a  disquisition  upon  dialectics,  as  I  believe  you  call  it ; 
but  I  do  not  believe  the  language  I  employed  bears  any  such  con 
struction  as  Judge  Douglas  puts  upon  it.  But  I  don't  care  about  a 
quibble  in  regard  to  words.  I  know  what  I  meant,  and  I  will  not  leave 
this  crowd  in  doubt,  if  I  can  explain  it  to  them,  what  I  really  meant 
in  the  use  of  that  paragraph. 

I  am  not,  in  the  first  place,  unaware  that  this  government  has  en 
dured  eighty-two  years  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  know  that.  I 
am  tolerably  well  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  country,  and  I 
know  that  it  has  endured  eighty-two  years  half  slave  and  half  free. 
I  believe — and  that  is  what  I  meant  to  allude  to  there — I  believe  it 
has  endured  because  during  all  that  time,  until  the  introduction  of 
the  Nebraska  bill,  the  public  mind  did  rest  all  the  time  in  the  belief 
that  slavery  was  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  That  was  what 
gave  us  the  rest  that  we  had. through  that  period  of  eighty-two 
years  ;  at  least,  so  I  believe.  I  have  always  hated  slavery,  I  think, 
as  much  as  any  Abolitionist — I  have  been  an  old-line  Whig — I 
have  always  hated  it,  but  I  have  always  been  quiet  about  it  until 
this  new  era  of  the  introduction  of  the  Nebraska  bill  began.  I  al 
ways  believed  that  everybody  was  against  it,  and  that  it  was  in 
course  of  ultimate  extinction.  [Pointing  to  Mr.  Browning,  who 
stood  nearby.]  Browning  thought  so;  the  great  mass  of  the  nation 
have  rested  in  the  belief  that  slavery  was  in  course  of  ultimate 
extinction.  They  had  reason  so  to  believe. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          253 

The  adoption  of  the  Constitution  and  its  attendant  history  led 
the  people  to  believe  so,  and  that  such  was  the  belief  of  the  f ramers 
of  the  Constitution  itself.  Why  did  those  old  men,  about  the  time  of 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  decree  that  slavery  should  not  go 
into  the  new  Territory,  where  it  had  not  already  gone  ?  Why  declare 
that  within  twenty  years  the  African  slave-trade,  by  which  slaves 
are  supplied,  might  be  cut  off  by  Congress  ?  Why  were  all  these 
acts?  I  might  enumerate  more  of  these  acts — but  enough.  What 
were  they  but  a  clear  indication  that  the  framers  of  the  Constitution 
intended  and  expected  the  ultimate  extinction  of  that  institution? 
And  now,  when  I  say, — as  I  said  in  my  speech  that  Judge  Douglas 
has  quoted  from, —  when  I  say  that  I  think  the  opponents  of  slavery 
will  resist  the  farther  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public 
mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  course  of  ultimate  ex 
tinction,  I  only  mean  to  say  that  they  will  place  it  where  the 
founders  of  this  government  originally  placed  it. 

I  have  said  a  hundred  times,  and  I  have  now  no  inclination  to 
take  it  back,  that  I  believe  there  is  no  right  and  ought  to  be  no  in 
clination  in  the  people  of  the  free  States  to  enter  into  the  slave 
States  and  interfere  with  the  question  of  slavery  at  all.  I  have  said 
that  always;  Judge  Douglas  has  heard  me  say  it — if  not  quite  a 
hundred  times,  at  least  as  good  as  a  hundred  times ;  and  when  it  is 
said  that  I  am  in  favor  of  interfering  with  slavery  where  it  exists,  I 
know  it  is  unwarranted  by  anything  I  have  ever  intended,  and,  as 
I  believe,  by  anything  I  have  ever  said.  If  by  any  means  I  have 
ever  used  language  which  could  fairly  be  so  construed  (as,  however, 
I  believe  I  never  have),  I  now  correct  it. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  inference  that  Judge  Douglas  draws,  that 
I  am  in  favor  of  setting  the  sections  at  war  with  one  another.  I 
know  that  I  never  meant  any  such  thing,  and  I  believe  that  no  fair 
mind  can  infer  any  such  thing  from  anything  I  have  ever  said. 

Now  in  relation  to  his  inference  that  I  am  in  favor  of  a  general 
consolidation  of  all  the  local  institutions  of  the  various  States.  I 
will  attend  to  that  for  a  little  while,  and  try  to  inquire,  if  I  can,  how 
on  earth  it  could  be  that  any  man  could  draw  such  an  inference 
from  anything  I  said.  I  have  said  very  many  times  in  Judge 
Douglas's  hearing  that  no  man  believed  more  than  I  in  the  principle 
of  self-government  j  that  it  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  my  ideas  of  just 
government  from  beginning  to  end.  I  have  denied  that  his  use  of 
that  term  applies  properly.  But  for  the  thing  itself  I  deny  that  any 
man  has  ever  gone  ahead  of  me  in  his  devotion  to  the  principle, 
whatever  he  may  have  done  in  efficiency  in  advocating  it.  I  think 
that  I  have  said  it  in  your  hearing  —  that  I  believe  each  individual 
is  naturally  entitled  to  do  as  he  pleases  with  himself  and  the  fruit 
of  his  labor,  so  far  as  it  in  no  wise  interferes  with  any  other  man's 
rights  j  that  each  community,  as  a  State,  has  a  right  to  do  exactly 
as  it  pleases  with  all  the  concerns  within  that  State  that  interfere 
with  the  right  of  no  other  State  5  and  that  the  General  Government, 
upon  principle,  has  no  right  to  interfere  with  anything  other  than 
that  general  class  of  things  that  does  concern  the  whole.  I  have 
said  that  at  all  times.  I  have  said  as  illustrations  that  I  do  not  be- 


254          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

lieve  in  the  right  of  Illinois  to  interfere  with  the  cranberry  laws  of 
Indiana,  the  oyster  laws  of  Virginia,  or  the  liquor  laws  of  Maine.  I 
have  said  these  things  over  and  over  again,  and  I  repeat  them  here 
as  my  sentiments. 

How  is  it,  then,  that  Judge  Douglas  infers,  because  I  hope  to  see 
slavery  put  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is 
in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  that  I  am  in  favor  of  Illinois 
going  over  and  interfering  with  the  cranberry  laws  of  Indiana? 
What  can  authorize  him  to  draw  any  such  inference  f  I  suppose  there 
might  be  one  thing  that  at  least  enabled  him  to  draw  such  an  infer 
ence  that  would  not  be  true  with  me  or  many  others;  that  is,  because 
he  looks  upon  all  this  matter  of  slavery  as  an  exceedingly  little 
thing — this  matter  of  keeping  one  sixth  of  the  population  of  the 
whole  nation  in  a  state  of  oppression  and  tyranny  unequaled  in  the 
world.  He  looks  upon  it  as  being  an  exceedingly  little  thing,  only 
equal  to  the  question  of  the  cranberry  laws  of  Indiana — as  some 
thing  having  no  moral  question  in  it — as  something  on  a  par  with 
the  question  of  whether  a  man  shall  pasture  his  land  with  cattle  or 
plant  it  with  tobacco — so  little  and  so  small  a  thing  that  he  con 
cludes,  if  I  could  desire  that  anything  should  be  done  to  bring 
about  the  ultimate  extinction  of  that  little  thing,  I  must  be  in  favor 
of  bringing  about  an  amalgamation  of  all  the  other  little  things  in 
the  Union.  Now,  it  so  happens — and  there,  I  presume,  is  the  foun 
dation  of  this  mistake — that  the  judge  thinks  thus;  and  it  so  hap 
pens  that  there  is  a  vast  portion  of  the  American  people  that  do  not 
look  upon  that  matter  as  being  this  very  little  thing.  They  look 
upon  it  as  a  vast  moral  evil;  they  can  prove  it  as  such  by  the 
writings  of  those  who  gave  us  the  blessings  of  liberty  which  we  en 
joy,  and  that  they  so  looked  upon  it,  and  not  as  an  evil  merely  con 
fining  itself  to  the  States  where  it  is  situated ;  and  while  we  agree 
that,  by  the  Constitution  we  assented  to,  in  the  States  where  it 
exists  we  have  no  right  to  interfere  with  it,  because  it  is  in  the  Con 
stitution,  we  are  by  both  duty  and  inclination  to  stick  by  that 
Constitution  in  all  its  letter  and  spirit  from  beginning  to  end. 

So  much,  then,  as  to  my  disposition — my  wish — to  have  all  the  State 
legislatures  blotted  out,  and  to  have  one  consolidated  government, 
and  a  uniformity  of  domestic  regulations  in  all  the  States ;  by  which 
I  suppose  it  is  meant,  if  we  raise  corn  here,  we  must  make  sugar 
cane  grow  here  too,  and  we  must  make  those  which  grow  North 
grow  in  the  South.  All  this  I  suppose  he  understands  I  am  in  favor 
of  doing.  Now,  so  much  for  all  this  nonsense — for  I  must  call  it  so. 
The  judge  can  have  no  issue  with  me  on  a  question  of  establishing 
uniformity  in  the  domestic  regulations  of  the  States. 

A  little  now  on  the  other  point  —  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  An 
other  of  the  issues  he  says  that  is  to  be  made  with  me,  is  upon  his 
devotion  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and  my  opposition  to  it. 

I  have  expressed  heretofore,  and  I  now  repeat,  my  opposition  to 
the  Dred  Scott  decision ;  but  I  should  be  allowed  to  state  the  nature 
of  that  opposition,  and  I  ask  your  indulgence  while  I  do  so.  What 
is  fairly  implied  by  the  term  Judge  Douglas  has  used,  "  resistance  to 
the  decision  "  ?  I  do  not  resist  it.  If  I  wanted  to  take  Dred  Scott 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          255 

from  his  master,  I  would  be  interfering  with  property,  and  that  ter 
rible  difficulty  that  Judge  Douglas  speaks  of,  of  interfering  with 
property,  would  arise.  But  I  am  doing  no  such  thing  as  that  ;  all 
that  I  am  doing  is  refusing  to  obey  it  as  a  political  rule.  If  I  were 
in  Congress,  and  a  vote  should  come  up  on  a  question  whether 
slavery  should  be  prohibited  in  a  new  Territory,  in  spite  of  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  I  would  vote  that  it  should. 

That  is  what  I  would  do.  Judge  Douglas  said  last  night  that  be 
fore  the  decision  he  might  advance  his  opinion,  and  it  might  be  con 
trary  to  the  decision  when  it  was  made;  but  after  it  was  made  he 
would  abide  by  it  until  it  was  reversed.  Just  so !  We  let  this  prop 
erty  abide  by  the  decision,  but  we  will  try  to  reverse  that  decision. 
We  will  try  to  put  it  where  Judge  Douglas  would  not  object,  for  he 
says  he  will  obey  it  until  it  is  reversed.  Somebody  has  to  reverse 
that  decision,  since  it  is  made;  and  we  mean  to  reverse  it,  and  we 
mean  to  do  it  peaceably. 

What  are  the  uses  of  decisions  of  courts"?  They  have  two  uses. 
As  rules  of  property  they  have  two  uses.  First  —  they  decide  upon 
the  question  before  the  court.  They  decide  in  this  case  that  Dred 
Scott  is  a  slave.  Nobody  resists  that.  Not  only  that,  but  they  say 
to  everybody  else  that  persons  standing  just  as  Dred  Scott  stands  are 
as  he  is.  That  is,  they  say  that  when  a  question  comes  up  upon  another 
person,  it  will  be  so  decided  again,  unless  the  court  decides  in  another 
way,  unless  the  court  overrules  its  decision.  Well,  we  mean  to  do 
what  we  can  to  have  the  court  decide  the  other  way.  That  is  one 
thing  we  mean  to  try  to  do. 

The  sacredness  that  Judge  Douglas  throws  around  this  decision  is 
a  degree  of  sacredness  that  has  never  been  before  thrown  around  any 
other  decision.  I  have  never  heard  of  such  a  thing.  Why,  decisions 
apparently  contrary  to  that  decision,  or  that  good  lawyers  thought 
were  contrary  to  that  decision,  have  been  made  by  that  very  court  be 
fore.  It  is  the  first  of  its  kind;  it  is  an  astonisher  in  legal  history. 
It  is  a  new  wonder  of  the  world.  It  is  based  upon  falsehood  in  the 
main  as  to  the  facts, — allegations  of  facts  upon  which  it  stands  are 
not  facts  at  all  in  many  instances, — and  no  decision  made  on  any  ques 
tion — the  first  instance  of  a  decision  made  under  so  many  unfavora 
ble  circumstances — thus  placed,  has  ever  been  held  by  the  profession 
as  law,  and  it  has  always  needed  confirmation  before  the  lawyers  re 
garded  it  as  settled  law.  But  Judge  Douglas  will  have  it  that  all 
hands  must  take  this  extraordinary  decision,  made  under  these 
extraordinary  circumstances,  and  give  their  vote  in  Congress  in  ac 
cordance  with  it,  yield  to  it  and  obey  it  in  every  possible  sense.  Cir 
cumstances  alter  cases.  Do  not  gentlemen  here  remember  the  case  of 
that  same  Supreme  Court,  some  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  ago,  de 
ciding  that  a  national  bank  was  constitutional?  I  ask  if  somebody 
does  not  remember  that  a  national  bank  was  declared  to  be  constitu 
tional?  Such  is  the  truth,  whether  it  be  remembered  or  not.  The 
bank  charter  ran  out,  and  a  recharter  was  granted  by  Congress. 
That  recharter  was  laid  before  General  Jackson.  It  was  urged  upon 
him,  when  he  denied  the  constitutionality  of  the  bank,  that  the  Su 
preme  Court  had  decided  that  it  was  constitutional;  and  General 


256          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Jackson  then  said  that  the  Supreme  Court  had  no  right  to  lay  down 
a  rule  to  govern  a  coordinate  branch  of  the  government,  the  mem 
bers  of  which  had  sworn  to  support  the  Constitution — that  each 
member  had  sworn  to  support  that  Constitution  as  he  understood  it. 
I  will  venture  here  to  say  that  I  have  heard  Judge  Douglas  say  that 
he  approved  of  General  Jackson  for  that  act.  What  has  now  become 
of  all  his  tirade  against  "resistance  to  the  Supreme  Court7'? 

My  fellow-citizens,  getting  back  a  little,  for  I  pass  from  these 
points,  when  Judge  Douglas  makes  his  threat  of  annihilation  upon 
the  "  alliance,"  he  is  cautious  to  say  that  that  warfare  of  his  is  to 
fall  upon  the  leaders  of  the  Republican  party.  Almost  every  word 
he  utters,  and  every  distinction  he  makes,  has  its  significance.  He 
means  for  the  Republicans  who  do  not  count  themselves  as  leaders 
to  be  his  friends ;  he  makes  no  fuss  over  them ;  it  is  the  leaders  that 
he  is  making  war  upon.  He  wants  it  understood  that  the  mass  of 
the  Republican  party  are  really  his  friends.  It  is  only  the  leaders  that 
are  doing  something,  that  are  intolerant,  and  require  extermina 
tion  at  his  hands.  As  this  is  clearly  and  unquestionably  the  light 
in  which  he  presents  that  matter,  I  want  to  ask  your  attention, 
addressing  myself  to  Republicans  here,  that  I  may  ask  you  some 
questions  as  to  where  you,  as  the  Republican  party,  would  be  placed 
if  you  sustained  Judge  Douglas  in  his  present  position  by  a  reelec 
tion^  I  do  not  claim,  gentlemen,  to  be  unselfish;  I  do  not  pretend 
that  I  would  not  like  to  go  to  the  United  States  Senate;  I  make  no 
such  hypocritical  pretense,  but  I  do  say  to  you  that  in  this  mighty 
issue,  it  is  nothing  to  you — nothing  to  the  mass  of  the  people  of 
the  nation — whether  or  not  Judge  Douglas  or  myself  shall  ever  be 
heard  of  after  this  night ;  it  may  be  a  trifle  to  either  of  us,  but  in 
connection  with  this  mighty  question,  upon  which  hang  the  destinies 
of  the  nation,  perhaps,  it  is  absolutely  nothing.  But  where  will  you 
be  placed  if  you  reindorse  Judge  Douglas  ?  Don't  you  know  how 
apt  he  is — how  exceedingly  anxious  he  is  at  all  times  to  seize  upon 
anything  and  everything  to  persuade  you  that  something  he  has 
done  you  did  yourselves  ?  Why,  he  tried  to  persuade  you  last  night 
that  our  Illinois  legislature  instructed  him  to  introduce  the  Ne 
braska  bill.  There  was  nobody  in  that  legislature  ever  thought  of 
such  a  thing ;  and  when  he  first  introduced  the  bill,  he  never  thought 
of  it ;  but  still  he  fights  furiously  for  the  proposition,  and  that  he 
did  it  because  there  was  a  standing  instruction  to  our  senators  to 
be  always  introducing  Nebraska  bills.  He  tells  you  he  is  for  the 
Cincinnati  platform ;  he  tells  you  he  is  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision. 
He  tells  you,  not  in  his  speech  last  night,  but  substantially  in  a 
former  speech,  that  he  cares  not  if  slavery  is  voted  up  or  down ; 
he  tells  you  the  struggle  on  Lecompton  is  past — it  mav^  come  up 
again  or  not,  and  if  it  does  he  stands  where  he  stood  when  in  spite  of 
him  and  his  opposition  you  built  up  the  Republican  party.  If  you 
indorse  him,  you  tell  him  you  do  not  care  whether  slavery  be  voted 
up  or  down,  and  he  will  close,  or  try  to  close,  your  mouths  with  his 
declaration,  repeated  by  the  day,  the  week,  the  month,  and  the  year. 
I  think,  in  the  position  in  which  Judge  Douglas  stood  in  opposing 
the  Lecompton  constitution,  he  was  right ;  he  does  not  know  that 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          257 

it  will  return,  but  if  it  does  we  may  know  where  to  find  him, 
and  if  it  does  not  we  may  know  where  to  look  for  him,  and  that 
is  on  the  Cincinnati  platform.  Now  I  could  ask  the  Republi 
can  party,  after  all  the  hard  names  Judge  Douglas  has  called  them 
by,  all  his  repeated  charges  of  their  inclination  to  marry  with  and 
hug  negroes,  all  his  declarations  of  Black  Republicanism, —  by  the 
way,  we  are  improving,  the  black  has  got  rubbed  off, —  but  with  all 
that,  if  he  be  indorsed  by  Republican  votes,  where  do  you  stand  ? 
Plainly,  you  stand  ready  saddled,  bridled,  and  harnessed,  and  waiting 
to  be  driven  over  to  the  slavery  extension  camp  of  the  nation, —  just 
ready  to  be  driven  over,  tied  together  in  a  lot, —  to  be  driven  over, 
every  man  with  a  rope  around  his  neck,  that  halter  being  held  by 
Judge  Douglas.  That  is  the  question.  If  Republican  men  have 
been  in  earnest  in  what  they  have  done,  I  think  they  had  better  not 
do  it  ;  but  I  think  the  Republican  party  is  made  up  of  those  who,  as 
far  as  they  can  peaceably,  will  oppose  the  extension  of  slavery,  and 
who  will  hope  for  its  ultimate  extinction.  If  they  believe  it  is 
wrong  in  grasping  up  the  new  lands  of  the  continent,  and  keeping 
them  from  the  settlement  of  free  white  laborers,  who  want  the  land 
to  bring  up  their  families  upon ;  if  they  are  in  earnest,  although  they 
may  make  a  mistake,  they  will  grow  restless,  and  the  time  will  come 
when  they  will  come  back  again  and  reorganize,  if  not  by  the  same 
name,  at  least  upon  the  same  principles  as  their  party  now  has. 
It  is  better,  then,  to  save  the  work  while  it  is  begun.  You  have 
done  the  labor ;  maintain  it,  keep  it.  If  men  choose  to  serve  you, 
go  with  them ;  but  as  you  have  made  up  your  organization  upon 
principle,  stand  by  it  ;  for,  as  surely  as  God  reigns  over  you,  and 
has  inspired  your  mind,  and  given  you  a  sense  of  propriety,  and 
continues  to  give  you  hope,  so  surely  will  you  still  cling  to  these 
ideas,  and  you  will  at  last  come  back  again  after  your  wanderings, 
merely  to  do  your  work  over  again. 

We  were  often — more  than  once  at  least — in  the  course  of  Judge 
Douglas's  speech  last  night  reminded  that  this  government  was 
made  for  white  men  —  that  he  believed  it  was  made  for  white  men. 
Well,  that  is  putting  it  into  a  shape  in  which  no  one  wants  to  deny 
it;  but  the  judge  then  goes  into  his  passion  for  drawing  inferences 
that  are  not  warranted.  I  protest,  now  and  forever,  against  that 
counterfeit  logic  which  presumes  that  because  I  do  not  want  a  negro 
woman  for  a  slave,  I  do  necessarily  want  her  for  a  wife.  My  under 
standing  is  that  I  need  not  have  her  for  either;  but,  as  God  made  us 
separate,  we  can  leave  one  another  alone,  and  do  one  another  much 
good  thereby.  There  are  white  men  enough  to  marry  all  the  white 
women,  and  enough  black  men  to  marry  all  the  black  women,  and 
in  God's  name  let  them  be  so  married.  The  judge  regales  us  with 
the  terrible  enormities  that  take  place  by  the  mixture  of  races;  that 
the  inferior  race  bears  the  superior  down.  Why,  judge,  if  we  do  not 
let  them  get  together  in  the  Territories,  they  won't  mix  there.  [A 
voice :  "  Three  cheers  for  Lincoln ! "  The  cheers  were  given  with  a 
hearty  good  will.]  I  should  say  at  least  that  that  is  a  self-evident 
truth. 

Now,  it  happens  that  we  meet  together  once  every  year,  somewhere 
VOL.  I.— 17. 


258          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

about  the  4th  of  July,  for  some  reason  or  other.  These  4th  of  July 
gatherings  I  suppose  have  their  uses.  If  you  will  indulge  me,  I  will 
state  what  I  suppose  to  be  some  of  them. 

We  are  now  a  mighty  nation :  we  are  thirty,  or  about  thirty,  mil 
lions  of  people,  and  we  own  and  inhabit  about  one  fifteenth  part  of 
the  dry  land  of  the  whole  earth.  We  run  our  memory  back  over 
the  pages  of  history  for  about  eighty-two  years,  and  we  discover 
that  we  were  then  a  very  small  people,  in  point  of  numbers  vastly 
inferior  to  what  we  are  now,  with  a  vastly  less  extent  of  country, 
with  vastly  less  of  everything  we  deem  desirable  among  men.  We 
look  upon  the  change  as  exceedingly  advantageous  to  us  and  to  our 
posterity,  and  we  fix  upon  something  that  happened  away  back  as 
in  some  way  or  other  being  connected  with  this  rise  of  prosperity. 
We  find  a  race  of  men  living  in  that  day  whom  we  claim  as  our 
fathers  and  grandfathers;  they  were  iron  men;  they  fought  for  the 
principle  that  they  were  contending  for ;  and  we  understood  that  by 
what  they  then  did  it  has  followed  that  the  degree  of  prosperity 
which  we  now  enjoy  has  come  to  us.  We  hold  this  annual  celebra 
tion  to  remind  ourselves  of  all  the  good  done  in  this  process  of 
time,  of  how  it  was  done  and  who  did  it,  and  how  we  are  historically 
connected  with  it ;  and  we  go  from  these  meetings  in  better  humor 
with  ourselves  —  we  feel  more  attached  the  one  to  the  other,  and 
more  firmly  bound  to  the  country  we  inhabit.  In  every  way  we  are 
better  men,  in  the  age,  and  race,  and  country  in  which  we  live,  for 
these  celebrations.  But  after  we  have  done  all  this,  we  have  not  yet 
reached  the  whole.  There  is  something  else  connected  with  it.  We 
have,  besides  these  men — descended  by  blood  from  our  ancestors  — 
among  us,  perhaps  half  our  people  who  are  not  descendants  at  all 
of  these  men ;  they  are  men  who  have  come  from  Europe, —  German, 
Irish,  French,  and  Scandinavian, —  men  that  have  come  from  Europe 
themselves,  or  whose  ancestors  have  come  hither  and  settled  here, 
finding  themselves  our  equal  in  all  things.  If  they  look  back  through 
this  history  to  trace  their  connection  with  those  days  by  blood,  they 
find  they  have  none;  they  cannot  carry  themselves  back  into  that 

florious  epoch  and  make  themselves  feel  that  they  are  part  of  us ; 
ut  when  they  look  through  that  old  Declaration  of  Independence, 
they  find  that  those  old  men  say  that  "  We  hold  these  truths  to  be 
self-evident,  that  all  men  are  created  equal,"  and  then  they  feel  that 
that  moral  sentiment  taught  in  that  day  evidences  their  relation  to 
those  men,  that  it  is  the  father  of  all  moral  principle  in  them,  and 
that  they  have  a  right  to  claim  it  as  though  they  were  blood  of  the 
blood,  and  flesh  of  the  flesh,  of  the  men  who  wrote  that  Declaration, 
and  so  they  are.  That  is  the  electric  cord  in  that  Declaration  that 
links  the  hearts  of  patriotic  and  liberty -loving  men  together,  that 
will  link  those  patriotic  hearts  as  long  as  the  love  of  freedom  exists 
in  the  minds  of  men  throughout  the  world. 

Now,  sirs,  for  the  purpose  of  squaring  things  with  this  idea  of 
"  don't  care  if  slavery  is  voted  up  or  voted  down,"  for  sustaining 
the  Dred  Scott  decision,  for  holding  that  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  did  not  mean  anything  at  all,  we  have  Judge  Douglas 
giving  his  exposition  of  what  the  Declaration  of  Independence 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          259 

means,  and  we  have  him  saying  that  the  people  of  America  are  equal 
to  the  people  of  England.  According  to  his  construction,  you  Ger 
mans  are  not  connected  with  it.  Now  I  ask  you,  in  all  soberness,  if 
all  these  things,  if  indulged  in,  if  ratified,  if  confirmed  and  indorsed, 
if  taught  to  our  children,  and  repeated  to  them,  do  not  tend  to  rub 
out  the  sentiment  of  liberty  in  the  country,  and  to  transform  this 
government  into  a  government  of  some  other  form?  Those  argu 
ments  that  are  made,  that  the  inferior  race  are  to  be  treated  with 
as  much  allowance  as  they  are  capable  of  enjoying;  that  as  much 
is  to  be  done  for  them  as  their  condition  will  allow — what  are  these 
arguments  ?  They  are  the  arguments  that  kings  have  made  for  en 
slaving  the  people  in  all  ages  of  the  world.  You  will  find  that  all 
the  arguments  in  favor  of  kingcraft  were  of  this  class  5  they  always 
bestrode  the  necks  of  the  people — not  that  they  wanted  to  do  it,  but 
because  the  people  were  better  off  for  being  ridden.  That  is  their 
argument,  and  this  argument  of  the  judge  is  the  same  old  serpent 
that  says,  You  work  and  I  eat,  you  toil  and  I  will  enjoy  the  fruits 
of  it.  Turn  in  whatever  way  you  will — whether  it  corne  from  the 
mouth  of  a  king,  an  excuse  for  enslaving  the  people  of  his  country, 
or  from  the  mouth  of  men  of  one  race  as  a  reason  for  enslaving  the 
men  of  another  race,  it  is  all  the  same  old  serpent,  and  I  hold  if 
that  course  of  argumentation  that  is  made  for  the  purpose  of  con 
vincing  the  public  mind  that  we  should  not  care  about  this  should 
be  granted,  it  does  not  stop  with  the  negro.  I  should  like  to  know 
— taking  this  old  Declaration  of  Independence,  which  declares  that 
all  men  are  equal  upon  principle,  and  making  exceptions  to  it, — where 
will  it  stop?  If  one  man  says  it  does  not  mean  a  negro,  why  not 
another  say  it  does  not  mean  some  other  man?  If  that  Declaration 
is  not  the  truth,  let  us  get  the  statute-book  in  which  we  find  it,  and 
tear  it  out !  Who  is  so  bold  as  to  do  it  ?  If  it  is  not  true,  let  us 
tear  it  out  [cries  of  "  No,  no  "].  Let  us  stick  to  it,  then  ;  let  us  stand 
firmly  by  it,  then. 

It  may  be  argued  that  there  are  certain  conditions  that  make 
necessities  and  impose  them  upon  us,  and  to  the  extent  that  a  ne 
cessity  is  imposed  upon  a  man,  he  must  submit  to  it.  I  think  that 
was  the  condition  in  which  we  found  ourselves  when  we  established 
this  government.  We  had  slaves  among  us;  we  could  not  get 
our  Constitution  unless  we  permitted  them  to  remain  in  slavery ;  we 
could  not  secure  the  good  we  did  secure  if  we  grasped  for  more;  but 
having  by  necessity  submitted  to  that  much,  it  does  not  destroy  the 
principle  that  is  the  charter  of  our  liberties.  Let  that  charter  stand 
as  our  standard. 

My  friend  has  said  to  me  that  I  am  a  poor  hand  to  quote  Scrip 
ture.  I  will  try  it  again,  however.  It  is  said  in  one  of  the  admoni 
tions  of  our  Lord,  "  Be  ye  [therefore]  perfect  even  as  your  Father 
which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect."  The  Saviour,  I  suppose,  did  not  ex- 

Eect  that  any  human  creature  could  be  perfect  as  the  Father  in 
eaven;  but  he  said,  "As  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect,  be  ye 
also  perfect."    He  set  that  up  as  a  standard,  and  he  who  did  most 
toward  reaching  that  standard  attained  the  highest  degree  of  moral 
perf e  3tion.     So  I  say  in  relation  to  the  principle  that  all  men  are 


260          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

created  equal,  let  it  be  as  nearly  reached  as  we  can.  If  we  cannot 
give  freedom  to  every  creature,  let  us  do  nothing  that  will  impose 
slavery  upon  any  other  creature.  Let  us  then  turn  this  government 
back  into  the  channel  in  which  the  framers  of  the  Constitution 
originally  placed  it.  Let  us  stand  firmly  by  each  other.  If  we  do 
not  do  so,  we  are  tending  in  the  contrary  direction  that  our  friend 
Judge  Douglas  proposes — not  intentionally — working  in  the  traces 
that  tend  to  make  this  one  universal  slave  nation.  He  is  one  that 
runs  in  that  direction,  and  as  such  I  resist  him. 

My  friends,  I  have  detained  you  about  as  long  as  I  desired  to  do, 
and  I  have  only  to  say,  let  us  discard  all  this  quibbling  about  this 
man  and  the  other  man,  this  race  and  that  race  and  the  other  race 
being  inferior,  and  therefore  they  must  be  placed  in  an  inferior 
position.  Let  us  discard  all  these  things,  and  unite  as  one  people 
throughout  this  land,  until  we  shall  once  more  stand  up  declaring 
that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

My  friends,  I  could  not,  without  launching  off  upon  some  new 
topic,  which  would  detain  you  too  long,  continue  to-night.  I  thank 
you  for  this  most  extensive  audience  that  you  have  furnished  me  to 
night.  I  leave  you,  hoping  that  the  lamp  of  liberty  will  burn  in 
your  bosoms  until  there  shall  no  longer  be  a  doubt  that  all  men  are 
created  free  and  equal. 


July  17, 1858. —  SPEECH  AT  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS. 

Fellow-citizens:  Another  election,  which  is  deemed  an  important 
one,  is  approaching;  and,  as  I  suppose,  the  Republican  party  will 
without  much  difficulty  elect  their  State  ticket.  But  in  regard  to 
the  legislature,  we,  the  Republicans,  labor  under  some  disadvantages. 
In  the  first  place,  we  have  a  legislature  to  elect  upon  an  apportion 
ment  of  the  representation  made  several  years  ago,  when  the  pro 
portion  of  the  population  was  far  greater  in  the  South  (as  compared 
with  the  North)  than  it  now  is;  and  inasmuch  as  our  opponents  hold 
almost  entire  sway  in  the  South,  and  we  a  correspondingly  large 
majority  in  the  North,  the  fact  that  we  are  now  to  be  represented 
as  we  were  years  ago,  when  the  population  was  different,  is  to  us  a 
very  great  disadvantage.  We  had  in  the  year  1855,  according  to 
law,  a  census  or  enumeration  of  the  inhabitants  taken  for  the  purpose 
of  a  new  apportionment  of  representation.  We  know  what  a  fair 
apportionment  of  representation  upon  that  census  would  give  us. 
We  know  that  it  could  not,  if  fairly  made,  fail  to  give  the  Republican 
party  from  six  to  ten  more  members  of  the  legislature  than  they  can 
probably  get  as  the  law  now  stands.  It  so  happened  at  the  last  session 
of  the  legislature,  that  our  opponents,  holding  the  control  of  both 
branches  of  the  legislature,  steadily  refused  to  give  us  such  an  appor 
tionment  as  we  were  rightly  entitled  to  have  upon  the  census  already 
taken.  The  legislature  steadily  refused  to  give  us  such  an  apportion 
ment  as  we  were  rightfully  entitled  to  have  upon  the  census  taken  of 
the  population  of  the  State.  The  legislature  would  pass  no  bill  upon 
that  subject,  except  such  as  was  at  least  as  unfair  to  us  as  the  old  one, 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          261 

and  in  which,  in  some  instances,  two  men  in  the  Democratic  regions 
were  allowed  to  go  as  far  toward  sending  a  member  to  the  legislature 
as  three  were  in  the  Republican  regions.  Comparison  was  made  at 
the  time  as  to  representative  and  senatorial  districts,  which  com 
pletely  demonstrated  that  such  was  the  fact.  Such  a  bill  was  passed 
and  tendered  to  the  Republican  governor  for  his  signature;  but, 
principally  for  the  reasons  I  have  stated,  he  withheld  his  approval, 
and  the  bill  fell  without  becoming  a  law. 

Another  disadvantage  under  which  we  labor  is  that  there  are  one 
or  two  Democratic  senators  who  will  be  members  of  the  next  le 
gislature,  and  will  vote  for  the  election  of  senator,  who  are  holding 
over  in  districts  in  which  we  could,  on  all  reasonable  calculation,  elect 
men  of  our  own,  if  we  only  had  the  chance  of  an  election.  When 
we  consider  that  there  are  but  twenty-five  senators  in  the  Senate, 
taking  two  from  the  side  where  they  rightfully  belong,  and  adding 
them  to  the  other,  is  to  us  a  disadvantage  not  to  be  lightly  regarded. 
Still,  so  it  is ;  we  have  this  to  contend  with.  Perhaps  there  is  no 
ground  of  complaint  on  our  part.  In  attending  to  the  many  things 
involved  in  the  last  general  election  for  president,  governor,  auditor, 
treasurer,  superintendent  of  public  instruction,  members  of  con 
gress,  of  the  legislature,  county  officers,  and  so  on,  we  allowed  these 
things  to  happen  by  want  of  sufficient  attention,  and  we  have  no 
cause  to  complain  of  our  adversaries,  so  far  as  this  matter  is  con 
cerned.  But  we  have  some  cause  to  complain  of  the  refusal  to  give 
us  a  fair  apportionment. 

There  is  still  another  disadvantage  under  which  we  labor,  and  to 
which  I  will  ask  your  attention.  It  arises  out  of  the  relative  posi 
tions  of  the  two  persons  who  stand  before  the  State  as  candidates 
for  the  Senate.  Senator  Douglas  is  of  world- wide  renown.  All  the 
anxious  politicians  of  his  party,  or  who  have  been  of  his  party  for 
years  past,  have  been  looking  upon  him  as  certainly,  at  no  distant 
day,  to  be  the  President  of  the  United  States.  They  have  seen  in 
his  round,  jolly,  fruitful  face,  post-offices,  land-offices,  marshalships 
and  cabinet  appointments,  chargeships  and  foreign  missions,  burst 
ing  and  sprouting  out  in  wonderful  exuberance,  ready  to  be  laid 
hold  of  by  their  greedy  hands.  And  as  they  have  been  gazing  upon 
this  attractive  picture  so  long,  they  cannot,  in  the  little  distraction 
that  has  taken  place  in  the  party,  bring  themselves  to  give  up  the 
charming  hope  ;  but  with  greedier  anxiety  they  rush  about  him,  sus 
tain  him,  and  give  him  marches,  triumphal  entries,  and  receptions 
beyond  what  even  in  the  days  of  his  highest  prosperity  they  could 
have  brought  about  in  his  favor.  On  the  contrary,  nobody  has  ever 
expected  me  to  be  President.  In  my  poor,  lean,  lank  face  nobody 
has  ever  seen  that  any  cabbages  were  sprouting  out.  These  are 
disadvantages  all,  taken  together,  that  the  Republicans  labor  under. 
We  have  to  fight  this  battle  upon  principle,  and  upon  principle  alone. 
I  am,  in  a  certain  sense,  made  the  standard-bearer  in  behalf  of  the 
Republicans.  I  was  made  so  merely  because  there  had  to  be  some  one 
so  placed,  I  being  in  no  wise  preferable  to  any  other  one  of  the  twenty- 
five,  perhaps  a  hundred,  we  have  in  the  Republican  ranks.  Then  I 
say  I  wish  it  to  be  distinctly  understood  and  borne  in  mind,  that 


262          ADDBESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

we  have  to  fight  this  battle  without  many  —  perhaps  without  any  — 
of  the  external  aids  which  are  brought  to  bear  against  us.    So  I  hope 
those  with  whom  I  am  surrounded  have  principle  enough  to  nerve 
themselves  for  the  task,  and  leave  nothing  undone  that  can  be  fairly 
done  to  bring  about  the  right  result. 

After  Senator  Douglas  left  Washington,  as  his  movements  were 
made  known  by  the  public  prints,  he  tarried  a  considerable  time  in  the 
city  of  New  York ;  and  it  was  heralded  that,  like  another  Napoleon, 
he  was  lying  by  and  framing  the  plan  of  his  campaign.  It  was 
telegraphed  to  Washington  City,  and  published  in  the  "  Union,"  that 
he  was  framing  his  plan  for  the  purpose  of  going  to  Illinois  to 
pounce  upon  and  annihilate  the  treasonable  and  disunion  speech 
which  Lincoln  had  made  here  on  the  16th  of  June.  Now,  I  do  sup 
pose  that  the  judge  really  spent  some  time  in  New  York  maturing 
the  plan  of  the  campaign,  as  his  friends  heralded  for  him.  I  have 
been  able,  by  noting  his  movements  since  his  arrival  in  Illinois,  to 
discover  evidences  confirmatory  of  that  allegation.  I  think  I  have 
been  able  to  see  what  are  the  material  points  of  that  plan.  I  will,  for 
a  little  while,  ask  your  attention  to  some  of  them.  What  I  shall 
point  out,  though  not  showing  the  whole  plan,  are  nevertheless  the 
main  points,  as  I  suppose. 

They  are  not  very  numerous.  The  first  is  popular  sovereignty. 
The  second  and  third  are  attacks  upon  my  speech  made  on  the  16th 
of  June.  Out  of  these  three  points  —  drawing  within  the  range  of 
popular  sovereignty  the  question  of  the  Lecompton  constitution  — 
he  makes  his  principal  assault.  Upon  these  his  successive  speeches 
are  substantially  one  and  the  same.  On  this  matter  of  popular  sov 
ereignty  I  wish  to  be  a  little  careful.  Auxiliary  to  these  main  points, 
to  be  sure,  are  their  thunderings  of  cannon,  their  marching  and 
music,  their  fizzle-gigs  and  fireworks  j  but  I  will  not  waste  time 
with  them.  They  are  but  the  little  trappings  of  the  campaign. 

Coming  to  the  substance,  the  first  point,  "popular  sovereignty." 
It  is  to  be  labeled  upon  the  cars  in  which  he  travels ;  put  upon  the 
hacks  he  rides  in ;  to  be  flaunted  upon  the  arches  he  passes  under, 
and  the  banners  which  wave  over  him.  It  is  to  be  dished  up  in  as 
many  varieties  as  a  French  cook  can  produce  soups  from  potatoes. 
Now,  as  this  is  so  great  a  staple  of  the  plan  of  the  campaign,  it  is 
worth  while  to  examine  it  carefully  j  and  if  we  examine  only  a  very 
little,  and  do  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  misled,  we  shall  be  able  to 
see  that  the  whole  thing  is  the  most  arrant  quixotism  that  was  ever 
enacted  before  a  community.  What  is  the  matter  of  popular  sov 
ereignty  ?  The  first  thing,  in  order  to  understand  it,  is  to  get  a  good 
definition  of  what  it  is,  and  after  that  to  see  how  it  is  applied. 

I  suppose  almost  every  one  knows  that,  in  this  controversy,  what 
ever  has  been  said  has  had  reference  to  the  question  of  negro 
slavery.  We  have  not  been  in  a  controversy  about  the  right  of  the 
people  to  govern  themselves  in  the  ordinary  matters  of  domestic 
concern  in  the  States  and  Territories.  Mr.  Buchanan,  in  one  of  his 
late  messages  (I  think  when  he  sent  up  the  Lecompton  constitution), 
urged  that  the  main  point  of  public  attention  was  not  in  regard  to 
the  great  variety  of  small  domestic  matters,  but  was  directed  to 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN          263 

the  question  of  negro  slavery;  and  he  asserts  that  if  the  people  had 
had  a  fair  chance  to  vote  on  that  question,  there  was  no  reasonable 
ground  of  objection  in  regard  to  minor  questions.  Now,  while  I 
think  that  the  people  had  not  had  given,  or  offered  them,  a  fair 
chance  upon  that  slavery  question,  still,  if  there  had  been  a  fair 
submission  to  a  vote  upon  that  main  question,  the  President's  pro 
position  would  have  been  true  to  the  uttermost.  Hence,  when  here 
after  I  speak  of  popular  sovereignty,  I  wish  to  be  understood  as 
applying  what  I  say  to  the  question  of  slavery  only,  not  to  other 
minor  domestic  matters  of  a  Territory  or  a  State. 

Does  Judge  Douglas,  when  he  says  that  several  of  the  past  years 
of  his  life  have  been  devoted  to  the  question  of  "  popular  sover 
eignty/'  and  that  all  the  remainder  of  his  life  shall  be  devoted  to  it, 
does  he  mean  to  say  that  he  has  been  devoting  his  life  to  securing 
to  the  people  of  the  Territories  the  right  to  exclude  slavery  from 
the  Territories!  If  he  means  so  to  say,  he  means  to  deceive;  be 
cause  he  and  every  one  knows  that  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  which  he  approves  and  makes  especial  ground  of  attack  upon 
me  for  disapproving,  forbids  the  people  of  a  Territory  to  exclude 
slavery.  This  covers  the  whole  ground,  from  the  settlement  of  a 
Territory  till  it  reaches  the  degree  of  maturity  entitling  it  to  form 
a  State  constitution.  So  far  as  all  that  ground  is  concerned,  the 
judge  is  not  sustaining  popular  sovereignty,  but  absolutely  oppos 
ing  it.  He  sustains  the  decision  which  declares  that  the  popular 
will  of  the  Territories  has  no  constitutional  power  to  exclude 
slavery  during  their  territorial  existence.  This  being  so,  the  period 
of  time  from  the  first  settlement  of  a  Territory  till  it  reaches  the 
point  of  forming  a  State  constitution  is  not  the  thing  that  the 
judge  has  fought  for,  or  is  fighting  for;  but  on  the  contrary,  he  has 
fought  for,  and  is  fighting  for  the  thing  that  annihilates  and  crushes 
out  that  same  popular  sovereignty. 

Well,  so  much  being  disposed  of,  what  is  left?  Why,  he  is  con 
tending  for  the  right  of  the  people,  when  they  come  to  make  a  State 
constitution,  to  make  it  for  themselves,  and  precisely  as  best  suits 
themselves.  I  say  again,  that  is  quixotic.  I  defy  contradiction 
when  I  declare  that  the  judge  can  find  no  one  to  oppose  him  on  that 
proposition.  I  repeat,  there  is  nobody  opposing  that  proposition  on 
principle.  Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  know  that,  with  refer 
ence  to  the  Lecompton  constitution,  I  may  be  misunderstood ;  but 
when  you  understand  me  correctly,  my  proposition  will  be  true  and 
accurate.  Nobody  is  opposing,  or  has  opposed,  the  right  of  the  peo 
ple,  when  they  form  a  constitution,  to  form  it  for  themselves.  Mr. 
Buchanan  and  his  friends  have  not  done  it ;  they,  too,  as  well  as  the 
Republicans  and  the  Anti-Lecompton  Democrats,  have  not  done  it ; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  they  together  have  insisted  on  the  right  of  the 
people  to  form  a  constitution  for  themselves.  The  difference  be 
tween  the  Buchanan  men  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Douglas  men 
and  the  Republicans  on  the  other,  has  not  been  on  a  question  of 
principle,  but  on  a  question  of  fact. 

The  dispute  was  upon  the  question  of  fact,  whether  the  Lecomp 
ton  constitution  had  been  fairly  formed  by  the  people  or  not.  Mr. 


264          ADDRESSES  AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Buchanan  and  his  friends  have  not  contended  for  the  contrary  prin 
ciple  any  more  than  the  Douglas  men  or  the  Republicans.  They 
have  insisted  that  whatever  of  small  irregularities  existed  in  getting 
up  the  Lecompton  constitution  were  such  as  happen  in  the  settle 
ment  of  all  new  Territories.  The  question  was,  was  it  a  fair  emana 
tion  of  the  people!  It  was  a  question  of  fact  and  not  of  principle. 
As  to  the  principle,  all  were  agreed.  Judge  Douglas  voted  with  the 
Republicans  upon  that  matter  of  fact. 

He  and  they,  by  their  voices  and  votes,  denied  that  it  was  a  fair 
emanation  of  the  people.  The  administration  affirmed  that  it  was. 
With  respect  to  the  evidence  bearing  upon  that  question  of  fact,  I 
readily  agree  that  Judge  Douglas  and  the  Republicans  had  the  right 
on  their  side,  and  that  the  administration  was  wrong.  But  I  state 
again  that,  as  a  matter  of  principle,  there  is  no  dispute  upon  the 
right  of  a  people  in  a  Territory  merging  into  a  State  to  form  a 
constitution  for  themselves  without  outside  interference  from  any 
quarter.  This  being  so,  what  is  Judge  Douglas  going  to  spend  his 
life  for?  Does  he  expect  to  stand  up  in  majestic  dignity,  and  go 
through  his  apotheosis  and  become  a  god,  in  the  maintaining  of  a 
principle  which  neither  man  nor  mouse  in  all  God's  creation  is  op 
posing1?  Now  something  in  regard  to  the  Lecompton  constitution 
more  specially ;  for  I  pass  from  this  other  question  of  popular  sov 
ereignty  as  the  most  arrant  humbug  that  has  ever  been  attempted 
on  an  intelligent  community. 

As  to  the  Lecompton  constitution,  I  have  already  said  that  on  the 
question  of  fact  as  to  whether  it  was  a  fair  emanation  of  the  people 
or  not,  Judge  Douglas  with  the  Republicans  and  some  "Americans'7 
had  greatly  the  argument  against  the  administration  •  and  while  I 
repeat  this,  I  wish  to  know  what  there  is  in  the  opposition  of  Judge 
Douglas  to  the  Lecompton  constitution  that  entitles  him  to  be  con 
sidered  the  only  opponent  to  it  —  as  being  par  excellence  the  very 
quintessence  of  that  opposition.  I  agree  to  the  rightfulness  of  his 
opposition.  He  in  the  Senate,  and  his  class  of  men  there,  formed 
the  number  three  and  no  more.  In  the  House  of  Representatives 
his  class  of  men  —  the  Anti-Lecompton  Democrats  —  formed  a 
number  of  about  twenty.  It  took  one  hundred  and  twenty  to  defeat 
the  measure,  against  one  hundred  and  twelve.  Of  the  votes  of  that 
one  hundred  and  twenty,  Judge  Douglas's  friends  furnished  twenty, 
to  add  to  which  there  were  six  Americans  and  ninety-four  Republi 
cans.  I  do  not  say  that  I  am  precisely  accurate  in  their  numbers, 
but  I  am  sufficiently  so  for  any  use  I  am  making  of  it. 

Why  is  it  that  twenty  shall  be  entitled  to  all  the  credit  of  doing 
that  work,  and  the  hundred  none  of  it  f  Why,  if,  as  Judge  Douglas 
says,  the  honor  is  to  be  divided  and  due  credit  is  to  be  given  to 
other  parties,  why  is  just  so  much  given  as  is  consonant  with  the 
wishes,  the  interests,  and  advancement  of  the  twenty"?  My  under 
standing  is,  when  a  common  job  is  done,  or  a  common  enterprise 
prosecuted,  if  I  put  in  five  dollars  to  your  one,  I  have  a  right  to 
take  out  five  dollars  to  your  one.  But  he  does  not  so  understand  it. 
He  declares  the  dividend  of  credit  for  defeating  Lecompton  upon  a 
basis  which  seems  unprecedented  and  incomprehensible. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          265 

Let  us  see.  Lecompton  in  the  raw  was  defeated.  It  afterward 
took  a  sort  of  cooked-up  shape,  and  was  passed  in  the  English  bill. 
It  is  said  by  the  judge  that  the  defeat  was  a  good  and  proper  thing. 
If  it  was  a  good  thing,  why  is  he  entitled  to  more  credit  than  others 
for  the  performance  of  that  good  act,  unless  there  was  something 
in  the  antecedents  of  the  Republicans  that  might  induce  every  one 
to  expect  them  to  join  in  that  good  work,  and  at  the  same  time 
something  leading  them  to  doubt  that  he  would?  Does  he  place  his 
superior  claim  to  credit  on  the  ground  that  he  performed  a  good  act 
which  was  never  expected  of  him?  He  says  I  have  a  proneness  for 
quoting  scripture.  If  I  should  do  so  now,  it  occurs  that  perhaps  he 
places  himself  somewhat  upon  the  ground  of  the  parable  of  the  lost 
sheep  which  went  astray  upon  the  mountains,  and  when  the  owner 
of  the  hundred  sheep  found  the  one  that  was  lost,  and  threw  it  upon 
his  shoulders,  and  came  home  rejoicing,  it  was  said  that  there  was 
more  rejoicing  over  the  one  sheep  that  was  lost  and  had  been  found, 
than  over  the  ninety  and  nine  in  the  fold.  The  application  is  made 
by  the  Saviour  in  this  parable,  thus :  "  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  there 
is  more  rejoicing  in  heaven  over  one  sinner  that  repenteth,  than 
over  ninety  and  nine  just  persons  that  need  no, repentance." 

And  now,  if  the  judge  claims  the  benefit  of  this  parable,  let  him 
repent.  Let  him  not  come  up  here  and  say:  "  I  am  the  only  just  per 
son;  and  you  are  the  ninety-nine  sinners  !"  Repentance  before  for 
giveness  is  a  provision  of  the  Christian  system,  and  on  that  condition 
alone  will  the  Republicans  grant  him  forgiveness. 

How  will  he  prove  that  we  have  ever  occupied  a  different  position 
in  regard  to  the  Lecompton  constitution  or  any  principle  in  it !  He 
says  he  did  not  make  his  opposition  on  the  ground  as  to  whether  it 
was  a  free  or  slave  constitution,  and  he  would  have  you  understand 
that  the  Republicans  made  their  opposition  because  it  ultimately  be 
came  a  slave  constitution.  To  make  proof  in  favor  of  himself  on  this 
point,  he  reminds  us  that  he  opposed  Lecompton  before  the  vote  was 
taken  declaring  whether  the  State  was  to  be  free  or  slave.  But  he 
forgets  to  say  that  our  Republican  senator,  Trumbull,  made  a  speech 
against  Lecompton  even  before  he  did. 

Why  did  he  oppose  it?  Partly,  as  he  declares,  because  the  mem 
bers  of  the  convention  who  framed  it  were  not  fairly  elected  by  the 
people;  that  the  people  were  not  allowed  to  vote  unless  they  had  been 
registered  5  and  that  the  people  of  whole  counties,  in  some  instances, 
were  not  registered.  For  these  reasons  he  declares  the  constitution 
was  not  an  emanation,  in  any  true  sense,  from  the  people.  He  also 
has  an  additional  objection  as  to  the  mode  of  submitting  the  consti 
tution  back  to  the  people.  But  bearing  on  the  question  of  whether 
the  delegates  were  fairly  elected,  a  speech  of  his,  made  something 
more  than  twelve  months  ago  from  this  stand,  becomes  important. 
It  was  made  a  little  while  before  the  election  of  the  delegates  who 
made  Lecompton.  In  that  speech  he  declared  there  was  every  reason 
to  hope  and  believe  the  election  would  be  fair,  and  if  any  one  failed 
to  vote  it  would  be  his  own  culpable  fault. 

I,  a  few  days  after,  made  a  sort  of  answer  to  that  speech.  In  that 
answer  I  made  substantially  the  very  argument  with  which  he  com- 


266          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

bated  his  Lecompton  adversaries  in  the  Senate  last  winter.  I  pointed 
to  the  facts  that  the  people  could  not  vote  without  being  registered, 
and  that  the  time  for  registering  had  gone  by.  I  commented  on  it 
as  wonderful  that  Judge  Douglas  could  be  ignorant  of  these  facts, 
which  every  one  else  in  the  nation  so  well  knew. 

I  now  pass  from  popular  sovereignty  and  Lecompton.  I  may  have 
occasion  to  refer  to  one  or  both. 

When  he  was  preparing  his  plan  of  campaign,  Napoleon-like,  in 
New  York,  as  appears  by  two  speeches  I  have  heard  him  deliver  since 
his  arrival  in  Illinois,  he  gave  special  attention  to  a  speech  of  mine 
delivered  here  on  the  16th  of  June  last.  He  says  that  he  carefully 
read  that  speech.  He  told  us  that  at  Chicago  a  week  ago  last  night, 
and  he  repeated  it  at  Bloomington  last  night.  Doubtless  he  repeated 
it  again  to-day,  though  I  did  not  hear  him.  In  the  two  first  places  — 
Chicago  and  Bloomington —  I  heard  him ;  to-day  I  did  not.  He  said 
he  had  carefully  examined  that  speech;  when, he  did  not  say;  but 
there  is  no  reasonable  doubt  it  was  when  he  was  in  New  York  pre 
paring  his  plan  of  campaign.  I  am  glad  he  did  read  it  carefully.  He 
says  it  was  evidently  prepared  with  great  care.  I  freely  admit  it  was 
prepared  with  care.  I  claim  not  to  be  more  free  from  errors  than 
others — perhaps  scarcely  so  much ;  but  I  was  very  careful  not  to  put 
anything  in  that  speech  as  a  matter  of  fact,  or  make  any  inferences 
which  did  not  appear  to  me  to  be  true  and  fully  warrantable.  If  I 
had  made  any  mistake  I  was  willing  to  be  corrected ;  if  I  had  drawn 
any  inference  in  regard  to  Judge  Douglas,  or  any  one  else,  which  was 
not  warranted,  I  was  fully  prepared  to  modify  it  as  soon  as  discovered. 
I  planted  myself  upon  the  truth  and  the  truth  only,  so  far  as  I  knew 
it,  or  could  be  brought  to  know  it. 

Having  made  that  speech  with  the  most  kindly  feelings  toward 
Judge  Douglas,  as  manifested  therein,  I  was  gratified  when  I  found 
that  he  had  carefully  examined  it,  and  had  detected  no  error  of  fact, 
nor  any  inference  against  him,  nor  any  misrepresentations,  of  which 
he  thought  fit  to  complain.  In  neither  of  the  two  speeches  I  have 
mentioned,  did  he  make  any  such  complaint.  I  will  thank  any  one 
who  will  inform  me  that  he,  in  his  speech  to-day,  pointed  out  any 
thing  I  had  stated,  respecting  him,  as  being  erroneous.  I  presume 
there  is  no  such  thing.  I  have  reason  to  be  gratified  that  the  care 
and  caution  used  in  that  speech  left  it  so  that  he,  most  of  all  others 
interested  in  discovering  error,  has  not  been  able  to  point  out  one 
thing  against  him  which  he  could  say  was  wrong.  He  seizes  upon 
the  doctrines  he  supposes  to  be  included  in  that  speech,  and  de 
clares  that  upon  them  will  turn  the  issues  of  the  campaign.  He 
then  quotes,  or  attempts  to  quote,  from  my  speech.  I  will  not  say 
that  he  wilfully  misquotes,  but  he  does  fail  to  quote  accurately. 
His  attempt  at  quoting  is  from  a  passage  which  I  believe  I  can  quote 
accurately  from  memory.  I  shall  make  the  quotation  now,  with 
some  comments  upon  it,  as  I  have  already  said,  in  order  that  the 
judge  shall  be  left  entirely  without  excuse  for  misrepresenting  me. 
I  do  so  now,  as  I  hope,  for  the  last  time.  I  do  this  in  great  caution, 
in  order  that  if  he  repeats  his  misrepresentation,  it  shall  be  plain  to 
all  that  he  does  so  wilfully.  If,  after  all,  he  still  persists,  I  shall  be 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          267 

compelled  to  reconstruct  the  course  I  have  marked  out  for  myself,  and 
draw  upon  such  humble  resources  as  I  have  for  a  new  course,  better 
suited  to  the  real  exigencies  of  the  case.  I  set  out,  in  this  campaign, 
with  the  intention  of  conducting  it  strictly  as  a  gentleman,  in  sub 
stance  at  least,  if  not  in  the  outside  polish.  The  latter  I  shall 
never  be,  but  that  which  constitutes  the  inside  of  a  gentleman  I 
hope  I  understand,  and  am  not  less  inclined  to  practise  than  others. 
It  was  my  purpose  and  expectation  that  this  canvass  would  be  con 
ducted  upon  principle,  and  with  fairness  on  both  sides,  and  it  shall 
not  be  my  fault  if  this  purpose  and  expectation  shall  be  given  up. 

He  charges,  in  substance,  that  I  invite  a  war  of  sections ;  that  I 
propose  all  local  institutions  of  the  different  States  shall  become 
consolidated  and  uniform.  What  is  there  in  the  language  of  that 
speech  which  expresses  such  purpose  or  bears  such  construction  ? 
I  have  again  and  again  said  that  I  would  not  enter  into  any  of  the 
States  to  disturb  the  institution  of  slavery.  Judge  Douglas  said, 
at  Bloomington,  that  I  used  language  most  able  and  ingenious  for 
concealing  what  I  really  meant;  and  that  while  I  had  protested 
against  entering  into  the  slave  States,  I  nevertheless  did  mean  to  go 
on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio  and  throw  missiles  into  Kentucky,  to  dis 
turb  them  in  their  domestic  institutions. 

I  said  in  that  speech,  and  I  meant  no  more,  that  the  institution  of 
slavery  ought  to  be  placed  in  the  very  attitude  where  the  framers  of 
this  government  placed  it  and  left  it.  I  do  not  understand  that  the 
framers  of  our  Constitution  left  the  people  in  the  free  States  in  the 
attitude  of  firing  bombs  or  shells  into  the  slave  States.  I  was  not  using 
that  passage  for  the  purpose  for  which  he  infers  I  did  use  it.  I  said : 

We  are  now  far  advanced  into  the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  created 
for  the  avowed  object  and  with  the  confident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to 
slavery  agitation.  Under  the  operation  of  that  policy  that  agitation  has 
not  only  ceased,  but  has  constantly  augmented.  In  my  opinion  it  will  not 
cease  till  a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached  and  passed.  "A.  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand."  I  believe  that  this  government  cannot  endure 
permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all 
the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread 
of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in 
the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward  till 
it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as 
well  as  South. 

Now  you  all  see,  from  that  quotation,  I  did  not  express  my  wish 
on  anything.  In  that  passage  I  indicated  no  wish  or  purpose  of  my 
own  •  I  simply  expressed  my  expectation.  Cannot  the  judge  per 
ceive  a  distinction  between  a  purpose  and  an  expectation?  I  have 
often  expressed  an  expectation  to  die,  but  I  have  never  expressed  a 
wish  to  die.  I  said  at  Chicago,  and  now  repeat,  that  I  am  quite 
aware  this  government  has  endured  half  slave  and  half  free  for 
eighty-two  years.  I  understand  that  little  bit  of  history.  I  expressed 
the  opinion  I  did,  because  I  perceived — or  thought  I  perceived — anew 
set  of  causes  introduced.  I  did  say  at  Chicago,  in  my  speech  there, 
that  I  do  wish  to  see  the  spread  of  slavery  arrested,  and  to  see  it 
placed  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the 


268          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

course  of  ultimate  extinction.  I  said  that  because  I  supposed,  when 
the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  that  belief,  we  shall  have  peace  on  the 
slavery  question.  I  have  believed — and  now  believe — the  public  mind 
did  rest  in  that  belief  up  to  the  introduction  of  the  Nebraska  bill. 

Although  I  have  ever  been  opposed  to  slavery,  so  far  I  rested 
in  the  hope  and  belief  that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinc 
tion.  For  that  reason,  it  had  been  a  minor  question  with  me.  I 
might  have  been  mistaken  j  but  I  had  believed,  and  now  believe, 
that  the  whole  public  mind,  that  is,  the  mind  of  the  great  majority, 
had  rested  in  that  belief  up  to  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise.  But  upon  that  event,  I  became  convinced  that  either  I  had 
been  resting  in  a  delusion,  or  the  institution  was  being  placed  on  a 
new  basis  —  a  basis  for  making  it  perpetual,  national,  and  universal. 
Subsequent  events  have  greatly  confirmed  me  in  that  belief.  I  be 
lieve  that  bill  to  be  the  beginning  of  a  conspiracy  for  that  purpose. 
So  believing,  I  have  since  then  considered  that  question  a  paramount 
one.  So  believing,  I  think  the  public  mind  will  never  rest  till  the 
power  of  Congress  to  restrict  the  spread  of  it  shall  again  be  ac 
knowledged  and  exercised  on  the  one  hand,  or,  on  the  other,  all  re 
sistance  be  entirely  crushed  out.  I  have  expressed  that  opinion, 
and  I  entertain  it  to-night.  It  is  denied  that  there  is  any  tendency 
to  the  nationalization  of  slavery  in  these  States. 

Mr.  Brooks,  of  South  Carolina,  in  one  of  his  speeches,  when  they 
were  presenting  him  canes,  silver  plate,  gold  pitchers  and  the  like, 
for  assaulting  Senator  Sunnier,  distinctly  affirmed  his  opinion  that 
when  this  Constitution  was  formed,  it  was  the  belief  of  no  man 
that  slavery  would  last  to  the  present  day. 

He  said,  what  I  think,  that  the  framers  of  our  Constitution  placed 
the  institution  of  slavery  where  the  public  mind  rested  in  the  hope 
that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  But  he  went  on  to 
say  that  the  men  of  the  present  age,  by  their  experience,  have  be 
come  wiser  than  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  ;  and  the  invention 
of  the  cotton-gin  had  made  the  perpetuity  of  slavery  a  necessity  in 
this  country. 

As  another  piece  of  evidence  tending  to  this  same  point.  Quite 
recently  in  Virginia,  a  man  —  the  owner  of  slaves  —  made  a  will 
providing  that  after  his  death  certain  of  his  slaves  should  have  their 
freedom  if  they  should  so  choose,  and  go  to  Liberia,  rather  than  re 
main  in  slavery.  They  chose  to  be  liberated.  But  the  persons  to 
whom  they  would  descend  as  property  claimed  them  as  slaves.  A 
suit  was  instituted,  which  finally  came  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  Vir 
ginia,  and  was  therein  decided  against  the  slaves,  upon  the  ground 
that  a  negro  cannot  make  a  choice — that  they  had  no  legal  power 
to  choose — could  not  perform  the  condition  upon  which  their  free 
dom  depended. 

I  do  not  mention  this  with  any  purpose  of  criticizing  it,  but  to 
connect  it  with  the  arguments  as  affording  additional  evidence  of 
the  change  of  sentiment  upon  this  question  of  slavery  in  the  direc 
tion  of  making  it  perpetual  and  national.  I  argue  now  as  I  did  be 
fore,  that  there  is  such  a  tendency,  and  I  am  backed  not  merely  by 
the  facts,  but  by  the  open  confession  in  the  slave  States. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          269 

And  now,  as  to  the  judge's  inference,  that  because  I  wish  to  see 
slavery  placed  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction — placed  where 
our  fathers  originally  placed  it — I  wish  to  annihilate  the  State  leg 
islatures —  to  force  "cotton  to  grow  upon  the  tops  of  the  Green 
Mountains  —  to  freeze  ice  in  Florida  —  to  cut  lumber  on  the  broad 
Illinois  prairies  —  that  I  am  in  favor  of  all  these  ridiculous  and  im 
possible  things. 

It  seems  to  me  it  is  a  complete  answer  to  all  this  to  ask,  if,  when 
Congress  did  have  the  fashion  of  restricting  slavery  from  free  terri 
tory,  when  courts  did  have  the  fashion  of  deciding  that  taking  a 
slave  into  a  free  country  made  him  free  —  I  say  it  is  a  sufficient 
answer  to  ask,  if  any  of  this  ridiculous  nonsense  about  consoli 
dation  and  uniformity  did  actually  follow  ?  Who  heard  of  any 
such  thing,  because  of  the  ordinance  of  '87!  because  of  the  Mis 
souri  Restriction  ?  because  of  the  numerous  court  decisions  of  that 
character  ? 

Now,  as  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision ;  for  upon  that  he  makes  his 
last  point  at  me.  He  boldly  takes  ground  in  favor  of  that  decision. 
This  is  one  half  the  onslaught,  and  one  third  of  the  entire  plan 
of  the  campaign.  I  am  opposed  to  that  decision  in  a  certain  sense, 
but  not  in  the  sense  which  he  puts  on  it.  I  say  that  in  so  far  as  it 
decided  in  favor  of  Dred  Scott's  master,  and  against  Dred  Scott  and 
his  family,  I  do  not  propose  to  disturb  or  resist  the  decision. 

I  never  have  proposed  to  do  any  such  thing.  I  think  that  in  re 
spect  for  judicial  authority,  my  humble  history  would  not  suffer  in 
comparison  with  that  of  Judge  Douglas.  He  would  have  the  citizen 
conform  his  vote  to  that  decision ;  the  member  of  Congress,  his ;  the 
President,  his  use  of  the  veto  power.  He  would  make  it  a  rule  of  po 
litical  action  for  the  people  and  all  the  departments  of  the  govern 
ment.  I  would  not.  By  resisting  it  as  a  political  rule,  I  disturb  no 
right  of  property,  create  no  disorder,  excite  no  mobs. 

When  he  spoke  at  Chicago,  on  Friday  evening  of  last  week,  he  made 
this  same  point  upon  me.  On  Saturday  evening  I  replied,  and  re 
minded  him  of  a  Supreme  Court  decision  which  he  opposed  for  at 
least  several  years.  Last  night,  at  Bloomington,  he  took  some  notice 
of  that  reply,  but  entirely  forgot  to  remember  that  part  of  it. 

He  renews  his  onslaught  upon  me,  forgetting  to  remember  that  I 
have  turned  the  tables  against  himself  on  that  very  point.  I  renew 
the  effort  to  draw  his  attention  to  it.  I  wish  to  stand  erect  before 
the  country,  as  well  as  Judge  Douglas,  on  this  question  of  judicial 
authority,  and  therefore  I  add  something  to  the  authority  in  favor 
of  my  own  position.  I  wish  to  show  that  I  am  sustained  by  authority, 
in  addition  to  that  heretofore  presented.  I  do  not  expect  to  convince 
the  judge.  It  is  part  of  the  plan  of  his  campaign,  and  he  will  cling 
to  it  with  a  desperate  grip.  Even  turn  it  upon  him — the  sharp 
point  against  him,  and  gaff  him  through  —  he  will  still  cling  to  it  till 
he  can  invent  some  new  dodge  to  take  the  place  of  it. 

In  public  speaking  it  is  tedious  reading  from  documents,  but  I 
must  beg  to  indulge  the  practice  to  a  limited  extent.  I  shall  read 
from  a  letter  written  by  Mr.  Jefferson  in  1820,  and  now  to  be  found 
in  the  seventh  volume  of  his  correspondence,  at  page  177.  It  seems 


270          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

he  had  been  presented  by  a  gentleman  of  the  name  of  Jarvis  with  a 
book,  or  essay,  or  periodical,  called  the  "  Republican/7  and  he  was 
writing  in  acknowledgment  of  the  present,  and  noting  some  of  its 
contents.  After  expressing  the  hope  that  the  work  will  produce  a 
favorable  eif ect  upon  the  minds  of  the  young,  he  proceeds  to  say : 

That  it  will  have  this  tendency  may  be  expected,  and  for  that  reason  I  feel 
an  urgency  to  note  what  I  deem  an  error  in  it,  the  more  requiring  notice  as 
your  opinion  is  strengthened  by  that  of  many  others.  You  seem,  in  pages  84 
and  148,  to  consider  the  judges  as  the  ultimate  arbiters  of  all  constitutional 
questions  —  a  very  dangerous  doctrine  indeed,  and  one  which  would  place 
us  under  the  despotism  of  an  oligarchy.  Our  judges  are  as  honest  as  other 
men,  and  not  more  so.  They  have,  with  others,  the  same  passions  for  party, 
for  power,  and  the  privilege  of  their  corps.  Their  maxim  is,  "  Boni  judicis 
est  ampliare  juris dictionem  " ;  and  their  power  is  the  more  dangerous  as  they 
are  in  office  for  life,  and  not  responsible,  as  the  other  functionaries  are,  to 
the  elective  control.  The  Constitution  has  erected  no  such  single  tribunal, 
knowing  that,  to  whatever  hands  confided,  with  the  corruptions  of  time  and 
party,  its  members  would  become  despots.  It  has  more  wisely  made  all  the 
departments  co-equal  and  co-sovereign  within  themselves. 

Thus  we  see  the  power  claimed  for  the  Supreme  Court  by  Judge 
Douglas,  Mr.  Jefferson  holds,  would  reduce  us  to  the  despotism  of  an 
oligarchy. 

Now,  I  have  said  no  more  than  this — in  fact,  never  quite  so  much 
as  this — at  least  I  am  sustained  by  Mr.  Jefferson. 

Let  us  go  a  little  further.  You  remember  we  once  had  a  national 
bank.  Some  one  owed  the  bank  a  debt;  he  was  sued  and  sought  to 
avoid  payment,  on  the  ground  that  the  bank  was  unconstitutional. 
The  case  went  to  the  Supreme  Court,  and  therein  it  was  decided  that 
the  bank  was  constitutional.  The  whole  Democratic  party  revolted 
against  that  decision.  General  Jackson  himself  asserted  that  he,  as 
President,  would  not  be  bound  to  hold  a  national  bank  to  be  consti 
tutional,  even  though  the  court  had  decided  it  to  be  so.  He  fell  in 
precisely  with  the  view  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  and  acted  upon  it  under  his 
official  oath,  in  vetoing  a  charter  for  a  national  bank.  The  declara 
tion  that  Congress  does  not  possess  this  constitutional  power  to  char 
ter  a  bank,  has  gone  into  the  Democratic  platform,  at  their  national 
conventions,  and  was  brought  forward  and  reaffirmed  in  their  last 
convention  at  Cincinnati.  They  have  contended  for  that  declaration, 
in  the  very  teeth  of  the  Supreme  Court,  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century.  In  fact,  they  have  reduced  the  decision  to  an  absolute  nullity. 
That  decision,  I  repeat,  is  repudiated  in  the  Cincinnati  platform ;  and 
still,  as  if  to  show  that  effrontery  can  go  no  farther,  Judge  Douglas 
vaunts,  in  the  very  speeches  in  which  he  denounces  me  for  opposing 
the  Dred  Scott  decision,  that  he  stands  on  the  Cincinnati  platform. 

Now,  I  wish  to  know  what  the  judge  can  charge  upon  me,  with 
respect  to  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court,  wrhich  does  not  lie  in 
all  its  length,  breadth,  and  proportions  at  his  own  door.  The  plain 
truth  is  simply  this :  Judge  Douglas  is  for  Supreme  Court  decisions 
when  he  likes,  and  against  them  when  he  does  not  like  them.  He  is 
for  the  Dred  Scott  decision  because  it  tends  to  nationalize  slavery 
—  because  it  is  part  of  the  original  combination  for  that  object.  It 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF  ABKAHAM  LINCOLN          271 

so  happens,  singularly  enough,  that  I  never  stood  opposed  to  a  de 
cision  of  the  Supreme  Court  till  this.  On  the  contrary,  I  have  no 
recollection  that  he  was  ever  particularly  in  favor  of  one  till  this. 
He  never  was  in  favor  of  any,  nor  opposed  to  any,  till  the  present 
one,  which  helps  to  nationalize  slavery. 

Free  men  of  Sangamon,  free  men  of  Illinois,  free  men  everywhere, 
judge  ye  between  him  and  me  upon  this  issue. 

He  says  this  Dred  Scott  case  is  a  very  small  matter  at  most;  that 
it  has  no  practical  effect ;  that  at  best,  or  rather,  I  suppose,  at  worst, 
it  is  but  an  abstraction.  I  submit  that  the  proposition  that  the 
thing  which  determines  whether  a  man  is  free  or  a  slave  is 
rather  concrete  than  abstract.  I  think  you  would  conclude  that  it 
was  if  your  liberty  depended  upon  it,  and  so  would  Judge  Douglas 
if  his  liberty  depended  upon  it.  But  suppose  it  was  on  the  question 
of  spreading  slavery  over  the  new  Territories  that  he  considers  it  as 
being  merely  an  abstract  matter,  and  one  of  no  practical  impor 
tance.  How  has  the  planting  of  slavery  in  new  countries  always 
been  effected  ?  It  has  now  been  decided  that  slavery  cannot  be 
kept  out  of  our  new  Territories  by  any  legal  means.  In  what  do 
our  new  Territories  now  differ  in  this  respect  from  the  old  colonies 
when  slavery  was  first  planted  within  them  ?  It  was  planted  as  Mr. 
Clay  once  declared,  and  as  history  proves  true,  by  individual  men  in 
spite  of  the  wishes  of  the  people ;  the  mother  government  refusing 
to  prohibit  it,  and  withholding  from  the  people  of  the  colonies  the 
authority  to  prohibit  it  for  themselves.  Mr.  Clay  says  this  was  one 
of  the  great  and  just  causes  of  complaint  against  Great  Britain  by 
the  colonies,  and  the  best  apology  we  can  now  make  for  having  the 
institution  amongst  us.  In  that  precise  condition  our  Nebraska 
politicians  have  at  last  succeeded  in  placing  our  own  new  Territories ; 
the  government  will  not  prohibit  slavery  within  them,  nor  allow  the 
people  to  prohibit  it. 

I  defy  any  man  to  find  any  difference  between  the  policy  which 
originally  planted  slavery  in  these  colonies  and  that  policy  which 
now  prevails  in  our  new  Territories.  If  it  does  not  go  into  them,  it 
is  only  because  no  individual  wishes  it  to  go.  The  judge  indulged 
himself  doubtless,  to-day,  with  the  question  as  to  what  I  am  going 
to  do  with  or  about  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Well,  judge,  will  you 
please  tell  me  what  you  did  about  the  bank  decision  ?  Will  you  not 
graciously  allow  us  to  do  with  the  Dred  Scott  decision  precisely  as 
you  did  with  the  bank  decision  ?  You  succeeded  in  breaking  down 
the  moral  effect  of  that  decision  •  did  you  find  it  necessary  to  amend 
the  Constitution  ?  or  to  set  up  a  court  of  negroes  in  order  to  do  it  ? 

There  is  one  other  point.  Judge  Douglas  has  a  very  affectionate 
leaning  toward  the  Americans  and  Old  Whigs.  Last  evening,  in  a 
sort  of  weeping  tone,  he  described  to  us  a  death-bed  scene.  He  had 
been  called  to  the  side  of  Mr.  Clay,  in  his  last  moments,  in  order 
that  the  genius  of  "  popular  sovereignty  "  might  duly  descend  from 
the  dying  man  and  settle  upon  him,  the  living  and  most  worthy  suc 
cessor.  He  could  do  no  less  than  promise  that  he  would  devote  the 
remainder  of  his  life  to  "  popular  sovereignty  n ;  and  then  the  great 
statesman  departs  in  peace.  By  this  part  of  the  "  plan  of  the  cam- 


272          ADDRESSES   AND  LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

paign,"  the  judge  lias  evidently  promised  himself  that  tears  shall  be 
drawn  down  the  cheeks  of  all  Old  Whigs,  as  large  as  half- grown  apples. 

Mr.  Webster,  too,  was  mentioned ;  but  it  did  not  quite  come  to  a 
death-bed  scene,  as  to  him.  It  would  be  amusing,  if  it  were  not 
disgusting,  to  see  how  quick  these  compromise-breakers  administer 
on  the  political  effects  of  their  dead  adversaries,  trumping  up  claims 
never  before  heard  of,  and  dividing  the  assets  among  themselves. 
If  I  should  be  found  dead  to-morrow  morning,  nothing  but  my  in 
significance  could  prevent  a  speech  being  made  on  my  authority, 
before  the  end  of  next  week.  It  so  happens  that  in  that  "  popular 
sovereignty"  with  which  Mr.  Clay  was  identified,  the  Missouri 
Compromise  was  expressly  reserved  j  and  it  was  a  little  singular  if 
Mr.  Clay  cast  his  mantle  upon  Judge  Douglas  on  purpose  to  have 
that  compromise  repealed. 

Again,  the  judge  did  not  keep  faith  with  Mr.  Clay  when  he  first 
brought  in  his  Nebraska  bill.  He  left  the  Missouri  Compromise  un- 
repealed,  and  in  his  report  accompanying  the  bill,  he  told  the  world 
he  did  it  on  purpose.  The  manes  of  Mr.  Clay  must  have  been  in  great 
agony,  till  thirty  days  later,  when  "  popular  sovereignty  "  stood  forth 
in  all  its  glory. 

One  more  thing.  Last  night  Judge  Douglas  tormented  himself 
with  horrors  about  my  disposition  to  make  negroes  perfectly  equal 
with  white  men  in  social  and  political  relations.  He  did  not  stop 
to  show  that  I  have  said  any  such  thing,  or  that  it  legitimately  fol 
lows  from  anything  I  have  said,  but  he  rushes  on  with  his  asser 
tions.  I  adhere  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  If  Judge 
Douglas  and  his  friends  are  not  willing  to  stand  by  it,  let  them 
come  up  and  amend  it.  Let  them  make  it  read  that  all  men  are 
created  equal,  except  negroes.  Let  us  have  it  decided  whether  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  in  this  blessed  year  of  1858,  shall  be  thus 
amended.  In  his  construction  of  the  Declaration  last  year,  he  said 
it  only  meant  that  Americans  in  America  were  equal  to  Englishmen 
in  England.  Then,  when  I  pointed  out  to  him  that  by  that  rule  he  ex 
cludes  the  Germans,  the  Irish,  the  Portuguese,  and  all  the  other  peo- 
Ile  who  have  come  amongst  us  since  the  Revolution,  he  reconstructs 
is  construction.  In  his  last  speech  he  tells  us  it  meant  Europeans. 

I  press  him  a  little  further,  and  ask  if  it  meant  to  include  the  Rus 
sians  in  Asia  ?  or  does  he  mean  to  exclude  that  vast  population  from 
the  principles  of  our  Declaration  of  Independence?  I  expect  ere 
long  he  will  introduce  another  amendment  to  his  definition.  He  is 
not  at  all  particular.  He  is  satisfied  with  anything  which  does  not 
endanger  the  nationalizing  of  negro  slavery.  It  may  draw  white 
men  down,  but  it  must  not  lift  negroes  up.  Who  shall  say,  "I  am 
the  superior,  and  you  are  the  inferior?" 

My  declarations  upon  this  subject  of  negro  slavery  may  be  mis 
represented,  but  cannot  be  misunderstood.  I  have  said  that  I  do 
not  understand  the  Declaration  to  mean  that  all  men  were  created 
equal  in  all  respects.  They  are  not  our  equal  in  color ;  but  I  sup 
pose  that  it  does  mean  to  declare  that  all  men  are  equal  in  some 
respects  ;  they  are  equal  in  their  right  to  "  life,  liberty,  and  the  pur 
suit  of  happiness."  Certainly  the  negro  is  not  our  equal  in  color  — 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          273 

perhaps  not  in  many  other  respects ;  still,  in  the  right  to  put  into 
his  mouth  the  bread  that  his  own  hands  have  earned,  he  is  the  equal 
of  every  other  man,  white  or  black.  In  pointing  out  that  more  has 
been  given  you,  you  cannot  be  justified  in  taking  away  the  little 
which  has  been  given  him.  All  I  ask  for  the  negro  is  that  if  you 
do  not  like  him,  let  him  alone.  If  God  gave  him  but  little,  that 
little  let  him  enjoy. 

When  our  government  was  established,  we  had  the  institution  of 
slavery  among  us.  We  were  in  a  certain  sense  compelled  to  tolerate 
its  existence.  It  was  a  sort  of  necessity.  We  had  gone  through 
our  struggle,  and  secured  our  own  independence.  The  framers  of 
the  Constitution  found  the  institution  of  slavery  amongst  their  other 
institutions  at  the  time.  They  found  that  by  an  effort  to  eradicate 
it,  they  might  lose  much  of  what  they  had  already  gained.  They 
were  obliged  to  bow  to  the  necessity.  They  gave  power  to  Congress 
to  abolish  the  slave-trade  at  the  end  of  twenty  years.  They  also 
prohibited  slavery  in  the  Territories  where  it  did  not  exist.  They  did 
what  they  could  and  yielded  to  necessity  for  the  rest.  I  also  yield 
to  all  which  follows  from  that  necessity.  What  I  would  most  desire 
would  be  the  separation  of  the  white  and  black  races,  f 

One  more  point  on  this  Springfield  speech  which  Judge  Douglas 
says  he  has  read  so  carefully.  I  expressed  my  belief  in  the  exis 
tence  of  a  conspiracy  to  perpetuate  and  nationalize  slavery.  I  did 
not  profess  to  know  it,  nor  do  I  now.  I  showed  the  part  Judge 
Douglas  had  played  in  the  string  of  facts,  constituting  to  my  mind 
I  the  proof  of  that  conspiracy.  I  showed  the  parts  played  by  others. 

I  charged  that  the  people  had  been  deceived  into  carrying  the  last 
presidential  election,  by  the  impression  that  the  people  of  the  Terri 
tories  might  exclude  slavery  if  they  chose,  when  it  was  known  in 
advance  by  the  conspirators,  that  the  court  was  to  decide  that 
neither  Congress  nor  the  people  could  so  exclude  slavery.  These 
charges  are  more  distinctly  made  than  anything  else  in  the  speech. 

Judge  Douglas  has  carefully  read  and  re-read  that  speech.  He 
has  not,  so  far  as  I  know,  contradicted  those  charges.  In  the  two 
speeches  which  I  heard  he  certainly  did  not.  On  his  own  tacit  ad 
mission  I  renew  that  charge.  I  charge  him  with  having  been  a 
party  to  that  conspiracy,  and  to  that  deception,  for  the  sole  purpose 
of  nationalizing  slavery. 

July  24  to  July  31,  1858.— CHALLENGE  TO  THE  JOINT  DEBATES. 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  Mr.  Douglas. 

CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS,  July  24,  1858. 
HON.  S.  A.  DOUGLAS. 

My  dear  Sir :  Will  it  be  agreeable  to  you  to  make  an  arrangement 
for  you  and  myself  to  divide  time,  and  address  the  same  audiences 
the  present  canvass  ?  Mr.  Judd,  who  will  hand  you  this,  is  authorized 
to  receive  your  answer ;  and,  if  agreeable  to  you,  to  enter  into  the 
terms  of  such  arrangement.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 
VOL.  I.— 18. 


274          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   AEKAHAM  LINCOLN 

Mr.  Douglas  to  Mr.  Lincoln. 

CHICAGO,  July  24, 1858. 
HON.  A.  LINCOLN. 

Dear  Sir :  Your  note  of  this  date,  in  which  you  inquire  if  it  would 
be  agreeable  to  me  to  make  an  arrangement  to  divide  the  time  and 
address  the  same  audiences  during  the  present  canvass,  was  handed 
me  by  Mr.  Judd.  Recent  events  have  interposed  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  such  an  arrangement. 

I  went  to  Springfield  last  week  for  the  purpose  of  conferring  with 
the  Democratic  State  Central  Committee  upon  the  mode  of  conducting 
the  canvass,  and  with  them,  and  under  their  advice,  made  a  list  of 
appointments  covering  the  entire  period  until  late  in  October.  The 
people  of  the  several  localities  have  been  notified  of  the  times  and 

B laces  of  the  meetings.  Those  appointments  have  all  been  made  for 
emocratic  meetings,  and  arrangements  have  been  made  by  which 
the  Democratic  candidates  for  Congress,  for  the  legislature,  and  other 
offices  will  be  present  and  address  the  people.  It  is  evident,  there 
fore,  that  these  various  candidates,  in  connection  with  myself,  will 
occupy  the  whole  time  of  the  day  and  evening,  and  leave  no  opportu 
nity  for  other  speeches. 

Besides,  there  is  another  consideration  which  should  be  kept  in 
mind.  It  has  been  suggested  recently  that  an  arrangement  had  been 
made  to  bring  out  a  third  candidate  for  the  United  States  Senate, 
who,  with  yourself,  should  canvass  the  State  in  opposition  to  me,  with 
no  other  purpose  than  to  insure  my  defeat,  by  dividing  the  Demo 
cratic  party  for  your  benefit.  If  I  should  make  this  arrangement 
with  you,  it  is  more  than  probable  that  this  other  candidate,  who 
has  a  common  object  with  you,  would  desire  to  become  a  party  to 
it,  and  claim  the  right  to  speak  from  the  same  stand;  so  that  he 
and  you  in  concert  might  be  able  to  take  the  opening  and  closing 
speech  in  every  case. 

I  cannot  refrain  from  expressing  my  surprise,  if  it  was  your  original 
intention  to  invite  such  an  arrangement,  that  you  should  have  waited 
until  after  I  had  made  my  appointments,  inasmuch  as  we  were  both 
here  in  Chicago  together  for  several  days  after  my  arrival,  and  again 
at  Bloomington,  Atlanta,  Lincoln,  and  Springfield,  where  it  was  well 
known  I  went  for  the  purpose  of  consulting  with  the  State  Central 
Committee,  and  agreeing  upon  the  plan  of  the  campaign. 

While  under  these  circumstances  I  do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  make 
any  arrangements  which  would  deprive  the  Democratic  candidates 
for  Congress,  State  offices,  and  the  legislature,  from  participating  in 
the  discussion  at  the  various  meetings  designated  by  the  Democratic 
State  Central  Committee,  I  will,  in  order  to  accommodate  you  as  far  as 
it  is  in  my  power  to  do  so,  take  the  responsibility  of  making  an  arrange 
ment  with  you  for  a  discussion  between  us  at  one  prominent  point  in 
each  congressional  district  in  the  State,  except  the  second  and  sixth 
districts,  where  we  have  both  spoken,  and  in  each  of  which  cases  you 
had  the  concluding  speech.  If  agreeable  to  you,  I  will  indicate  the 
following  places  as  those  most  suitable  in  the  several  congressional 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          275 

districts  at  which  we  should  speak,  to  wit :  Freeport,  Ottawa,  Gales- 
burg,  Quincy,  Alton,  Jonesboro,  and  Charleston.  I  will  confer  with 
you  at  the  earliest  convenient  opportunity  in  regard  to  the  mode  of 
conducting  the  debate,  the  times  of  meeting  at  the  several  places, 
subject  to  the  condition  that  where  appointments  have  already  been 
made  by  the  Democratic  State  Central  Committee  at  any  of  those 
places,  I  must  insist  upon  you  meeting  me  at  the  time  specified. 
Very  respectfully,  your  most  obedient  servant, 

S.  A.  DOUGLAS. 

Mr.  Lincoln  to  Mr.  Douglas. 

SPRINGFIELD,  July  29, 1858. 
HON.  S.  A.  DOUGLAS. 

Dear  Sir  :  Yours  of  the  24th  in  relation  to  an  arrangement  to  di 
vide  time  and  address  the  same  audiences  is  received;  and  in 
apology  for  not  sooner  replying,  allow  me  to  say  that  when  I  sat  by 
you  at  dinner  yesterday  I  was  not  aware  that  you  had  answered  my 
note,  nor  certainly  that  my  own  note  had  been  presented  to  you. 
An  hour  after  I  saw  a  copy  of  your  answer  in  the  Chicago  "  Times," 
and  reaching  home,  I  found  the  original  awaiting  me.  Protesting 
that  your  insinuations  of  attempted  unfairness  on  my  part  are  un 
just,  and  with  the  hope  that  you  did  not  very  considerately  make 
them,  I  proceed  to  reply.  To  your  statement  that  "  It  has  been  sug 
gested  recently  that  an  arrangement  had  been  made  to  bring  out  a 
third  candidate  for  the  United  States  Senate,  who,  with  yourself, 
should  canvass  the  State  in  opposition  to  me/7  etc.,  I  can  only  say 
that  such  suggestion  must  have  been  made  by  yourself,  for  certainly 
none  such  has  been  made  by  or  to  me,  or  otherwise,  to  my  know 
ledge.  Surely  you  did  not  deliberately  conclude,  as  you  insinuate, 
that  I  was  expecting  to  draw  you  into  an  arrangement  of  terms,  to 
be  agreed  on  by  yourself,  by  which  a  third  candidate  and  myself 
"  in  concert  might  be  able  to  take  the  opening  and  closing  speech 
in  every  case." 

As  to  your  surprise  that  I  did  not  sooner  make  the  proposal  to 
divide  time  with  you,  I  can  only  say  I  made  it  as  soon  as  I  resolved 
to  make  it.  I  did  not  know  but  that  such  proposal  would  come 
from  you;  I  waited  respectfully  to  see.  It  may  have  been  well 
known  to  you  that  you  went  to  Springfield  for  the  purpose  of  agree 
ing  on  the  plan  of  campaign;  but  it  was  not  so  known  to  me. 
When  your  appointments  were  announced  in  the  papers,  extending 
only  to  the  21st  of  August,  I  for  the  first  time  considered  it  certain 
that  you  would  make  no  proposal  to  me,  and  then  resolved  that,  if 
my  friends  concurred,  I  would  make  one  to  you.  As  soon  thereafter 
as  I  could  see  and  consult  with  friends  satisfactorily,  I  did  make 
the  proposal.  It  did  not  occur  to  me  that  the  proposed  arrangement 
could  derange  your  plans  after  the  latest  of  your  appointments  al 
ready  made.  After  that,  there  was  before  the  election  largely  over 
two  months  of  clear  time. 

For  you  to  say  that  we  have  already  spoken  at  Chicago  and 
Springfield,  and  that  on  both  occasions  I  had  the  concluding  speech, 


276          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

is  hardly  a  fair  statement.  The  truth  rather  is  this:  At  Chicago, 
July  9,  you  made  a  carefully  prepared  conclusion  on  my  speech  of 
June  16.  Twenty-four  hours  after,  I  made  a  hasty  conclusion  on 
yours  of  the  9th.  You  had  six  days  to  prepare,  and  concluded  on 
me  again  at  Bloomington  on  the  16th.  Twenty-four  hours  after,  I 
concluded  again  on  you  at  Springfield.  In  the  mean  time,  you  had 
made  another  conclusion  on  me  at  Springfield  which  I  did  not  hear, 
and  of  the  contents  of  which  I  knew  nothing  when  I  spoke  ;  so  that 
your  speech  made  in  daylight,  and  mine  at  night,  of  the  17th,  at 
Springfield,  were  both  made  in  perfect  independence  of  each  other. 
The  dates  of  making  all  these  speeches  will  show,  I  think,  that  in  the 
matter  of  time  for  preparation  the  advantage  has  all  been  on  your 
side,  and  that  none  of  the  external  circumstances  have  stood  to  my 
advantage. 

I  agree  to  an  arrangement  for  us  to  speak  at  the  seven  places  you 
have  named,  and  at  your  own  times,  provided  you  name  the  times 
at  once,  so  that  I,  as  well  as  you,  can  have  to  myself  the  time  not 
covered  by  the  arrangement.  As  to  the  other  details,  I  wish  perfect 
reciprocity,  and  no  more.  I  wish  as  much  time  as  you,  and  that 
conclusions  shall  alternate.  That  is  all.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

P.  S.  As  matters  now  stand,  I  shall  be  at  no  more  of  your  ex 
clusive  meetings ;  and  for  about  a  week  from  to-day  a  letter  from 
you  will  reach  me  at  Springfield. 

A.  L. 


Mr.  Douglas  to  Mr.  Lincoln. 

BEMENT,  PIATT  Co.,  ILL.,  July  30,  1858. 

Dear  Sir  :  Your  letter  dated  yesterday,  accepting  my  proposition 
for  a  joint  discussion  at  one  prominent  point  in  each  congressional 
district,  as  stated  in  my  previous  letter,  was  received  this  morning. 

The  times  and  places  designated  are  as  follows : 

Ottawa,  La  Salle  County August  21,  1858. 

Freeport,  Stephenson  County "  27,  " 

Jonesboro,  Union  County September  15,  " 

Charleston,  Coles  County 18,  " 

Galesburg,  Knox  County October  7,  " 

Quincy,  Adams  County "  13,  " 

Alton,  Madison  County  "  15,  " 

I  agree  to  your  suggestion  that  we  shall  alternately  open  and 
close  the  discussion.  I  will  speak  at  Ottawa  one  hour;  you  can  re 
ply,  occupying  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  I  will  then  follow  for  half 
an  hour.  At  Freeport,  you  shall  open  the  discussion  and  speak  one 
hour ;  I  will  follow  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  you  can  then  reply 
for  half  an  hour.  We  will  alternate  in  like  manner  in  each  succes 
sive  place.  Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

S.  A.  DOUGLAS. 

HON.  A.  LINCOLN,  Springfield,  111. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Mr.  Lincoln  to  Mr.  Douglas. 

SPRINGFIELD,  July  31,  1858. 
HON.  S.  A.  DOUGLAS. 

Dear  Sir :  Yours  of  yesterday,  naming  places,  times,  and  terms 
for  joint  discussions  between  us,  was  received  this  morning.  Al 
though  by  the  terms,  as  you  propose,  you  take  four  openings  and 
closes  to  my  three,  I  accede,  and  thus  close  the  arrangement.  I 
direct  this  to  you  at  Hillsboro,  and  shall  try  to  have  both  your  letter 
and  this  appear  in  the  "  Journal "  and  "  Register  v  of  Monday  morn 
ing.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


July  31,  1858.—  LETTER  TO  H.  ASBURY. 

SPRINGFIELD,  July  31,  1858. 
HENRY  ASBURY,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  28th  is  received.  The  points  you 
propose  to  press  upon  Douglas  he  will  be  very  hard  to  get  up  to, 
but  I  think  you  labor  under  a  mistake  when  you  say  no  one  cares 
how  he  answers.  This  implies  that  it  is  equal  "with  him  whether  he 
is  injured  here  or  at  the  South.  That  is  a  mistake.  He  cares 
nothing  for  the  South  ;  he  knows  he  is  already  dead  there.  He  only 
leans  Southward  more  to  keep  the  Buchanan  party  from  growing 
in  Illinois.  You  shall  have  hard  work  to  get  him  directly  to  the 
point  whether  a  territorial  legislature  has  or  has  not  the  power 
to  exclude  slavery.  But  if  you  succeed  in  bringing  him  to  it  — 
though  he  will  be  compelled  to  say  it  possesses  no  such  power  —  he 
will  instantly  take  ground  that  slavery  cannot  actually  exist  in  the 
Territories  unless  the  people  desire  it,  and  so  give  it  protection  by 
territorial  legislation.  If  this  offends  the  South,  he  will  let  it  offend 
them,  as  at  all  events  he  means  to  hold  on  to  his  chances  in  Illinois. 
You  will  soon  learn  by  the  papers  that  both  the  judge  and  myself 
are  to  be  in  Quincy  on  the  13th  of  October,  when  and  where  I  expect 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  you.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


August  21,  1858. —  FIRST  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  OTTAWA,  ILLINOIS. 
Mr.  Douglas's  Opening  Speech. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen :  I  appear  before  you  to-day  for  the  pur 
pose  of  discussing  the  leading  political  topics  which  now  agitate  the 
public  mind.  By  an  arrangement  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  myself, 
we  are  present  here  to-day  for  the  purpose  of  having  a  joint  discus 
sion,  as  the  representatives  of  the  two  great  political  parties  of  the 
State  and  Union,  upon  the  principles  in  issue  between  those  parties ; 
and  this  vast  concourse  of  people  shows  the  deep  feeling  which  per 
vades  the  public  mind  in  regard  to  the  questions  dividing  us. 


278          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Prior  to  1854  this  country  was  divided  into  two  great  political 
parties,  known  as  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties.  Both  were 
national  and  patriotic,  advocating  principles  that  were  universal  in 
their  application.  An  old-line  Whig  could  proclaim  his  principles 
in  Louisiana  and  Massachusetts  alike.  Whig  principles  had  no 
boundary  sectional  line  —  they  were  not  limited  by  the  Ohio  River, 
nor  by  the  Potomac,  nor  by  the  line  of  the  free  and  slave  States, 
but  applied  and  were  proclaimed  wherever  the  Constitution  ruled  or 
the  American  flag  waved  over  the  American  soil.  So  it  was,  and  so 
it  is  with  the  great  Democratic  party,  which,  from  the  days  of  Jeffer 
son  until  this  period,  has  proven  itself  to  be  the  historic  party  of 
this  nation.  While  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties  differed  in 
regard  to  a  bank,  the  tariff,  distribution,  the  specie  circular,  and'the 
subtreasury,  they  agreed  on  the  great  slavery  question  which  now 
agitates  the  Union.  I  say  that  the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic 
party  agreed  on  the  slavery  question,  while  they  differed  on  those 
matters  of  expediency  to  which  I  have  referred.  The  Whig  party 
and  the  Democratic  party  jointly  adopted  the  compromise  measures 
of  1850  as  the  basis  of  a  proper  and  just  solution  of  the  slavery 
question  in  all  its  forms.  Clay  was  the  great  leader,  with  Webster 
on  his  right  and  Cass  on  his  left,  and  sustained  by  the  patriots  in 
the  Whig  and  Democratic  ranks  who  had  devised  and  enacted  the 
compromise  measures  of  1850. 

In  1851  the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party  united  in  Illi 
nois  in  adopting  resolutions  indorsing  and  approving  the  principles 
of  the  compromise  measures  of  1850,  as  the  proper  adjustment  of 
that  question.  In  1852,  when  the  Whig  party  assembled  in  conven 
tion  at  Baltimore  for  the  purpose  of  nominating  a  candidate  for  the 
presidency,  the  first  thing  it  did  was  to  declare  the  compromise 
measures  of  1850,  in  substance  and  in  principle,  a  suitable  adjust 
ment  of  that  question.  [Here  the  speaker  was  interrupted  by  loud 
and  long-continued  applause.]  My  friends,  silence  will  be  more  ac 
ceptable  to  me  in  the  discussion  of  these  questions  than  applause. 
I  desire  to  address  myself  to  your  judgment,  your  understanding, 
and  your  consciences,  and  not  to  your  passions  or  your  enthusiasm. 
When  the  Democratic  convention  assembled  in  Baltimore  in  the 
same  year,  for  the  purpose  of  nominating  a  Democratic  candidate 
for  the  presidency,  it  also  adopted  the  compromise  measures  of  1850 
as  the  basis  of  Democratic  action.  Thus  you  see  that  up  to  1853-54, 
the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party  both  stood  on  the  same 
platform  with  regard  to  the  slavery  question.  That  platform  was  the 
right  of  the  people  of  each  State' and  each  Territory  to  decide  their 
local  and  domestic  institutions  for  themselves,  subject  only  to  the 
Federal  Constitution. 

During  the  session  of  Congress  of  1853-54,  I  introduced  into  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States  a  bill  to  organize  the  Territories  of 
Kansas  and  Nebraska  on  that  principle  which  had  been  adopted  in 
the  compromise  measures  of  1850,  approved  by  the  Whig  party  and 
the  Democratic  party  in  Illinois  in  1851,  and  indorsed  by  the  Whig 
party  and  the  Democratic  party  in  national  convention  in  1852.  In 
order  that  there  might  be  no  misunderstanding  in  relation  to  the 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          279 

principle  involved  in  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill,  I  put  forth  the 
true  intent  and  meaning  of  the  act  in  these  words:  "It  is  the  true 
intent  and  meaning  of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  State 
or  Territory,  or  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the  people  thereof 
perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their 
own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Federal  Constitution."  Thus  you  see 
that  up  to  1854,  when  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill  was  brought  into 
Congress  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  the  principles  which  both 
parties  had  up  to  that  time  indorsed  and  approved,  there  had  been  no 
division  in  this  country  in  regard  to  that  principle  except  the  opposi 
tion  of  the  Abolitionists.  In  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Illi 
nois  legislature,  upon  a  resolution  asserting  that  principle,  every  Whig 
and  every  Democrat  in  the  House  voted  in  the  affirmative,  and  only 
four  men  voted  against  it,  and  those  four  were  old-line  Abolitionists. 
In  1854  Mr.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Lyman  Trumbull  entered 
into  an  arrangement,  one  with  the  other,  and  each  with  his  respective 
friends,  to  dissolve  the  Old  Whig  party  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  dis 
solve  the  old  Democratic  party  on  the  other,  and  to  connect  the 
members  of  both  into  an  Abolition  party,  under  the  name  and  dis- 
Jl guise  of  a  Republican  party.  The  terms  of  that  arrangement  between 
Lincoln  and  Trumbull  have  been  published  by  Lincoln's  special 

'  friend,  James  H.  Matheny,  Esq.,  and  they  were  that  Lincoln  should 
have  General  Shields's  place  in  the  United  States  Senate,  which  was 
then  about  to  become  vacant,  and  that  Trumbull  should  have  my 
seat  when  my  term  expired.  Lincoln  went  to  work  to  Abolitionize 

'  the  Old  Whig  party  all  over  the  State,  pretending  that  he  was  then  as 
good  a  Whig  as  ever;  and  Trumbull  went  to  work  in  his  part  of  the 
State  preaching  Abolitionism  in  its  milder  and  lighter  form,  and  try 
ing  to  Abolitionize  the  Democratic  party,  and  bring  old  Democrats 
handcuffed  and  bound  hand  and  foot  into  the  Abolition  camp.  In 
pursuance  of  the  arrangement,  the  parties  met  at  Springfield  in  Oc 
tober,  1854,  and  proclaimed  their  new  platform.  Lincoln  was  to 
bring  into  the  Abolition  camp  the  old-line  Whigs,  and  transfer  them 
over  to  Giddings,  Chase,  Fred  Douglass,  and  Parson  Lovejoy,  who 
were  ready  to  receive  them  and  christen  them  in  their  new  faith. 
They  laid  down  on  that  occasion  a  platform  for  their  new  Republican 
party,  which  was  thus  to  be  constructed.  I  have  the  resolutions  of 
the  State  convention  then  held,  which  was  the  first  mass  State  conven 
tion  ever  held  in  Illinois  by  the  Black  Republican  party,  and  I  now 
hold  them  in  my  hands  and  will  read  a  part  of  them,  and  cause  the 
others  to  be  printed.  Here  are  the  most  important  and  material  reso 
lutions  of  this  Abolition  platform : 

1.  Resolved,  That  we  believe  this  truth  to  be  self -evident,  that  when  par 
ties  become  subversive  of  the  ends  for  which  they  are  established,  or  in 
capable  of  restoring  the  government  to  the  true  principles  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  it  is  the  right  and  duty  of  the  people  to  dissolve  the  political  bands 
by  which  they  may  have  been  connected  therewith,  and  to  organize  new  par 
ties  upon  such  principles  and  with  such  views  as  the  circumstances  and 
the  exigencies  of  the  nation  may  demand. 

2.  Resolved,  That  the  times  imperatively  demand  the  reorganization  of 
parties,  and,  repudiating  all  previous  party  attachments,  names  and  predi- 


280          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

lections,  we  unite  ourselves  together  in  defense  of  the  liberty  and  Constitu 
tion  of  the  country,  and  will  hereafter  cooperate  as  the  Republican  party, 
pledged  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  following  purposes :  To  bring  the 
administration  of  the  government  back  to  the  control  of  first  principles ; 
to  restore  Nebraska  and  Kansas  to  the  position  of  free  Territories ;  that, 
as  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  vests  in  the  States,  and  not  in  Con 
gress,  the  power  to  legislate  for  the  extradition  of  fugitives  from  labor,  to 
repeal  and  entirely  abrogate  the  fugitive -slave  law  j  to  restrict  slavery  to 
those  States  in  which  it  exists  5  to  prohibit  the  admission  of  any  more  slave 
States  into  the  Union  j  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  j  to 
exclude  slavery  from  all  the  Territories  over  which  the  general  government 
has  exclusive  jurisdiction;  and  to  resist  the  acquirement  of  any  more 
Territories  unless  the  practice  of  slavery  therein  forever  shall  have  been 
prohibited. 

3.  Resolved,  That  in  furtherance  of  these  principles  we  will  use  such  con 
stitutional  and  lawful  means  as  shall  seem  best  adapted  to  their  accomplish 
ment,  and  that  we  will  support  no  man  for  office,  under  the  general  or 
State  government,  who  is  not  positively  and  fully  committed  to  the  support 
of  these  principles,  and  whose  personal  character  and  conduct  is  not  a 
guaranty  that  he  is  reliable,  and  who  shall  not  have  abjured  old  party 
allegiance  and  ties. 

Now,  gentlemen,  your  Black  Republicans  have  cheered  every  one 
of  those  propositions,  and  yet  I  venture  to  say  that  you  cannot  get 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  come  out  and  say  that  he  is  now  in  favor  of  each  one 
of  them.  That  these  propositions,  one  and  all,  constitute  the  plat 
form  of  the  Black  Republican  party  of  this  day,  I  have  no  doubt  j 
and  when  you  were  not  aware  for  what  purpose  I  was  reading  them, 
your  Black  Republicans  cheered  them  as  good  Black  Republican 
doctrines.  My  object  in  reading  these  resolutions  was  to  put  the 
question  to  Abraham  Lincoln  this  day,  whether  he  now  stands  and 
will  stand  by  each  article  in  that  creed,  and  carry  it  out.  I  desire 
to  know  whether  Mr.  Lincoln  to-day  stands  as  he  did  in  1854,  in 
favor  of  the  unconditional  repeal  of  the  fugitive-slave  law.  I 
desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  stands  pledged  to-day,  as  he  did  in 
1854,  against  the  admission  of  any  more  slave  States  into  the  Union, 
even  if  the  people  want  them.  I  want  to  know  whether  he  stands 
pledged  against  the  admission  of  a  new  State  into  the  Union  with 
such  a  constitution  as  the  people  of  that  State  may  see  fit  to  make. 
I  want  to  know  whether  he  stands  to-day  pledged  to  the  abolition  of 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  I  desire  him  to  answer  whether 
he  stands  pledged  to  the  prohibition  of  the  slave-trade  between  the 
different  States.  I  desire  to  know  whether  he  stands  pledged  to 
prohibit  slavery  in  all  the  Territories  of  the  United  States,  North  as 
well  as  South  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line.  I  desire  him  to 
answer  whether  he  is  opposed  to  the  acquisition  of  any  more  territory 
unless  slavery  is  prohibited  therein.  I  want  his  answer  to  these 
questions.  Your  affirmative  cheers  in  favor  of  this  Abolition  plat- 
•  form  are  not  satisfactory.  I  ask  Abraham  Lincoln  to  answer  these 
J'  questions,  in  order  that  when  I  trot  him  down  to  lower  Egypt,  I 
may  put  the  same  questions  to  him.  My  principles  are  the  same 
everywhere.  I  can  proclaim  them  alike  in  the  North,  the  South, 
the  East,  and  the  West.  My  principles  will  apply  wherever  the 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          281 

Constitution  prevails  and  the  American  flag  waves.  I  desire  to  know 
whether  Mr.  Lincoln's  principles  will  bear  transplanting  from  Ot 
tawa  to  Jonesboro  ?  I  put  these  questions  to  him  to-day  distinctly, 
and  ask  an  answer.  I  have  a  right  to  an  answer,  for  I  quote  from 
the  platform  of  the  Republican  party,  made  by  himself  and  others 
at  the  time  that  party  was  formed,  and  the  bargain  made  by  Lincoln 
to  dissolve  and  kill  the  Old  Whig  party,  and  transfer  its  members, 
bound  hand  and  foot,  to  the  Abolition  party,  under  the  direction  of 
Giddings  and  Fred  Douglass.  In  the  remarks  I  have  made  on  this 
platform,  and  the  position  of  Mr.  Lincoln  upon  it,  I  mean  nothing 
personally  disrespectful  or  unkind  to  that  gentleman.  I  have  known 
him  for  nearly  twenty-five  years.  There  were  many  points  of  sym 
pathy  between  us  when  we  first  got  acquainted.  We  were  both 
comparatively  boys,  and  both  struggling  with  poverty  in  a  strange 
land.  I  was  a  school-teacher  in  the  town  of  Winchester,  and  he  a 
flourishing  grocery -keeper  in  the  town  of  Salem.  He  was  more  suc 
cessful  in  his  occupation  than  I  was  in  mine,  and  hence  more  fortu 
nate  in  this  world's  goods.  Lincoln  is  one  of  those  peculiar  men  who 
perform  with  admirable  skill  everything  which  they  undertake.  I 
made  as  good  a  school-teacher  as  I  could,  and  when  a  cabinet-maker 
I  made  a  good  bedstead  and  tables,  although  my  old  boss  said  I 
succeeded  better  with  bureaus  and  secretaries  than  with  anything 
else ;  but  I  believe  that  Lincoln  was  always  more  successful  in  bus 
iness  than  I,  for  his  business  enabled  him  to  get  into  the  legislature. 
I  met  him  there,  however,  and  had  sympathy  with  him,  because  of 
the  up-hill  struggle  we  both  had  in  life.  He  was  then  just  as  good 
at  telling  an  anecdote  as  now.  He  could  beat  any  of  the  boys 
wrestling,  or  running  a  foot-race,  in  pitching  quoits  or  tossing  a 
copper ;  could  ruin  more  liquor  than  all  the  boys  of  the  town  together, 
and  the  dignity  and  impartiality  with  which  he  presided  at  a  horse 
race  or  fist-fight  excited  the  admiration  and  won  the  praise  of 
everybody  that  was  present  and  participated.  I  sympathized  with 
him  because  he  was  struggling  with  difficulties,  and  so  was  I.  Mr. 
Lincoln  served  with  me  in  the  legislature  in  1836,  when  we  both 
retired,  and  he  subsided,  or  became  submerged,  and  he  was  lost  sight 
of  as  a  public  man  for  some  years.  In  1846,  when  Wilmot  intro 
duced  his  celebrated  proviso,  and  the  Abolition  tornado  swept  over 
the  country,  Lincoln  again  turned  up  as  a  member  of  Congress  from 
the  Sangamon  district.  I  was  then  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  and  was  glad  to  welcome  my  old  friend  and  companion. 
Whilst  in  Congress,  he  distinguished  himself  by  his  opposition  to  the 
Mexican  war,  taking  the  side  of  the  common  enemy  against  his  own 
country ;  and  when  he  returned  home  he  found  that  the  indignation 
of  the  people  followed  him  everywhere,  and  he  was  again  submerged 
or  obliged  to  retire  into  private  life,  forgotten  by  his  former  friends. 
He  came  up  again  in  1854,  just  in  time  to  make  this  Abolition  or 
Black  Republican  platform,  in  company  with  Giddings,  Lovejoy, 
Chase,  and  Fred  Douglass,  for  the  Republican  party  to  stand  upon. 
Trumbull,  too,  was  one  of  our  own  contemporaries.  He  was  born 
and  raised  in  old  Connecticut,  was  bred  a  Federalist,  but  remov 
ing  to  Georgia,  turned  Nullifier  when  nullification  was  popular,  and 


282          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

as  soon  as  he  disposed  of  his  clocks  and  wound  up  his  business, 
migrated  to  Illinois,  turned  politician  and  lawyer  here,  and  made 
his  appearance  in  1841  as  a  member  of  the  legislature.  He  became 
noted  as  the  author  of  the  scheme  to  repudiate  a  large  portion  of 
the  State  debt  of  Illinois,  which,  if  successful,  would  have  brought 
infamy  and  disgrace  upon  the  fair  escutcheon  of  our  glorious  State. 
The  odium  attached  to  that  measure  consigned  him  to  oblivion  for 
a  time.  I  helped  to  do  it.  I  walked  into  a  public  meeting  in  the 
hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  replied  to  his  repudiating 
speeches,  and  resolutions  were  carried  over  his  head  denouncing 
repudiation,  and  asserting  the  moral  and  legal  obligation  of  Illinois 
to  pay  every  dollar  of  the  debt  she  owed  and  every  bond  that  bore 
her  seal.  TrumbulFs  malignity  has  followed  me  since  I  thus  defeated 
his  infamous  scheme. 

These  two  men  having  formed  this  combination  to  Abolitionize 
the  Old  Whig  party  and  the  old  Democratic  party,  and  put  them 
selves  into  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  in  pursuance  of  their 
bargain,  are  now  carrying  out  that  arrangement.  Matheny  states 
that  Trumbull  broke  faith  ;  that  the  bargain  was  that  Lincoln  should 
be  the  senator  in  Shields's  place,  and  Trumbull  was  to  wait  for  mine ; 
and  the  story  goes  that  Trumbull  cheated  Lincoln,  having  control 
of  four  or  five  Abolitionized  Democrats  who  were  holding  over  in 
the  Senate ;  he  would  not  let  them  vote  for  Lincoln,  which  obliged 
the  rest  of  the  Abolitionists  to  support  him  in  order  to  secure  an 
Abolition  senator.  There  are  a  number  of  authorities  for  the  truth 
of  this  besides  Matheny,  and  I  suppose  that  even  Mr.  Lincoln  will 
not  deny  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln  demands  that  he  shall  have  the  place  intended  for 
Trumbull,  as  Trumbull  cheated  him  and  got  his,  and  Trumbull  is 
stumping  the  State  traducing  me  for  the  purpose  of  securing  the 
position  for  Lincoln,  in  order  to  quiet  him.  It  was  in  consequence 
of  this  arrangement  that  the  Republican  convention  was  impan 
eled  to  instruct  for  Lincoln  and  nobody  else,  and  it  was  on  this  ac 
count  that  they  passed  resolutions  that  he  was  their  first,  their  last, 
and  their  only  choice.  Archy  Williams  was  nowhere,  Browning 
was  nobody,  Wentworth  was  not  to  be  considered  5  they  had  no 
man  in  the  Republican  party  for  the  place  except  Lincoln,  for  the 
reason  that  he  demanded  that  they  should  carry  out  the  arrangement. 

Having  formed  this  new  party  for  the  benefit  of  deserters  from 
Whiggery  and  deserters  from  Democracy,  and  having  laid  down 
the  Abolition  platform  which  I  have  read,  Lincoln  now  takes  his 
stand  and  proclaims  his  Abolition  doctrines.  Let  me  read  a  part  of 
them.  In  his  speech  at  Springfield  to  the  convention  which  nomi 
nated  him  for  the  Senate,  he  said : 

In  my  opinion  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached 
and  passed.  "A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand."  I  believe  this 
government  cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do 
not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved  —  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall  — 
but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing,  or 
all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread 
of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          283 

the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward  till 
it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States  —  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as 
well  as  South.  ["  Good,"  "  good,"  and  cheers.] 

I  am  delighted  to  hear  you  Black  Republicans  say  "  good."  I 
have  no  doubt  that  doctrine  expresses  your  sentiments,  and  I  will 
prove  to  you  now,  if  you  will  listen  to  me,  that  it  is  revolutionary 
and  destructive  of  the  existence  of  this  government.  Mr.  Lincoln, 
in  the  extract  from  which  I  have  read,  says  that  this  government 
cannot  endure  permanently  in  the  same  condition  in  which  it  was 
made  by  its  framers  —  divided  into  free  and  slave  States.  He  says 
that  it  has  existed  for  about  seventy  years  thus  divided,  and  yet  he 
tells  you  that  it  cannot  endure  permanently  on  the  same  principles 
and  in  the  same  relative  condition  in  which  our  fathers  made  it. 
Why  can  it  not  exist  divided  into  free  and  slave  States J?  Washing 
ton,  Jeff erson,  Franklin,  Madison,  Hamilton,  Jay,  and  the  great  men 
of  that  day  made  this  government  divided  into  free  States  and  slave 
States,  and  left  each  State  perfectly  free  to  do  as  it  pleased  on  the 
subject  of  slavery.  Why  can  it  not  exist  on  the  same  principles  on 
which  our  fathers  made  it  ?  They  knew  when  they  framed  the  Con 
stitution  that  in  a  country  as  wide  and  broad  as  this,  with  such  a 
variety  of  climate,  production,  and  interest,  the  people  necessarily 
required  different  laws  and  institutions  in  different  localities.  They 
knew  that  the  laws  and  regulations  which  would  suit  the  granite 
hills  of  New  Hampshire  would  be  unsuited  to  the  rice-plantations  of 
South  Carolina,  and  they  therefore  provided  that  each  State  should 
retain  its  own  legislature  and  its  own  sovereignty,  with  the  full  and 
complete  power  to  do  as  it  pleased  within  its  own  limits,  in  all  that 
was  local  and  not  national.  One  of  the  reserved  rights  of  the  States 
was  the  right  to  regulate  the  relations  between  master  and  ser 
vant,  on  the  slavery  question.  At  the  time  the  Constitution  was 
framed,  there  were  thirteen  States  in  the  Union,  twelve  of  which 
were  slaveholding  States  and  one  a  free  State.  Suppose  this  doctrine 
of  uniformity  preached  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  the  States  should  all 
be  free  or  all  be  slave,  had  prevailed,  and  what  would  have  been  the  re 
sult  ?  Of  course,  the  twelve  slaveholding  States  would  have  over 
ruled  the  one  free  State,  and  slavery  would  have  been  fastened  by  a 
constitutional  provision  on  every  inch  of  the  American  republic,  in 
stead  of  being  left,  as  our  fathers  wisely  left  it,  to  each  State  to  de 
cide  for  itself.  Here  I  assert  that  uniformity  in  the  local  laws  and 
institutions  of  the  different  States  is  neither  possible  nor  desir 
able.  If  uniformity  had  been  adopted  when  the  government  was 
established,  it  must  inevitably  have  been  the  uniformity  of  slavery 
everywhere,  or  else  the  uniformity  of  negro  citizenship  and  negro 
equality  everywhere. 

We  are  told  by  Lincoln  that  he  is  utterly  opposed  to  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  and  will  not  submit  to  it,  for  the  reason  that  he  says 
it  deprives  the  negro  of  the  rights  and  privileges  of  citizenship. 
That  is  the  first  and  main  reason  which  he  assigns  for  his  warfare 
on  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  and  its  decision.  I  ask 
you,  are  you  in  favor  of  conferring  upon  the  negro  the  rights  and 


284          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

privileges  of  citizenship  ?  Do  you  desire  to  strike  out  of  our  State 
constitution  that  clause  which  keeps  slaves  and  free  negroes  out  of 
the  State,  and  allow  the  free  negroes  to  flow  in,  and  cover  your 

Erairies  with  black  settlements  ?  Do  you  desire  to  turn  this  beauti- 
il  State  into  a  free  negro  colony,  in  order  that  when  Missouri 
abolishes  slavery  she  can  send  one  hundred  thousand  emancipated 
slaves  into  Illinois,  to  become  citizens  and  voters,  on  an  equality  with 
yourselves  f  If  you  desire  negro  citizenship,  if  you  desire  to  allow 
them  to  come  into  the  State  and  settle  with  the  white  man,  if  you 
desire  them  to  vote  on  an  equality  with  yourselves,  and  to  make 
them  eligible  to  office,  to  serve  on  juries,  and  to  adjudge  your  rights, 
then  support  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  Black  Republican  party,  who  are 
in  favor  of  the  citizenship  of  the  negro.  For  one,  I  am  opposed  to 
negro  citizenship  in  any  and  every  form.  I  believe  this  government 
was  made  on  the  white  basis.  I  believe  it  was  made  by  white  men, 
for  the  benefit  of  white  men  and  their  posterity  forever,  and  I  am 
in  favor  of  confining  citizenship  to  white  men,  men  of  European 
birth  and  descent,  instead  of  conferring  it  upon  negroes,  Indians, 
and  other  inferior  races. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  following  the  example  and  lead  of  all  the  little  Abo 
lition  orators  who  go  around  and  lecture  in  the  basements  of  schools 
and  churches,  reads  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence  that  all 
men  were  created  equal,  and  then  asks  how  can  you  deprive  a  negro 
of  that  equality  which  God  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
award  to  him1?  He  and  they  maintain  that  negro  equality  is  guar 
anteed  by  the  laws  of  God,  and  that  it  is  asserted  in  the  Declaration 
of  Independence.  If  they  think  so,  of  course  they  have  a  right  to  say 
so,  and  so  vote.  I  do  not  question  Mr.  Lincoln's  conscientious  belief 
that  the  negro  was  made  his  equal,  and  hence  is  his  brother ;  but  for 
my  own  part,  I  do  not  regard  the  negro  as  my  equal,  and  positively 
deny  that  he  is  my  brother  or  any  kin  to  me  whatever.  Lincoln  has 
evidently  learned  by  heart  Parson  Lovejoy's  catechism.  He  can  re 
peat  it  as  well  as  Farns  worth,  and  he  is  worthy  of  a  medal  from  Father 
Giddings  and  Fred  Douglass  for  his  Abolitionism .  He  holds  that  the 
negro  was  born  his  equal  and  yours,  and  that  he  was  endowed  with 
equality  by  the  Almighty,  and  that  no  human  law  can  deprive  him  of 
these  rights  which  were  guaranteed  to  him  by  the  Supreme  Euler  of 
the  universe.  Now,  I  do  not  believe  that  the  Almighty  ever  intended 
the  negro  to  be  the  equal  of  the  white  man.  If  he  did,  he  has  been  a 
long  time  demonstrating  the  fact.  For  thousands  of  years  the  negro 
has  been  a  race  upon  the  earth,  and  during  all  that  time,  in  all  lati 
tudes  and  climates,  wherever  he  has  wandered  or  been  taken,  he  has 
been  inferior  to  the  race  which  he  has  there  met.  He  belongs  to  an 
inferior  race,  and  must  always  occupy  an  inferior  position.  I  do  not 
hold  that  because  the  negro  is  our  inferior  therefore  he  ought  to 
be  a  slave.  By  no  means  can  such  a  conclusion  be  drawn  from 
what  I  have  said.  On  the  contrary,  I  hold  that  humanity  and  Chris 
tianity  both  require  that  the  negro  shall  have  and  enjoy  every  right, 
every  privilege,  and  every  immunity  consistent  with  the  safety  of  the 
society  in  which  he  lives.  On  that  point,  I  presume,  there  can  be  no 
diversity  of  opinion.  You  and  I  are  bound  to  extend  to  our  inferior 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          285 

and  dependent  beings  every  right,  every  privilege,  every  facility  and 
immunity  consistent  with  the  public  good.  The  question  then  arises, 
what  rights  and  privileges  are  consistent  with  the  public  good?  This 
is  a  question  which  each  State  and  each  Territory  must  decide  for 
itself — Illinois  has  decided  it  for  herself.  We  have  provided  that 
'.he  negro  shall  not  be  a  slave,  and  we  have  also  provided  that  he 
shall  not  be  a  citizen,  but  protect  him  in  his  civil  rights,  in  his  life, 
his  person  and  his  property,  only  depriving  him  of  all  political  rights 
whatsoever,  and  refusing  to  put  him  on  an  equality  with  the  white 
man.  That  policv  of  Illinois  is  satisfactory  to  the  Democratic  party 
and  to  me,  and  if  it  were  to  the  Republicans,  there  would  then  be  no 
question  upon  the  subject ;  but  the  Republicans  say  that  he  ought  to 
be  made  a  citizen,  and  when  he  becomes  a  citizen  he  becomes  your 
equal,  with  all  your  rights  and  privileges.  They  assert  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  to  be  monstrous  because  it  denies  that  the  negro  is  or 
can  be  a  citizen  under  the  Constitution. 

Now,  I  hold  that  Illinois  had  a  right  to  abolish  and  prohibit  sla 
very  as  she  did,  and  I  hold  that  Kentucky  has  the  same  right  to  con 
tinue  and  protect  slavery  that  Illinois  had  to  abolish  it.  I  hold  that 
New  York  had  as  much  right  to  abolish  slavery  as  Virginia  has  to 
continue  it,  and  that  each  and  every  State  of  this  Union  is  a  sover 
eign  power,  with  the  right  to  do  as  it  pleases  upon  this  question  of 
slavery,  and  upon  all  its  domestic  institutions.  Slavery  is  not  the 
only  question  which  comes  up  in  this  controversy.  There  is  a  far 
more  important  one  to  you,  and  that  is,  what  shall  be  done  with  the 
free  negro  ?  We  have  settled  the  slavery  question  as  far  as  we  are 
concerned ;  we  have  prohibited  it  in  Illinois  forever,  and  in  doing 
so,  I  think  we  have  done  wisely,  and  there  is  no  man  in  the  State 
who  would  be  more  strenuous  in  his  opposition  to  the  introduction 
of  slavery  than  I  would  j  but  when  we  settled  it  for  ourselves,  we 
exhausted  all  our  power  over  that  subject.  We  have  done  our  whole 
duty,  and  can  do  no  more.  We  must  leave  each  and  every  other 
State  to  decide  for  itself  the  same  question.  In  relation  to  the  policy 
to  be  pursued  toward  the  free  negroes,  we  have  said  that  they  shall 
not  vote ;  whilst  Maine,  on  the  other  hand,  has  said  that  they  shall 
vote.  Maine  is  a  sovereign  State,  and  has  the  power  to  regulate 
the  qualifications  of  voters  within  her  limits.  I  would  never  consent 
to  confer  the  right  of  voting  and  of  citizenship  upon  a  negro,  but 
still  I  am  not  going  to  quarrel  with  Maine  for  differing  from  me  in 
opinion.  Let  Maine  take  care  of  her  own  negroes,  and  fix  the  quali 
fications  of  her  own  voters  to  suit  herself,  without  interfering  with 
Illinois,  and  Illinois  will  not  interfere  with  Maine.  So  with  the 
State  of  New  York.  She  allows  the  negro  to  vote  provided  he  owns 
two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars'  worth  of  property,  but  not  otherwise. 
While  I  would  not  make  any  distinction  whatever  between  a  negro 
who  held  property  and  one  who  did  not,  yet  if  the  sovereign  State 
of  New  York  chooses  to  make  that  distinction  it  is  her  business  and 
not  mine,  and  I  will  not  quarrel  with  her  for  it.  She  can  do  as  she 
pleases  on  this  question  if  she  minds  her  own  business,  and  we  will 
do  the  same  thing.  Now,  my  friends,  if  we  will  only  act  conscien 
tiously  and  rigidly  upon  this  great  principle  of  popular  sovereignty, 


286          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

which  guarantees  to  each  State  and  Territory  the  right  to  do  as  it 
pleases  on  all  things,  local  and  domestic,  instead  of  Congress  inter 
fering,  we  will  continue  at  peace  one  with  another.  Why  should 
Illinois  be  at  war  with  Missouri,  or  Kentucky  with  Ohio,  or  Virginia 
with  New  York,  merely  because  their  institutions  differ?  Our 
fathers  intended  that  our  institutions  should  differ.  They  knew 
that  the  North  and  the  South,  having  different  climates,  productions, 
and  interests,  required  different  institutions.  This  doctrine  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  of  uniformity  among  the  institutions  of  the  different  States, 
is  a  new  doctrine,  never  dreamed  of  by  Washington,  Madison,  or 
the  framers  of  this  government.  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  Republican 
party  set  themselves  up  as  wiser  than  these  men  who  made  this  gov 
ernment,  which  has  flourished  for  seventy  years  under  the  principle 
of  popular  sovereignty,  recognizing  the  right  of  each  State  to  do  as 
it  pleased.  Under  that  principle,  we  have  grown  from  a  nation  of 
three  or  four  millions  to  a  nation  of  about  thirty  millions  of  people ; 
we  have  crossed  the  Allegheny  mountains  and  filled  up  the  whole 
Northwest,  turning  the  prairie  into  a  garden,  and  building  up  churches 
and  schools,  thus  spreading  civilization  and  Christianity  where  be 
fore  there  was  nothing  but  savage  barbarism.  Under  that  principle 
we  have  become,  from  a  feeble  nation,  the  most  powerful  on  the  face  of 
the  earth,  and  if  we  only  adhere  to  that  principle,  we  can  go  forward 
increasing  in  territory,  in  power,  in  strength,  and  in  glory  until  the 
Republic  of  America  shall  be  the  north  star  that  shall  guide  the 
friends  of  freedom  throughout  the  civilized  world.  And  why  can 
we  not  adhere  to  the  great  principle  of  self-government  upon  which 
our  institutions  were  originally  based  ?  I  believe  that  this  new  doc 
trine  preached  by  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  party  will  dissolve  the  Union 
if  it  succeeds.  They  are  trying  to  array  all  the  Northern  States  in 
one  body  against  the  South,  to  excite  a  sectional  war  between  the  free 
States  and  the  slave  States,  in  order  that  the  one  or  the  other  may 
be  driven  to  the  wall. 

I  am  told  that  my  time  is  out.  Mr.  Lincoln  will  now  address  you 
for  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  I  will  then  occupy  a  half  hour  in  reply 
ing  to  him. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Reply  in  the  Ottaiva  Joint  Debate. 

My  Fellow-citizens:  When  a  man  hears  himself  somewhat  mis 
represented,  it  provokes  him  —  at  least,  I  find  it  so  with  myself ; 
but  when  misrepresentation  becomes  very  gross  and  palpable,  it  is 
more  apt  to  amuse  him.  The  first  thing  I  see  fit  to  notice  is  the 
fact  that  Judge  Douglas  alleges,  after  running  through  the  history 
of  the  old  Democratic  and  the  old  Whig  parties,  that  Judge  Trum- 
bull  and  myself  made  an  arrangement  in  1854  by  which  I  was  to 
have  the  place  of  General  Shields  in  the  United  States  Senate,  and 
Judge  Trumbull  was  to  have  the  place  of  Judge  Douglas.  Now  all 
I  have  to  say  upon  that  subject  is  that  I  think  no  man  —  not  even 
Judge  Douglas  —  can  prove  it,  because  it  is  not  true.  I  have  no 
doubt  he  is  "  conscientious  "  in  saying  it.  As  to  those  resolutions 
that  he  took  such  a  length  of  time  to  read,  as  being  the  platform  of 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          287 

the  Republican  party  in  1854, 1  say  I  never  had  anything  to  do  with 
them,  and  I  think  Trumbull  never  had.  Judge  Douglas  cannot 
show  that  either  of  us  ever  did  have  anything  to  do  with  them.  I 
believe  this  is  true  about  those  resolutions.  There  was  a  call  for  a 
convention  to  form  a  Republican  party  at  Springfield,  and  I  think 
that  my  friend  Mr.  Love  joy,  who  is  here  upon  this  stand,  had  a 
hand  in  it.  I  think  this  is  true,  and  I  think  if  he  will  remember 
accurately  he  will  be  able  to  recollect  that  he  tried  to  get  me  into  it, 
and  I  would  not  go  in.  I  believe  it  is  also  true  that  I  went  away 
from  Springfield,  when  the  convention  was  in  session,  to  attend  court 
in  Tazewell  County.  It  is  true  they  did  place  my  name,  though 
without  authority,  upon  the  committee,  and  afterward  wrote  me  to 
attend  the  meeting  of  the  committee,  but  I  refused  to  do  so,  and  I 
never  had  anything  to  do  with  that  organization.  This  is  the  plain 
truth  about  all  that  matter  of  the  resolutions. 

Now,  about  this  story  that  Judge  Douglas  tells  of  Trumbull  bar 
gaining  to  sell  out  the  old  Democratic  party,  and  Lincoln  agreeing 
to  sell  out  the  Old  Whig  party,  I  have  the  means  of  knowing  about 
that ;  Judge  Douglas  cannot  have  j  and  I  know  there  is  no  substance 
to  it  whatever.  Yet  I  have  no  doubt  he  is  "  conscientious  "  about 
it.  I  know  that  after  Mr.  Lovejoy  got  into  the  legislature  that 
winter,  he  complained  of  me  that  I  had  told  all  the  Old  Whigs  of  his 
district  that  the  Old  Whig  party  was  good  enough  for  them,  and 
some  of  them  voted  against  him  because  I  told  them  so.  Now,  I 
have  no  means  of  totally  disproving  such  charges  as  this  which  the 
judge  makes.  A  man  cannot  prove  a  negative,  but  he  has  a  right  to 
claim  that  when  a  man  makes  an  affirmative  charge,  he  must  offer 
some  proof  to  show  the  truth  of  what  he  says.  I  certainly  cannot 
introduce  testimony  to  show  the  negative  about  things,  but  I  have  a 
right  to  claim  that  if  a  man  says  he  knows  a  thing,  then  he  must  show 
how  he  knows  it.  I  always  have  a  right  to  claim  this,  and  it  is  not 
satisfactory  to  me  that  he  may  be  "conscientious"  on  the  subject. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  hate  to  waste  my  time  on  such  things,  but  in 
regard  to  that  general  Abolition  tilt  that  Judge  Douglas  makes, 
when  he  says  that  I  was  engaged  at  that  time  in  selling  out  and 
Abolitionizing  the  Old  Whig  party,  I  hope  you  will  permit  me  to 
read  a  part  of  a  printed  speech  that  I  made  then  at  Peoria,  which 
will  show  altogether  a  different  view  of  the  position  I  took  in  that 
contest  of  1854.  [Voice:  "Put  on  your  specs."]  Yes,  sir,  I  am 
obliged  to  do  so.  I  am  no  longer  a  young  man. 

This  is  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  The  foregoing  history 
may  not  be  precisely  accurate  in  every  particular;  but  I  am  sure  it  is 
sufficiently  so  for  all  the  uses  I  shall  attempt  to  make  of  it,  and  in  it  we 
have  before  us  the  chief  materials  enabling  us  to  correctly  judge  whether 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  is  right  or  wrong. 

I  think,  and  shall  try  to  show,  that  it  is  wrong ;  wrong  in  its  direct  effect, 
letting  slavery  into  Kansas  and  Nebraska  —  and  wrong  in  its  prospective 
principle,  allowing  it  to  spread  to  every  other  part  of  the  wide  world  where 
men  can  be  found  inclined  to  take  it. 

This  declared  indifference,  but,  as  I  must  think,  covert  real  zeal  for  the 
spread  of  slavery,  I  cannot  but  hate.  I  hate  it  because  of  the  monstrous 


288          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

injustice  of  slavery  itself.  I  hate  it  because  it  deprives  our  republican 
example  of  its  just  influence  in  the  world ;  enables  the  enemies  of  free  in 
stitutions,  with  plausibility,  to  taunt  us  as  hypocrites;  causes  the  real 
friends  of  freedom  to  doubt  our  sincerity,  and  especially  because  it  forces 
so  many  really  good  men  amongst  ourselves  into  an  open  war  with  the 
very  fundamental  principles  of  civil  liberty  —  criticizing  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  and  insisting  that  there  is  no  right  principle  of  action 
but  self -interest. 

Before  proceeding,  let  me  say  I  think  I  have  no  prejudice  against  the 
'  Southern  people.  They  are  just  what  we  would  be  in  their  situation.  If 
rslavery  did  not  now  exist  among  them,  they  would  not  introduce  it.  If  it 
'did  now  exist  among  us,  we  should  not  instantly  give  it  up.  This  I  believe 
of  the  masses  North  and  South.  Doubtless  there  are  individuals  on  both 
sides  who  would  not  hold  slaves  under  any  circumstances ;  and  others  who 
would  gladly  introduce  slavery  anew,  if  it  were  out  of  existence.  We  know 
that  some  Southern  men  do  free  their  slaves,  go  North,  and  become  tip-top 
Abolitionists  ;  while  some  Northern  ones  go  South,  and  become  most  cruel 
slave-masters. 

When  Southern  people  tell  us  they  are  no  more  responsible  for  the  origin 
of  slavery  than  we,  I  acknowledge  the  fact.  When  it  is  said  that  the  insti 
tution  exists,  and  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  get  rid  of  it  in  any  satisfactory 
way,  I  can  understand  and  appreciate  the  saying.  I  surely  will  not  blame 
them  for  not  doing  what  I  should  not  know  how  to  do  myself.  If  all 
earthly  power  were  given  me,  I  should  not  know  what  to  do  as  to  the 
existing  institution.  My  first  impulse  would  be  to  free  all  the  slaves,  and 
send  them  to  Liberia  —  to  their  own  native  land.  But  a  moment's  reflection 
would  convince  me  that  whatever  of  high  hope  (as  I  think  there  is)  there 
may  be  in  this  in  the  long  run,  its  sudden  execution  is  impossible.  If  they 
were  all  landed  there  in  a  day,  they  would  all  perish  in  the  next  ten  days ; 
and  there  are  not  surplus  shipping  and  surplus  money  enough  in  the  world 
to  carry  them  there  in  many  times  ten  days.  What  then  ?  Free  them  all, 
and  keep  them  among  us  as  underlings  ?  Is  it  quite  certain  that  this  betters 
their  condition  f  I  think  I  would  not  hold  one  in  slavery  at  any  rate  ;  yet 
the  point  is  not  clear  enough  to  me  to  denounce  people  upon.  What  next  ? 
Free  them,  and  make  them  politically  and  socially  our  equals  ?  My  own 
feelings  will  not  admit  of  this  j  and  if  mine  would,  we  well  know  that  those 
of  the  great  mass  of  white  people  will  not.  Whether  this  feeling  accords 
with  justice  and  sound  judgment  is  not  the  sole  question,  if,  indeed,  it  is  any 
part  of  it.  A  universal  feeling,  whether  well  or  ill-founded,  cannot  be  safely 
disregarded.  We  cannot  make  them  equals.  It  does  seem  to  me  that 
systems  of  gradual  emancipation  might  be  adopted  ;  but  for  their  tardiness 
in  this,  I  will  not  undertake  to  judge  our  brethren  of  the  South. 

When  they  remind  us  of  their  constitutional  rights,  I  acknowledge  them, 
not  grudgingly,  but  fully  and  fairly  j  and  I  would  give  them  any  legislation 
for  the  reclaiming  of  their  fugitives,  which  should  not,  in  its  stringency,  be 
more  likely  to  carry  a  free  man  into  slavery,  than  our  ordinary  criminal 
laws  are  to  hang  an  innocent  one. 

But  all  this,  to  my  judgment,  furnishes  no  more  excuse  for  permitting 
slavery  to  go  into  our  own  free  territory,  than  it  would  for  reviving  the 
African  slave-trade  by  law.  The  law  which  forbids  the  bringing  of  slaves 
from  Africa,  and  that  which  has  so  long  forbidden  the  taking  of  them  to  Ne 
braska,  can  hardly  be  distinguished  on  any  moral  principle ;  and  the  repeal 
of  the  former  could  find  quite  as  plausible  excuses  as  that  of  the  latter. 

I  have  reason  to  know  that  Judge  Douglas  knows  that  I  said  this. 
I  think  he  has  the  answer  here  to  one  of  the  questions  he  put  to  me. 
I  do  not  mean  to  allow  him  to  catechize  me  unless  he  pays  back  for 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          289 

it  in  kind.  I  will  not  answer  questions  one  after  another,  unless  lie 
reciprocates ;  but  as  he  has  made  this  inquiry,  and  I  have  answered 
it  before,  he  has  got  it  without  my  getting  anything  in  return.  He 
has  got  my  answer  on  the  fugitive-slave  law. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  don't  want  to  read  at  any  great  length,  but  this 
is  the  true  complexion  of  all  I  have  ever  said  in  regard  to  the  insti 
tution  of  slavery  and  the  black  race.  This  is  the  whole  of  it,  and 
anything  that  argues  me  into  his  idea  of  perfect  social  and  political 
equality  with  the  negro  is  but  a  specious  and  fantastic  arrangement 
of  words,  by  which  a  man  can  prove  a  horse-chestnut  to  be  a  chest 
nut  horse.  I  will  say  here,  while  upon  this  subject,  that  I  have  no 
purpose,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  to  interfere  with  the  institution 
of  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists.  I  believe  I  have  no  lawful 
right  to  do  so,  and  I  have  no  inclination  to  do  so.  I  have  no  pur 
pose  to  introduce  political  and  social  equality  between  the  white  and 
the  black  races.  There  is  a  physical  difference  between  the  two, 
which,  in  my  judgment,  will  probably  forever  forbid  their  liv 
ing  together  upon  the  footing  of  perfect  equalityj/and  inasmuch 
as  it  becomes  a  necessity  that  there  must  be  a  difference,  I,  as  well 
as  Judge  Douglas,  am  in  favor  of  the  race  to  which  I  belong  having 
the  superior  position.  I  have  never  said  anything  to  the  contrary, 
>ut  I  hold  that,  notwithstanding  all  this,  there  is  no  reason  in  the 
world  why  the  negro  is  not  entitled  to  all  the  natural  rights  enumer 
ated  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence — the  right  to  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  I  hold  that  he  is  as  much  entitled  to 
these  as  the  white  man.}  I  agree  with  Judge  Douglas  he  is  not 
my  equal  in  many  respects — certainly^not  in  color,  perhaps  not  in 
moral  or  intellectual  endowment.  Butln  the  right  to  eat  the  bread, 
without  the  leave  of  anybody  else,  winch  his  own  hand  earns,  he 
is  my  equal  and  the  equal  of  Judge  Douglas,  and  the  equal  of  every 
living  man. 

Now  I  pass  on  to  consider  one  or  two  more  of  these  little  follies. 
The  judge  is  woefully  at  fault  about  his  early  friend  Lincoln  being 
a  "  grocery-keeper."  I  don't  know  that  it  would  be  a  great  sin  if 
I  had  been;  but  he  is  mistaken.  Lincoln  never  kept  a  grocery 
anywhere  in  the  world.  It  is  true  that  Lincoln  did  work  the  latter 
part  of  one  winter  in  a  little  still-house  up  at  the  head  of  a 
hollow.  And  so  I  think  my  friend,  the  judge,  is  equally  at  fault 
when  he  charges  me  at  the  time  when  I  was  in  Congress  of  having 
opposed  our  soldiers  who  were  fighting  in  the  Mexican  War.  The 
judge  did  not  make  his  charge  very  distinctly,  but  I  tell  you  what 
he  can  prove,  by  referring  to  the  record.  You  remember  I  was  an 
Old  Whig,  and  whenever  the  Democratic  party  tried  to  get  me  to  vote 
that  the  war  had  been  righteously  begun  by  the  President,  I  would 
not  do  it.  But  whenever  they  asked  for  any  money,  or  land-war 
rants,  or  anything  to  pay  the  soldiers  there,  during  all  that  time,  I 
gave  the  same  vote  that  Judge  Douglas  did.  You  can  think  as  you 
please  as  to  whether  that  was  consistent.  Such  is  the  truth ;  and 
the  judge  has  the  right  to  make  all  he  can  out  of  it.  But  when  he, 
by  a  general  charge,  conveys  the  idea  that  I  withheld  supplies  from 
the  soldiers  who  were  fighting  in  the  Mexican  War,  or  did  anything 
VOL.  I.— 19. 


290          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

else  to  hinder  the  soldiers,  he  is,  to  say  the  least,  grossly  and  alto 
gether  mistaken,  as  a  consultation  of  the  records  will  prove  to  him. 

As  I  have  not  used  up  so  much  of  my  time  as  I  had  supposed,  I 
will  dwell  a  little  longer  upon  one  or  two  of  these  minor  topics  upon 
which  the  judge  has  spoken.  He  has  read  from  my  speech  in 
Springfield  in  which  I  say  that  "  a  house  divided  against  itself  can 
not  stand."  Does  the  judge  say  it  can  stand  ?  I  don't  know  whether 
he  does  or  not.  The  judge  does  not  seem  to  be  attending  to  me  just 
now,  but  I  would  like  to  know  if  it  is  his  opinion  that  a  house 
divided  against  itself  can  stand.  If  he  does,  then  there  is  a  question 
of  veracity,  not  between  him  and  me,  but  between  the  judge  and 
an  authority  of  a  somewhat  higher  character. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  ask  your  attention  to  this  matter  for  the  pur 
pose  of  saying  something  seriously.  I  know  that  the  judge  may 
readily  enough  agree  with  me  that  the  maxim  which  was  put  forth 
by  the  Saviour  is  true,  but  he  may  allege  that  I  misapply  it ;  and  the 
judge  has  a  right  to  urge  that  in  my  application  I  do  misapply  it, 
and  then  I  have  a  right  to  show  that  I  do  not  misapply  it.  When 
he  undertakes  to  say  that  because  I  think  this  nation,  so  far  as  the 
question  of  slavery  is  concerned,  will  all  become  one  thing  or  all 
the  other,  I  am  in  favor  of  bringing  about  a  dead  uniformity  in  the 
various  States  in  all  their  institutions,  he  argues  erroneously.  The 
great  variety  of  the  local  institutions  in  the  States,  springing  from 
differences  in  the  soil,  differences  in  the  face  of  the  country,  and  in 
the  climate,  are  bonds  of  union.  They  do  not  make  "  a  house  di 
vided  against  itself/7  but  they  make  a  house  united.  If  they  pro 
duce  in  one  section  of  the  country  what  is  called  for  by  the  wants 
of  another  section,  and  this  other  section  can  supply  the  wants  of 
the  first,  they  are  not  matters  of  discord  but  bonds  of  union,  true 
bonds  of  union.  But  can  this  question  of  slavery  be  considered  as 
among  these  varieties  in  the  institutions  of  the  country  ?  I  leave  it 
to  you  to  say  whether,  in  the  history  of  our  government,  this  insti 
tution  of  slavery  has  not  always  failed  to  be  a  bond  of  union,  and, 
on  the  contrary,  been  an  apple  of  discord  and  an  element  of  divi 
sion  in  the  house.  I  ask  you  to  consider  whether,  so  long  as  the 
moral  constitution  of  men's  minds  shall  continue  to  be  the  same, 
after  this  generation  and  assemblage  shall  sink  into  the  grave,  and 
another  race  shall  arise  with  the  same  moral  and  intellectual  devel 
opment  we  have — whether,  if  that  institution  is  standing  in  the 
same  irritating  position  in  which  it  now  is,  it  will  not  continue  an 
element  of  division  ? 

If  so,  then  I  have  a  right  to  say  that,  in  regard  to  this  question,  the 
Union  is  a  house  divided  against  itself ;  and  when  the  judge  reminds 
me  that  I  have  often  said  to  him  that  the  institution  of  slavery  has 
existed  for  eighty  years  in  some  States,  and  yet  it  does  not  exist  in 
some  others,  I  agree  to  the  fact,  and  I  account  for  it  by  looking  at  the 
position  in  which  our  fathers  originally  placed  it  — restricting  it  from 
the  new  Territories  where  it  had  not  gone,  and  legislating  to  cut  off 
its  source  by  the  abrogation  of  the  slave-trade,  thus  putting  the  seal 
of  legislation  against  its  spread.  The  public  mind  did  rest  in  the 
belief  that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  But  lately,  I 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          291 

think — and  in  this  I  charge  nothing  on  the  judge's  motives — lately, 
I  think,  that  he,  and  those  acting  with  him,  have  placed  that  institu 
tion  on  a  new  basis,  which  looks  to  the  perpetuity  and  nationalization 
of  slavery.  And  while  it  is  placed  upon  this  new  basis,  I  say,  and  I 
have  said,  that  I  believe  we  shall  not  have  peace  upon  the  question 
until  the  opponents  of  slavery  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and 
place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the 
course  of  ultimate  extinction;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  that  its  advo 
cates  will  push  it  forward  until  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the 
States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South.  Now  I  believe  if 
we  could  arrest  the  spread,  and  place  it  where  Washington  and 
Jefferson  and  Madison  placed  it,  it  would  be  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction,  and  the  public  mind  would,  as  for  eighty  years  past,  be 
lieve  that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  The  crisis 
would  be  past,  and  the  institution  might  be  let  alone  for  a  hundred 
years — if  it  should  live  so  long  —  in  the  States  where  it  exists,  yet  it 
would  be  going  out  of  existence  in  the  way  best  for  both  the  black 
and  the  white  races.  [A  voice:  "Then  do  you  repudiate  popular 
sovereignty?"]  Well,  then,  let  us  talk  about  popular  sovereignty! 
What  is  popular  sovereignty  ?  Is  it  the  right  of  the  people  to  have 
slavery  or  not  have  it,  as  they  see  fit,  in  the  Territories?  I  will 
state — and  I  have  an  able  man  to  watch  me — my  understanding  is 
that  popular  sovereignty,  as  now  applied  to  the  question  of  slavery, 
does  allow  the  people  of  a  Territory  to  have  slavery  if  they  want  to, 
but  does  not  allow  them  not  to  have  it  if  they  do  not  want  it.  I  do 
not  mean  that  if  this  vast  concourse  of  people  were  in  a  Territory  of 
the  United  States,  any  one  of  them  would  be  obliged  to  have  a  slave 
if  he  did  not  want  one ;  but  I  do  say  that,  as  I  understand  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  if  any  one  man  wants  slaves,  all  the  rest  have  no  way 
of  keeping  that  one  man  from  holding  them. 

When  I  made  my  speech  at  Springfield,  of  which  the  judge  com 
plains,  and  from  which  he  quotes,  I  really  was  not  thinking  of  the 
things  which  he  ascribes  to  me  at  all.  I  had  no  thought  in  the  world 
that  I  was  doing  anything  to  bring  about  a  war  between  the  free 
and  slave  States.  I  had  no  thought  in  the  world  that  I  was  doing 
anything  to  bring  a.bout  a  political  and  social  equality  of  the  black 
and  white  races.  It  never  occurred  to  me  that  I  was  doing  anything 
or  favoring  anything  to  reduce  to  a  dead  uniformity  all  the  local 
institutions  of  the  various  States.  But  I  must  say,  in  all  fairness 
to  him,  if  he  thinks  I  am  doing  something  which  leads  to  these  bad 
results,  it  is  none  the  better  that  I  did  not  mean  it.  It  is  just  as 
fatal  to  the  country,  if  I  have  any  influence  in  producing  it,  whether 
I  intend  it  or  not.  But  can  it  be  true,  that  placing  this  institution 
upon  the  original  basis — the  basis  upon  which  our  fathers  placed 
it  —  can  have  any  tendency  to  set  the  Northern  and  the  Southern 
States  at  war  with  one  another,  or  that  it  can  have  any  tendency  to 
make  the  people  of  Vermont  raise  sugar-cane  because  they  raise  it 
in  Louisiana,  or  that  it  can  compel  the  people  of  Illinois  to  cut  pine 
logs  on  the  Grand  Prairie,  where  they  will  not  grow,  because  they 
cut  pine  logs  in  Maine,  where  they  do  grow?  The  judge  says  this 
is  a  new  principle  started  in  regard  to  this  question.  Does  the  judge 


292          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

claim  that  he  is  working  on  the  plan  of  the  founders  of  the  gov 
ernment  ?  I  think  he  says  in  some  of  his  speeches — indeed,  I  have 
one  here  now — that  he  saw  evidence  of  a  policy  to  allow  slavery  to 
be  south  of  a  certain  line,  while  north  of  it  it  should  be  excluded,  and 
he  saw  an  indisposition  on  the  part  of  the  country  to  stand  upon  that 
policy,  and  therefore  he  set  about  studying  the  subject  upon  original 
principles,  and  upon  original  principles  he  got  up  the  Nebraska 
bill !  I  am  fighting  it  upon  these  "  original  principles  "  —  fighting  it 
in  the  Jeifersoniau,  Washingtonian,  and  Madisonian  fashion. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  wish  you  to  attend  for  a  little  while  to  one  or 
two  other  things  in  that  Springfield  speech.  My  main  object  was 
to  show,  so  far  as  my  humble  ability  was  capable  of  showing  to  the 
people  of  this  country,  what  I  believed  was  the  truth — that  there 
was  a  tendency,  if  not  a  conspiracy,  among  those  who  have  engi 
neered  this  slavery  question  for  the  last  four  or  five  years,  to  make 
slavery  perpetual  and  universal  in  this  nation.  Having  made  that 
speech  principally  for  that  object,  after  arranging  the  evidences 
that  I  thought  tended  to  prove  my  proposition,  I  concluded  with 
this  bit  of  comment : 

We  cannot  absolutely  know  that  these  exact  adaptations  are  the  result 
of  pre-concert,  but  when  we  see  a  lot  of  framed  timbers,  different  portions 
of  which  we  know  have  been  gotten  out  at  different  times  and  places,  and 
by  different  workmen  —  Stephen,  Franklin,  Roger,  and  James,  for  instance  j 
and  when  we  see  these  timbers  joined  together,  and  see  they  exactly 
make  the  frame  of  a  house  or  a  mill,  all  the  tenons  and  mortices  exactly  fit 
ting,  and  all  the  lengths  and  proportions  of  the  different  pieces  exactly 
adapted  to  their  respective  places,  and  not  a  piece  too  many  or  too  few, — 
not  omitting  even  the  scaffolding, —  or  if  a  single  piece  be  lacking,  we  see 
the  place  in  the  frame  exactly  fitted  and  prepared  to  yet  bring  such  piece 
in  —  in  such  a  case  we  feel  it  impossible  not  to  believe  that  Stephen  and 
Franklin,  and  Roger  and  James,  all  understood  one  another  from  the  be- 

f  inning,  and  all  worked  upon  a  common  plan  or  draft  drawn  before  the 
rst  blow  was  struck. 

When  my  friend,  Judge  Douglas,  came  to  Chicago  on  the  9th  of 
July,  this  speech  having  been  delivered  on  the  16th  of  June,  he 
made  an  harangue  there  in  which  he  took  hold  of  this  speech  of 
mine,  showing  that  he  had  carefully  read  it  j  and  while  he  paid  no 
attention  to  this  matter  at  all,  but  complimented  me  as  being  a 
"  kind,  amiable,  and  intelligent  gentleman,"  notwithstanding  I  had 
said  this,  he  goes  on  and  deduces,  or  draws  out,  from  my  speech 
this  tendency  of  mine  to  set  the  States  at  war  with  one  another,  to 
make  all  the  institutions  uniform,  and  set  the  niggers  and  white 
people  to  marry  together.  Then,  as  the  judge  had  complimented 
me  with  these  pleasant  titles  (I  must  confess  to  my  weakness),  I 
was  a  little  "  taken,'7  for  it  came  from  a  great  man.  I  was  not  very 
much  accustomed  to  flattery,  and  it  came  the  sweeter  to  me.  I  was 
rather  like  the  Hoosier  with  the  gingerbread,  when  he  said  he  reck 
oned  he  loved  it  better  than  any  other  man,  and  got  less  of  it.  As 
the  judge  had  so  flattered  me,  I  could  not  make  up  my  mind  that 
he  meant  to  deal  unfairly  with  me  j  so  I  went  to  work  to  show  him 
that  he  misunderstood  the  whole  scope  of  my  speech,  and  that  I 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          293 

really  never  intended  to  set  the  people  at  war  with  one  another.  As 
an  illustration,  the  next  time  I  met  him,  which  was  at  Springfield,  I 
used  this  expression,  that  I  claimed  no  right  under  the  Constitution, 
nor  had  I  any  inclination,  to  enter  into  the  slave  States  and  inter 
fere  with  the  institutions  of  slavery.  He  says  upon  that :  Lin 
coln  will  not  enter  into  the  slave  States,  but  will  go  to  the  banks  of 
the  Ohio,  on  this  side,  and  shoot  over  !  He  runs  on,  step  by  step,  in 
the  horse-chestnut  style  of  argument,  until  in  the  Springfield  speech 
he  says,  "  Unless  he  shall  be  successful  in  firing  his  batteries,  until 
he  shall  have  extinguished  slavery  in  all  the  States,  the  Union  shall 
be  dissolved.'7  Now  I  don't  think  that  was  exactly  the  way  to  treat 
"  a  kind,  amiable,  intelligent  gentleman."  I  know  if  I  had  asked 
the  judge  to  show  when  or  where  it  was  I  had  said,  that  if  1  did  n't 
succeed  in  firing  into  the  slave  States  until  slavery  should  be  extin 
guished,  the  Union  should  be  dissolved,  he  could  not  have  shown  it. 
I  understand  what  he  would  do.  He  would  say,  "I  don't  mean  to 
quote  from  you,  but  this  was  the  result  of  what  you  say."  But  I 
have  the  right  to  ask,  and  I  do  ask  now,  did  you  not  put  it  in  such 
a  form  that  an  ordinary  reader  or  listener  would  take  it  as  an  ex 
pression  from  me  ? 

In  a  speech  at  Springfield  on  the  night  of  the  17th,  I  thought  I 
might  as  well  attend  to  my  business  a  little,  and  I  recalled  his  atten 
tion  as  well  as  I  could  to  this  charge  of  conspiracy  to  nationalize 
slavery.  I  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  had  acknowledged  in 
my  hearing  twice  that  he  had  carefully  read  the  speech ;  and,  in  the 
language  of  the  lawyers,  as  he  had  twice  read  the  speech,  and  still  had 

Eut  in  no  plea  or  answer,  I  took  a  default  on  him.  I  insisted  that  I 
ad  a  right  then  to  renew  that  charge  of  conspiracy.  Ten  days  after 
ward  I  met  the  judge  at  Clinton  —  that  is  to  say,  I  was  on  the  ground, 
but  not  in  the  discussion  —  and  heard  him  make  a  speech.  Then  he 
comes  in  with  his  plea  to  this  charge,  for  the  first  time,  and  his  plea 
when  put  in,  as  well  as  I  can  recollect  it,  amounted  to  this :  that  he 
never  had  any  talk  with  Judge  Taney  or  the  President  of  the  United 
States  with  regard  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision  before  it  was  made. 
I  (Lincoln)  ought  to  know  that  the  man  who  makes  a  charge  without 
knowing  it  to  be  true,  falsifies  as  much  as  he  who  knowingly  tells  a 
falsehood;  and  lastly,  that  he  would  pronounce  the  whole  thing  a 
falsehood ;  but  he  would  make  no  personal  application  of  the  charge 
of  falsehood,  not  because  of  any  regard  for  the  "  kind,  amiable,  intel 
ligent  gentleman,"  but  because  of  his  own  personal  self-respect !  I 
have  understood  since  then  (but  [turning  to  Judge  Douglas]  will  not 
hold  the  judge  to  it  if  he  is  not  willing)  that  he  has  broken  through 
the  "  self-respect,"  and  has  got  to  saying  the  thing  out.  The  judge 
nods  to  me  that  it  is  so.  It  is  fortunate  for  me  that  I  can  keep  as 
good-humored  as  I  do,  when  the  judge  acknowledges  that  he  has 
been  trying  to  make  a  question  of  veracity  with  me.  I  know  the 
judge  is  a  great  man,  while  I  am  only  a  small  man,  but  I  feel  that  I 
have  got  him.  I  demur  to  that  plea.  I  waive  all  objections  that  it 
was  not  filed  till  after  default  was  taken,  and  demur  to  it  upon  the 
merits.  What  if  Judge  Douglas  never  did  talk  with  Chief  Justice 
Taney  and  the  President  before  the  Dred  Scott  decision  was  made ; 


294          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

does  it  follow  that  he  could  not  have  had  as  perfect  an  understand 
ing  without  talking  as  with  it?  I  am  not  disposed  to  stand  upon 
my  legal  advantage.  I  am  disposed  to  take  his  denial  as  being  like 
an  answer  in  chancery,  that  he  neither  had  any  knowledge,  informa 
tion,  nor  belief  in  the  existence  of  such  a  conspiracy.  I  am  disposed 
to  take  his  answer  as  being  as  broad  as  though  he  had  put  it  in 
these  words.  And  now,  I  ask,  even  if  he  had  done  so,  have  not  I 
a  right  to  prove  it  on  him,  and  to  offer  the  evidence  of  more  than 
two  witnesses,  by  whom  to  prove  it;  and  if  the  evidence  proves 
the  existence  of  the  conspiracy,  does  his  broad  answer,  denying 
all  knowledge,  information,  or  belief,  disturb  the  fact?  It  can 
only  show  that  he  was  used  by  conspirators,  and  was  not  a  leader 
of  them. 

Now,  in  regard  to  his  reminding  me  of  the  moral  rule  that  per 
sons  who  tell  what  they  do  not  know  to  be  true,  falsify  as  much  as 
those  who  knowingly  tell  falsehoods.  I  remember  the  rule,  and  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  what  I  have  read  to  you,  I  do  not  say 
that  I  know  such  a  conspiracy  to  exist.  To  that  I  reply,  I  believe  it. 
If  the  judge  says  that  I  do  not  believe  it,  then  he  says  what  he  does 
not  know,  and  falls  within  his  own  rule  that  he  who  asserts  a  thing 
which  he  does  not  know  to  be  true,  falsifies  as  much  as  he  who 
knowingly  tells  a  falsehood.  I  want  to  call  your  attention  to  a  little 
discussion  on  that  branch  of  the  case,  and  the  evidence  which  brought 
my  mind  to  the  conclusion  which  I  expressed  as  my  belief.  If,  in 
arraying  that  evidence,  I  had  stated  anything  which  was  false  or  er 
roneous,  it  needed  but  that  Judge  Douglas  should  point  it  out,  and 
I  would  have  taken  it  back  with  all  the  kindness  in  the  world.  I  do 
not  deal  in  that  way.  If  I  have  brought  forward  anything  not  a  fact, 
if  he  will  point  it  out,  it  will  not  even  ruffle  me  to  take  it  back.  But 
if  he  will  not  point  out  anything  erroneous  in  the  evidence,  is  it  not 
rather  for  him  to  show  by  a  comparison  of  the  evidence  that  I  have 
reasoned  falsely,  than  to  call  the  "  kind,  amiable,  intelligent  gentle 
man  "  a  liar  ?  If  I  have  reasoned  to  a  false  conclusion,  it  is  the  vo 
cation  of  an  able  debater  to  show  by  argument  that  I  have  wan 
dered  to  an  erroneous  conclusion.  I  want  to  ask  your  attention  to 
a  portion  of  the  Nebraska  bill  which  Judge  Douglas  has  quoted : 
"  It  being  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  this  act,  not  to  legislate 
slavery  into  any  Territory  or  State,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to 
leave  the  people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  do 
mestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States."  Thereupon  Judge  Douglas  and  others  began 
to  argue  in  favor  of  "popular  sovereignty" — the  right  of  the  people 
to  have  slaves  if  they  wanted  them,  and  to  exclude  slavery  if  they 
did  not  want  them.  "  But,"  said,  in  substance,  a  senator  from  Ohio 
(Mr.  Chase,  I  believe),  u  we  more  than  suspect  that  you  do  not  mean 
to  allow  the  people  to  exclude  slavery  if  they  wish  to ;  and  if  you  do 
mean  it,  accept  an  amendment  which  I  propose  expressly  authorizing 
the  people  to  exclude  slavery."  I  believe  I  have  the  amendment 
here  before  me,  which  was  offered,  and  under  which  the  people  of 
the  Territory,  through  their  proper  representatives,  might,  if  they 
saw  fit,  prohibit  the  existence  of  slavery  therein.  And  now  I  state 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          295 

it  as  a  fact,  to  be  taken  back  if  there  is  any  mistake  about  it,  that 
Judge  Douglas  and  those  acting  with  him"  voted  that  amendment 
down.  I  now  think  that  those  men  who  voted  it  down  had  a  real 
reason  for  doing  so.  They  know  what  that  reason  was.  It  looks  to 
us,  since  we  have  seen  the  Dred  Scott  decision  pronounced,  holding 
that,  "  under  the  Constitution,"  the  people  cannot  exclude  slavery — 
I  say  it  looks  to  outsiders,  poor,  simple,  "  amiable,  intelligent  gen 
tlemen/'  as  though  the  niche  was  left  as  a  place  to  put  that  Dred 
Scott  decision  in,  a  niche  which  would  have  been  spoiled  by  adopting 
the  amendment.  And  now  I  say  again,  if  this  was  not  the  reason, 
it  will  avail  the  judge  much  more  to  calmly  and  good-humoredly 
point  out  to  these  people  what  that  other  reason  was  for  voting  the 
amendment  down,  than  swelling  himself  up  to  vociferate  that  he 
may  be  provoked  to  call  somebody  a  liar. 

Again :  there  is  in  that  same  quotation  from  the  Nebraska  bill 
this  clause :  "  It  being  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  this  bill  not 
to  legislate  slavery  into  any  Territory  or  State."  I  have  always 
been  puzzled  to  know  what  business  the  word  "  State"  had  in  that 
connection.  Judge  Douglas  knows.  He  put  it  there.  He  knows 
what  he  put  it  there  for.  We  outsiders  cannot  say  what  he  put  it 
there  for.  The  law  they  were  passing  was  not  about  States,  and 
was  not  making  provision  for  States.  What  was  it  placed  there 
for?  After  seeing  the  Dred  Scott  decision  which  holds  that  the 
people  cannot  exclude  slavery  from  a  Territory,  if  another  Dred 
Scott  decision  shall  come,  holding  that  they  cannot  exclude  it  from 
a  State,  we  shall  discover  that  when  the  word  was  originally  put 
there,  it  was  in  view  of  something  which  was  to  come  in  due  time, 
we  shall  see  that  it  was  the  other  half  of  something.  I  now  say 
again,  if  there  is  any  different  reason  for  putting  it  there,  Judge 
Douglas,  in  a  good-humored  way,  without  calling  anybody  a  liar, 
can  tell  what  the  reason  was. 

When  the  judge  spoke  at  Clinton,  he  came  very  near  making  a 
charge  of  falsehood  against  me.  He  used,  as  I  found  it  printed  in 
a  newspaper,  which,  I  remember  was  very  nearly  like  the  real  speech, 
the  following  language : 

I  did  not  answer  the  charge  [of  conspiracy]  before  for  the  reason  that  I 
did  not  suppose  there  was  a  man  in  America  with  a  heart  so  corrupt  as  to 
believe  such  a  charge  could  be  true.  I  have  too  much  respect  for  Mr. 
Lincoln  to  suppose  he  is  serious  in  making  the  charge. 

I  confess  this  is  rather  a  curious  view,  that  out  of  respect  for  me 
he  should  consider  I  was  making  what  I  deemed  rather  a  grave  charge 
in  fun.  I  confess  it  strikes  me  rather  strangely.  But  I  let  it  pass. 
As  the  judge  did  not  for  a  moment  believe  that  there  was  a  man  in 
America  whose  heart  was  so  "  corrupt "  as  to  make  such  a  charge, 
and  as  he  places  me  among  the  "  men  in  America  "  who  have  hearts 
base  enough  to  make  such  a  charge,  I  hope  he  will  excuse  me  if  I 
hunt  out  another  charge  very  like  this ;  and  if  it  should  turn  out 
that  in  hunting  I  should  find  that  other,  and  it  should  turn  out 
to  be  Judge  Douglas  himself  who  made  it,  I  hope  he  will  reconsider 
this  question  of  the  deep  corruption  of  heart  he  has  thought  fit  to 


296          ADDRESSES   AND  LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

ascribe  to  me.     In  Judge  Douglas's  speech  of  March  22, 1858,  which 
I  hold  in  my  hand,  he  says : 

In  this  connection  there  is  another  topic  to  which  I  desire  to  allude.  I 
seldom  refer  to  the  course  of  newspapers,  or  notice  the  articles  which  they 
publish  in  regard  to  myself ;  but  the  course  of  the  Washington  "  Union" 
has  been  so  extraordinary,  for  the  last  two  or  three  months,  that  I  think  it 
well  enough  to  make  some  allusion  to  it.  It  has  read  me  out  of  the  Dem 
ocratic  party  every  other  day,  at  least  for  two  or  three  months,  and  keeps 
reading  me  out,  and,  as  if  it  had  not  succeeded,  still  continues  to  read  me 
out,  using  such  terms  as  "  traitor,"  "  renegade,"  "  deserter,"  and  other  kind 
and  polite  epithets  of  that  nature.  Sir,  I  have  no  vindication  to  make  of 
my  Democracy  against  the  Washington  "  Union,"  or  any  other  newspaper, 
I  am  willing  to  allow  my  history  and  actions  for  the  last  twenty  years  to 
speak  for  themselves  as  to  my  political  principles,  and  my  fidelity  to  political 
obligations.  The  Washington  "  Union  "  has  a  personal  grievance.  When 
the  editor  was  nominated  for  public  printer  I  declined  to  vote  for  him,  and 
stated  that  at  some  time  I  might  give  my  reasons  for  doing  so.  Since  I 
declined  to  give  that  vote,  this  scurrilous  abuse,  these  vindictive  and  con 
stant  attacks,  have  been  repeated  almost  daily  on  me.  Will  my  friend  from 
Michigan  read  the  article  to  which  I  allude  ? 

This  is  a  part  of  the  speech.  You  must  excuse  me  from  reading 
the  entire  article  of  the  Washington  "  Union,"  as  Mr.  Stuart  read  it 
for  Mr.  Douglas.  The  judge  goes  on  and  sums  up,  as  I  think, 
correctly : 

Mr.  President,  you  here  find  several  distinct  propositions  advanced  boldly 
by  the  Washington  "  Union  "  editorially,  and  apparently  authoritatively,  and 
any  man  who  questions  any  of  them  is  denounced  as  an  Abolitionist,  a  Free- 
soiler,  a  fanatic.  TEe  propositions  are,  first,  that  the  primary  object  of  all 
government  at  its  original  institution  is  the  protection  of  person  and  prop 
erty  j  second,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  declares  that  the 
citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and  immunities 
of  citizens  in  the  several  States  ;  and  that,  therefore,  thirdly,  all  State  laws, 
whether  organic  or  otherwise,  which  prohibit  the  citizens  of  one  State  from 
settling  in  another  with  their  slave  property,  and  especially  declaring  it 
forfeited,  are  direct  violations  of  the  original  intention  of  the  government 
and  Constitution  of  the  United  States  j  and,  fourth,  that  the  emancipation  of 
the  slaves  of  the  Northern  States  was  a  gross  outrage  on  the  rights  of  prop 
erty,  inasmuch  as  it  was  involuntarily  done  on  the  part  of  the  owner. 

Remember  that  this  article  was  published  in  the  "  Union  "  on  the  17th  of 
November,  and  on  the  18th  appeared  the  first  article  giving  the  adhesion 
of  the  "  Union  "  to  the  Lecompton  constitution.  It  was  in  these  words : 

"  KANSAS  AND  HER  CONSTITUTION.  The  vexed  question  is  settled.  The 
problem  is  solved.  The  dead  point  of  danger  is  passed.  All  serious  trouble 
to  Kansas  affairs  is  over  and  gone." 

And  a  column  nearly  of  the  same  sort.  Then,  when  you  come  to  look  into 
the  Lecompton  constitution,  you  find  the  same  doctrine  incorporated  in  it 
which  was  put  forth  editorially  in  the  "  Union."  What  is  it? 

"ARTICLE  7,  Section  1.  The  right  of  property  is  before  and  higher  than 
any  constitutional  sanction  j  and  the  right  of  the  owner  of  a  slave  to  such 
slave  and  its  increase  is  the  same  and  as  inviolable  as  the  right  of  the  owner 
of  any  property  whatever." 

Then  in  the  schedule  is  a  provision  that  the  constitution  may  be  amended 
after  1864  by  a  two-thirds  vote. 

* 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          297 

"  But  no  alteration  shall  be  made  to  affect  the  right  of  property  in  the 
ownership  of  slaves." 

It  will  be  seen  by  these  clauses  in  the  Lecompton  constitution  that  they  are 
identical  in  spirit  with  the  authoritative  article  in  the  Washington  "  Union" 
of  the  day  previous  to  its  indorsement  of  this  constitution. 

I  pass  over  some  portions  of  the  speech,  and  I  hope  that  any  one 
who  feels  interested  in  this  matter  will  read  the  entire  section  of  the 
speech,  and  see  whether  I  do  the  judge  injustice.  He  proceeds: 

When  I  saw  that  article  in  the  "  Union"  of  the  17th  of  November,  followed 
by  the  glorification  of  the  Lecompton  constitution  on  the  18th  of  November, 
and  this  clause  in  the  constitution  asserting  the  doctrine  that  a  State  has  no 
right  to  prohibit  slavery  within  its  limits,  I  saw  that  there  was  a  fatal  blow 
being  struck  at  the  sovereignty  of  the  States  of  this  Union. 

I  stop  the  quotation  there,  again  requesting  that  it  may  all  be  read. 
I  have  read  all  of  the  portion  I  desire  to  comment  upon.  What  is 
this  charge  that  the  judge  thinks  I  must  have  a  very  corrupt  heart  to 
make  ?  It  was  a  purpose  on  the  part  of  certain  high  functionaries  to 
make  it  impossible  for  the  people  of  one  State  to  prohibit  the  people 
of  any  other  State  from  entering  it  with  their  "  property/'  so  called, 
and  making  it  a  slave  State.  In  other  words,  it  was  a  charge  im 
plying  a  design  to  make  the  institution  of  slavery  national.  And 
now  I  ask  your  attention  to  what  Judge  Douglas  has  himself  done 
here.  I  know  he  made  that  part  of  the  speech  as  a  reason  why  he 
had  refused  to  vote  for  a  certain  man  for  public  printer,  but  when 
we  get  at  it,  the  charge  itself  is  the  very  one  I  made  against  him, 
that  he  thinks  I  am  so  corrupt  for  uttering.  Now,  whom  does  he 
make  that  charge  against !  Does  he  make  it  against  that  newspaper 
editor  merely?  No;  he  says  it  is  identical  in  spirit  with  the  Le 
compton  constitution,  and  so  the  framers  of  that  constitution  are 
brought  in  with  the  editor  of  the  newspaper  in  that  "  fatal  blow  be 
ing  struck."  He  did  not  call  it  a  "  conspiracy."  In  his  language  it 
is  a  "  fatal  blow  being  struck."  And  if  the  words  carry  the  meaning 
better  when  changed  from  a  "conspiracy"  into  a  "fatal  blow  being 
struck,"  I  will  change  my  expression  and  call  it  "fatal  blow  being 
struck."  We  see  the  charge  made  not  merely  against  the  editor  of 
the  "  Union,"  but  all  the  framers  of  the  Lecompton  constitution ;  and 
not  only  so,  but  the  article  was  an  authoritative  article.  By  whose 
authority  ?  Is  there  any  question  but  that  he  means  it  was  by  the 
authority  of  the  President  and  his  cabinet — the  administration? 
Is  there  any  sort  of  question  but  that  he  means  to  make  that 
charge  ?  Then  there  are  the  editors  of  the  "  Union,"  the  framers  of  the 
Lecompton  constitution,  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  his 
cabinet,  and  all  the  supporters  of  the  Lecompton  constitution,  in  Con 
gress  and  out  of  Congress,  who  are  all  involved  in  this  "  fatal  blow 
being  struck."  I  commend  to  Judge  Douglas's  consideration  the  ques 
tion  of  how  corrupt  a  man's  heart  must  be  to  make  such  a  charge ! 

Now,  my  friends,  I  have  but  one  branch  of  the  subject,  in  the  lit 
tle  time  I  have  left,  to  which  to  call  your  attention,  and  as  I  shall 
come  to  a  close  at  the  end  of  that  branch,  it  is  probable  that  I  shall  not 


298          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

occupy  quite  all  the  time  allotted  to  me.  Although  on  these  questions 
I  would  like  to  talk  twice  as  long  as  I  have,  I  could  not  enter  upon 
another  head  and  discuss  it  properly  without  running  over  my 
time.  I  ask  the  attention  of  the  people  here  assembled  and  else 
where,  to  the  course  that  Judge  Douglas  is  pursuing  every  day  as 
bearing  upon  this  question  of  making  slavery  national.  Not  going 
back  to  the  records,  but  taking  the  speeches  he  makes,  the  speeches 
he  made  yesterday  and  day  before,  and  makes  constantly  all  over 
the  country  —  I  ask  your  attention  to  them.  In  the  first  place,  what 
is  necessary  to  make  the  institution  national  ?  Not  war.  There  is 
no  danger  that  the  people  of  Kentucky  will  shoulder  their  muskets, 
and,  with  a  young  nigger  stuck  on  every  bayonet,  march  into  Illinois 
and  force  them  upon  us.  There  is  -no  danger  of  our  going  over 
there  and  making  war  upon  them.  Then  what  is  necessary  for  the 
nationalization  of  slavery?  It  is  simply  the  next  Dred  Scott  decision. 
It  is  merely  for  the  Supreme  Court  to  decide  that  no  State  under 
the  Constitution  can  exclude  it,  just  as  they  have  already  decided 
that  under  the  Constitution  neither  Congress  nor  the  territorial 
legislature  can  do  it.  When  that  is  decided  and  acquiesced  in,  the 
whole  thing  is  done.  This  being  true,  and  this  being  the  way,  as  I 
think,  that  slavery  is  to  be  made  national,  let  us  consider  what 
Judge  Douglas  is  doing  every  day  to  that  end.  In  the  first  place, 
let  us  see  what  influence  he  is  exerting  on  public  sentiment.  In  this 
and  like  communities,  public  sentiment  is  everything.  With  public 
sentiment,  nothing  can  fail ;  without  it,  nothing  can  succeed.  Con 
sequently  he  who  molds  public  sentiment  goes  deeper  than  he  who 
enacts  statutes  or  pronounces  decisions.  He  makes  statutes  and  de 
cisions  possible  or  impossible  to  be  executed.  This  must  be  borne 
in  mind,  as  also  the  additional  fact  that  Judge  Douglas  is  a  man  of 
vast  influence,  so  great  that  it  is  enough  for  many  men  to  profess  to 
believe  anything  when  they  once  find  out  that  Judge  Douglas  pro 
fesses  to  believe  it.  Consider  also  the  attitude  he  occupies  at  the 
head  of  a  large  party  —  a  party  which  he  claims  has  a  majority  of 
all  the  voters  in  the  country. 

This  man  sticks  to  a  decision  which  forbids  the  people  of  a  Ter 
ritory  to  exclude  slavery,  and  he  does  so  not  because  he  says  it 
is  right  in  itself, —  he  does  not  give  any  opinion  on  that, —  but 
because  it  has  been  decided  by  the  court,  and,  being  decided  by 
the  court,  he  is,  and  you  are,  bound  to  take  it  in  your  political 
action  as  law  —  not  that  he  judges  at  all  of  its  merits,  but  because 
a  decision  of  the  court  is  to  him  a  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord."  He 
places  it  on  that  ground  alone,  and  you  will  bear  in  mind  that 
thus  committing  himself  unreservedly  to  this  decision,  commits 
him  to  the  next  one  just  as  firmly  as  to  this.  He  did  not  commit 
himself  on  account  of  the  merit  or  demerit  of  the  decision,  but  it  is  a 
"  Thus  saith  the  Lord/'  The  next  decision,  as  much  as  this,  will  be  a 
"  Thus  saith  the  Lord."  There  is  nothing  that  can  divert  or  turn  him 
away  from  this  decision.  It  is  nothing  that  I  point  out  to  him  that 
his  great  prototype,  General  Jackson,  did  not  believe  in  the  bind 
ing  force  of  decisions.  It  is  nothing  to  him  that  Jefferson  did  not 
so  believe.  I  have  said  that  I  have  often  heard  him  approve  of 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          299 

Jackson's  course  in  disregarding  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
pronouncing  a  national  bank  constitutional.  He  says  I  did  not 
hear  him  say  so.  He  denies  the  accuracy  of  my  recollection.  I  say 
he  ought  to  know  better  than  I,  but  I  will  make  no  question  about 
this  thing,  though  it  still  seems  to  me  that  I  heard  him  say  it  twenty 
times.  I  will  tell  him  though,  that  he  now  claims  to  stand  on  the 
Cincinnati  platform,  which  affirms  that  Congress  cannot  charter  a 
national  bank,  in  the  teeth  of  that  old  standing  decision  that  Con 
gress  can  charter  a  bank.  And  I  remind  him  of  another  piece  of 
history  on  the  question  of  respect  for  judicial  decisions,  and  it  is  a 
piece  of  Illinois  history,  belonging  to  a  time  when  a  large  party  to 
which  Judge  Douglas  belonged  were  displeased  with  a  decision  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  because  they  had  decided  that  a  gov 
ernor  could  not  remove  a  secretary  of  state.  You  will  find  the  whole 
story  in  Ford's  "  History  of  Illinois/'  and  I  know  that  Judge  Douglas 
will  not  deny  that  he  was  then  in  favor  of  overslaughing  that  decision 
by  the  mode  of  adding  five  new  judges,  so  as  to  vote  down  the  four 
old  ones.  Not  only  so,  but  it  ended  in  the  judge's  sitting  down  on 
the  very  bench  as  one  of  the  five  new  judges  to  break  down  the  four 
old  ones.  It  was  in  this  way  precisely  that  he  got  his  title  of  judge. 
Now,  when  the  judge  tells  me  that  men  appointed  conditionally  to 
sit  as  members  of  a  court  will  have  to  be  catechised  beforehand 
upon  some  subject,  I  say,  "  You  know,  judge;  you  have  tried  it." 
When  he  says  a  court  of  this  kind  will  lose  the  confidence  of  all  men, 
will  be  prostituted  and  disgraced  by  such  a  proceeding,  I  say,  "  You 
know  best,  judge;  you  have  been  through  the  mill." 

But  I  cannot  shake  Judge  Douglas's  teeth  loose  from  the  Dred 
Scott  decision.  Like  some  obstinate  animal  (I  mean  no  disrespect) 
that  will  hang  on  when  he  has  once  got  his  teeth  fixed, — you  may 
cut  off  a  leg,  or  you  may  tear  away  an  arm,  still  he  will  not  relax  his 
hold.  And  so  I  may  point  out  to  the  judge,  and  say  that  he  is  be 
spattered  all  over,  from  the  beginning  of  his  political  life  to  the  pres 
ent  time,  with  attacks  upon  judicial  decisions, —  I  may  cut  off  limb 
after  limb  of  his  public  record,  and  strive  to  wrench  from  him  a  sin 
gle  dictum  of  the  court,  yet  I  cannot  divert  him  from  it.  He  hangs 
to  the  last  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  These  things  show  there  is  a 
purpose  strong  as  death  and  eternity  for  which  he  adheres  to  this  de 
cision,  and  for  which  he  will  adhere  to  all  other  decisions  of  the  same 
court.  [A  Hibernian:  "Give  us  something  besides  Drid  Scott."] 
Yes ;  no  doubt  you  want  to  hear  something  that  don't  hurt.  Now, 
having  spoken  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  one  more  word  and  I  am 
done.  Henry  Clay,  my  beau  ideal  of  a  statesman,  the  man  for  whom 
I  fought  all  my  humble  life  — Henry  Clay  once  said  of  a  class  of  men 
who  would  repress  all  tendencies  to  liberty  and  ultimate  emancipa 
tion,  that  they  must,  if  they  would  do  this,  go  back  to  the  era  of  our 
independence,  and  muzzle  the  cannon  which  thunders  its  annual  joy 
ous  return ;  they  must  blow  out  the  moral  lights  around  us ;  they 
must  penetrate  the  human  soul,  and  eradicate  there  the  love  of  lib 
erty;  and  then,  and  not  till  then,  could  they  perpetuate  slavery  in 
this  country !  To  my  thinking,  Judge  Douglas  is,  by  his  example 
and  vast  influence,  doing  that  very  thing  in  this  community  when  he 


300          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

says  that  the  negro  has  nothing  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Henry  Clay  plainly  understood  the  contrary.  Judge  Douglas  is  going 
back  to  the  era  of  our  Revolution,  and  to  the  extent  of  his  ability 
muzzling  the  cannon  which  thunders  its  annual  joyous  return. 
"When  he  invites  any  people,  willing  to  have  slavery,  to  establish  it, 
he  is  blowing  out  the  moral  lights  around  us.  When  he  says  he  "  cares 
not  whether  slavery  is  voted  down  or  voted  up" —  that  it  is  a  sacred 
right  of  self-government  —  he  is,  in  my  judgment,  penetrating  the 
human  soul  and  eradicating  the  light  of  reason  and  the  love  of  liberty 
in  this  American  people.  And  now  I  will  only  say  that  when,  by  all 
these  means  and  appliances,  Judge  Douglas  shall  succeed  in  bringing 
public  sentiment  to  an  exact  accordance  with  his  own  views — when 
these  vast  assemblages  shall  echo  back  all  these  sentiments  — when 
they  shall  come  to  repeat  his  views  and  to  avow  his  principles,  and 
to  say  all  that  he  says  on  these  mighty  questions  — then  it  needs  only 
the  formality  of  the  second  Dred  Scott  decision,  which  he  indorses  in 
advance,  to  make  slavery  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States — old  as  well 
as  new,  North  as  well  as  South. 

My  friends,  that  ends  the  chapter.  The  judge  can  take  his  half 
hour. 

Mr.  Douglas's  Rejoinder  in  the  Ottawa  Joint  Debate. 

Fellow-citizens  :  I  will  now  occupy  the  half  hour  allotted  to  me  in 
replying  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  first  point  to  which  I  will  call  your 
attention  is,  as  to  what  I  said  about  the  organization  of  the  Repub 
lican  party  in  1854,  and  the  platform  that  was  formed  on  the  5th 
of  October  of  that  year,  and  I  will  then  put  the  question  to  Mr. 
Lincoln,  whether  or  not  he  approves  of  each  article  in  that  plat 
form,  and  ask  for  a  specific  answer.  I  did  not  charge  him  with  be 
ing  a  member  of  the  committee  which  reported  that  platform.  I 
charged  that  that  platform  was  the  platform  of  the  Republican  party 
adopted  by  them.  The  fact  that  it  was  the  platform  of  the  Re 
publican  party  is  not  denied,  but  Mr.  Lincoln  now  says  that  although 
his  name  was  on  the  committee  which  reported  it,  he  does  not  think 
he  was  there,  but  thinks  he  was  in  Tazewell,  holding  court.  Now, 
I  want  to  remind  Mr.  Lincoln  that  he  was  at  Springfield  when  that 
convention  was  held  and  those  resolutions  adopted. 

The  point  I  am  going  to  remind  Mr.  Lincoln  of  is  this :  that  after 
I  had  made  my  speech  in  1854,  during  the  fair,  he  gave  me  notice 
that  he  was  going  to  reply  to  me  the  next  day.  I  was  sick  at  the 
time,  but  I  stayed  over  in  Springfield  to  hear  his  reply  and  to  reply  to 
him.  On  that  day  this  very  convention,  the  resolutions  adopted  by 
which  I  have  read,  was  to  meet  in  the  Senate  chamber.  He  spoke 
in  the  hall  of  the  House ;  and  when  he  got  through  his  speech — my 
recollection  is  distinct,  and  I  shall  never  forget  it — Mr.  Codding 
walked  in  as  I  took  the  stand  to  reply,  and  gave  notice  that  the  Re 
publican  State  convention  would  meet  instantly  in  the  Senate  cham 
ber,  and  called  up^on  the  Republicans  to  retire  there  and  go  into  this 
very  convention,  instead  of  remaining  and  listening  to  me. 

In  the  first  place,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  selected  by  the  very  men  who 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          301 

made  the  Republican  organization  on  that  day,  to  reply  to  me.  He 
spoke  for  them  and  for  that  party,  and  he  was  the  leader  of  the 
party  j  and  on  the  very  day  he  made  his  speech  in  reply  to  me, 
preaching  up  this  same  doctrine  of  negro  equality  under  the  Decla 
ration  of  Independence,  this  Republican  party  met  in  convention. 
Another  evidence  that  he  was  acting  in  concert  with  them  is  to 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  that  convention  waited  an  hour  after  its 
time  of  meeting  to  hear  Lincoln's  speech,  and  Codding,  one  of  their 
leading  men,  marched  in  the  moment  Lincoln  got  through,  and  gave 
notice  that  they  did  not  want  to  hear  me,  and  would  proceed  with 
the  business  of  the  convention.  Still  another  fact.  I  have  here  a 
newspaper  printed  at  Springfield — Mr.  Lincoln's  own  town — in  Octo 
ber,  1854,  a  few  days  afterward,  publishing  these  resolutions  charg 
ing  Mr.  Lincoln  with  entertaining  these  sentiments,  and  trying  to 
prove  that  they  were  also  the  sentiments  of  Mr.  Yates,  then  candi 
date  for  Congress.  This  has  been  published  on  Mr.  Lincoln  over 
and  over  again,  and  never  before  has  he  denied  it. 

But,  my  friends,  this  denial  of  his  that  he  did  not  act  on  the  com 
mittee,  is  a  miserable  quibble  to  avoid  the  main  issue,  which  is,  that 
this  Republican  platform  declares  in  favor  of  the  unconditional  re 
peal  of  the  fugitive-slave  law.  Has  Lincoln  answered  whether  he 
indorsed  that  or  not?  I  called  his  attention  to  it  when  I  first  ad 
dressed  you,  and  asked  him  for  an  answer,  and  I  then  predicted  that 
he  would  not  answer.  How  does  he  answer  ?  Why,  that  he  was  not 
on  the  committee  that  wrote  the  resolutions.  I  then  repeated  the 
next  proposition  contained  in  the  resolutions,  which  was  to  restrict 
slavery  in  those  States  in  which  it  exists,  and  asked  him  whether  he 
indorsed  it.  Does  he  answer  yes  or  no  ?  He  says  in  reply,  "  I  was 
not  on  the  committee  at  the  time ;  I  was  up  in  Tazewell."  The  next 
question  I  put  to  him  was,  whether  he  was  in  favor  of  prohibiting 
the  admission  of  any  more  slave  States  into  the  Union.  I  put  the 
question  to  him  distinctly,  whether,  if  the  people  of  the  Territory, 
when  they  had  sufficient  population  to  make  a  State,  should  form 
their  constitution  recognizing  slavery,  he  would  vote  for  or  against 
its  admission.  He  is  a  candidate  for  the  United  States  Senate,  and 
it  is  possible,  if  he  should  be  elected,  that  he  would  have  to  vote 
directly  on  that  question.  I  asked  him  to  answer  me  and  you, 
whether  he  would  vote  to  admit  a  State  into  the  Union,  with  slavery 
or  without  it,  as  its  own  people  might  choose.  He  did  not  answer 
that  question.  He  dodges  that  question  also,  under  cover  that  he 
was  not  on  the  committee  at  the  time,  that  he  was  not  present  when 
the  platform  was  made.  I  want  to  know,  if  he  should  happen  to  be 
in  the  Senate  when  a  State  applied  for  admission  with  a  constitution 
acceptable  to  her  own  people,  whether  he  would  vote  to  admit  that 
State  if  slavery  was  one  of  its  institutions.  He  avoids  the  answer. 

It  is  true  he  gives  the  Abolitionists  to  understand  by  a  hint  that 
he  would  not  vote  to  admit  such  a  State.  And  why  ?  He  goes  on 
to  say  that  the  man  who  would  talk  about  giving  each  State  the  right 
to  have  slavery  or  not,  as  it  pleased,  was  akin  to  the  man  who  would 
muzzle  the  guns  which  thundered  forth  the  annual  joyous  return  of 
the  day  of  our  independence.  He  says  that  that  kind  of  talk  is  casting 


302          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

a  blight  on  the  glory  of  this  country.  What  is  the  meaning  of  that  ? 
That  he  is  not  in  favor  of  each  State  to  have  the  right  of  doing  as 
it  pleases  on  the  slavery  question  ?  I  will  put  the  question  to  him 
again  and  again,  and  I  intend  to  force  it  out  of  him. 

Then  again,  this  platform  which  was  made  at  Springfield  by  his 
own  party,  when  he  was  its  acknowledged  head,  provides  that  Re- 

Sublicans  will  insist  on  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of 
olumbia,  and  I  asked  Lincoln  specifically  whether  he  agreed  with 
them  in  that.  ["  Did  you  get  an  answer  ? "]  He  is  afraid  to  answer 
it.  He  knows  I  will  trot  him  down  to  Egypt.  I  intend  to  make 
him  answer  there,  or  I  will  show  the  people  of  Illinois  that  he  does 
not  intend  to  answer  these  questions.  The  convention  to  which  I 
have  been  alluding  goes  a  little  further,  and  pledges  itself  to  exclude 
slavery  from  all  the  Territories  over  which  the  General  Govern 
ment  has  exclusive  jurisdiction  north  of  36°  30',  as  well  as  south. 
Now  I  want  to  know  whether  he  approves  that  provision.  I  want 
him  to  answer,  and  when  he  does,  I  want  to  know  his  opinion  on 
another  point,  which  is,  whether  he  will  redeem  the  pledge  of  this 
platform  and  resist  the  acquirement  of  any  more  territory  unless 
slavery  therein  shall  be  forever  prohibited.  I  want  him  to  answer 
this  last  question.  All  of  the  questions  I  have  put  to  him  are 
practical  questions — questions  based  upon  the  fundamental  princi 
ples  of  the  Black  Republican  party ;  and  I  want  to  know  whether 
he  is  the  first,  last,  and  only  choice  of  a  party  with  whom  he  does 
not  agree  in  principle.  He  does  not  deny  that  that  principle  was 
unanimously  adopted  by  the  Republican  party ;  he  does  not  deny 
that  the  whole  Republican  party  is  pledged  to  it  $  he  does  not  deny 
that  a  man  who  is  not  faithful  to  it  is  faithless  to  the  Republican 
party ;  and  now  I  want  to  know  whether  that  party  is  unanimously 
in  favor  of  a  man  who  does  not  adopt  that  creed  and  agree  with 
them  in  their  principles :  I  want  to  know  whether  the  man  who  does 
not  agree  with  them,  and  who  is  afraid  to  avow  his  differences,  and 
who  dodges  the  issue,  is  the  first,  last,  and  only  choice  of  the  Re 
publican  party.  [A  voice :  "  How  about  the  conspiracy  ? "]  Never 
mind,  I  will  come  to  that  soon  enough.  But  the  platform  which  I 
have  read  to  you  not  only  lays  down  these  principles,  but  it  adds : 

Resolved :  That  in  furtherance  of  these  principles  we  will  use  such  con 
stitutional  and  lawful  means  as  shall  seem  best  adapted  to  their  accomplish 
ment,  and  that  we  will  support  no  man  for  office,  under  the  General  or  State 
Government,  who  is  not  positively  and  fully  committed  to  the  support  of 
these  principles,  and  whose  personal  character  and  conduct  are  not  a  guar 
anty  that  he  is  reliable,  and  who  shall  not  have  abjured  old  party  allegiance 
and  ties. 

The  Black  Republican  party  stands  pledged  that  they  will  never 
support  Lincoln  until  he  has  pledged  himself  to  that  platform,  but 
he  cannot  devise  his  answer;  he  has  not  made  up  his  mind  whether 
he  will  or  not.  He  talked  about  everything  else  he  could  think  of  to 
occupy  his  hour  and  a  half,  and  when  he  could  not  think  of  anything 
more  to  say,  without  an  excuse  for  refusing  to  answer  these  ques 
tions,  he  sat  down  long  before  his  time  was  out. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          303 

In  relation  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  charge  of  conspiracy  against  me,  I 
have  a  word  to  say.  In  his  speech  to-day  he  quotes  a  playful  part 
of  his  speech  at  Springfield,  about  Stephen,  and  James,  and  Franklin, 
and  Roger,  and  says  that  I  did  not  take  exception  to  it.  I  did  not 
answer  it,  and  he  repeats  it  again.  I  did  not  take  exception  to  this 
figure  of  his.  He  has  a  right  to  be  as  playful  as  he  pleases  in  throw 
ing  his  arguments  together,  and  I  will  not  object ;  but  I  did  take 
objection  to  his  second  Springfield  speech,  in  which  he  stated  that  he 
intended  his  first  speech  as  a  charge  of  corruption  or  conspiracy 
against  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  President  Pierce, 
President  Buchanan,  and  myself.  That  gave  the  offensive  character 
to  the  charge.  He  then  said  that  when  he  made  it  he  did  not  know 
whether  it  was  true  or  not,  but  inasmuch  as  Judge  Douglas  had  not 
denied  it,  although  he  had  replied  to  the  other  parts  of  his  speech 
three  times,  he  repeated  it  as  a  charge  of  conspiracy  against  me,  thus 
charging  me  with  moral  turpitude.  When  he  put  it  in  that  form,  I 
did  say,  that  inasmuch  as  he  repeated  the  charge  simply  because  I 
had  not  denied  it,  I  would  deprive  him  of  the  opportunity  of  ever  re 
peating  it  again  by  declaring  that  it  was  in  all  its  bearings  an  in 
famous  lie.  He  says  he  will  repeat  it  until  I  answer  his  folly  and 
nonsense  about  Stephen,  and  Franklin,  and  Roger,  and  Bob,  and 
James. 

He  studied  that  out — prepared  that  one  sentence  with  the  greatest 
care,  committed  it  to  memory,  and  put  it  in  his  first  Springfield 
speech,  and  now  he  carries  that  speech  around  and  reads  that  sen 
tence  to  show  how  pretty  it  is.  His  vanity  is  wounded  because  I  will 
not  go  into  that  beautiful  figure  of  his  about  the  building  of  a  house, 
All  I  have  to  say  is  that  I  am  not  green  enough  to  let  him  make  a 
charge  which  he  acknowledges  he  does  not  know  to  be  true,  and  then 
take  up  my  time  in  answering  it,  when  I  know  it  to  be  false  and  no 
body  else  knows  it  to  be  true. 

I  have  not  brought  a  charge  of  moral  turpitude  against  him. 
When  he,  or  any  other  man,  brings  one  against  me,  instead  of  dis 
proving  it,  I  will  say  that  it  is  a  lie,  and  let  him  prove  it  if  he  can. 

I  have  lived  twenty-five  years  in  Illinois.  I  have  served  you  with 
all  the  fidelity  and  ability  which  I  possess,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  is  at  lib 
erty  to  attack  my  public  action,  my  votes,  and  my  conduct ;  but  when 
he  dares  to  attack  my  moral  integrity,  by  a  charge  of  conspiracy  be 
tween  myself,  Chief  Justice  Taney  and  the  Supreme  Court,  and  two 
Presidents  of  the  United  States,  I  will  repel  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln  has  not  character  enough  for  integrity  and  truth, 
merely  on  his  own  ipse  dixit,  to  arraign  President  Buchanan,  Presi 
dent  Pierce,  and  nine  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  not  one  of  whom 
would  be  complimented  by  being  put  on  an  equality  with  him.  There 
is  an  unpardonable  presumption  in  a  man  putting  himself  up  before 
thousands  of  people,  and  pretending  that  his  ipse  dixit,  without  proof, 
without  fact,  and  without  truth,  is  enough  to  bring  down  and  destroy 
the  purest  and  best  of  living  men. 

Fellow-citizens,  my  time  is  fast  expiring ;  I  must  pass  on.  Mr. 
Lincoln  wants  to  know  why  I  voted  against  Mr.  Chase's  amendment 
to  the  Nebraska  bill.  I  will  tell  him.  In  the  first  place,  the  bill 


304         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

already  conferred  all  the  power  which  Congress  had,  by  giving  the 
people  the  whole  power  over  the  subject.  Chase  offered  a  proviso 
that  they  might  abolish  slavery,  which  by  implication  would  convey 
the  idea  that  they  could  prohibit  by  not  introducing  that  institution. 
General  Cass  asked  him  to  modify  his  amendment,  so  as  to  provide 
that  the  people  might  either  prohibit  or  introduce  slavery,  and  thus 
make  it  fair  and  equal.  Chase  refused  to  so  modify  his  proviso,  and 
then  General  Cass  and  all  the  rest  of  us  voted  it  down.  Those  facts 
appear  on  the  journals  and  debates  of  Congress,  where  Mr.  Lincoln 
found  the  charge,  and  if  he  had  told  the  whole  truth,  there  would 
have  been  no  necessity  for  me  to  occupy  your  time  in  explaining  the 
matter. 

Mr.  Lincoln  wants  to  know  why  the  word  "  State,"  as  well  as 
"  Territory,"  was  put  into  the  Nebraska  bill  ?  I  will  tell  him.  It 
was  put  there  to  meet  just  such  false  arguments  as  he  has  been  ad 
ducing.  That  first,  not  only  the  people  of  the  Territories  should  do 
as  they  pleased,  but  that  when  they  come  to  be  admitted  as  States, 
they  should  come  into  the  Union  with  or  without  slavery,  as  the 
people  determined.  I  meant  to  knock  in  the  head  this  Abolition 
doctrine  of  Mr.  Lincoln's,  that  there  shall  be  no  more  slave  States, 
even  if  the  people  want  them.  And  it  does  not  do  for  him  to  say, 
or  for  any  other  Black  Republican  to  say,  that  there  is  nobody  in 
favor  of  the  doctrine  of  no  more  slave  States,  and  that  nobody  wants 
to  interfere  with  the  right  of  the  people  to  do  as  they  please.  What 
was  the  origin  of  the  Missouri  difficulty  and  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  ?  The  people  of  Missouri  formed  a  constitution  as  a  slave 
State,  and  asked  admission  into  the  Union,  but  the  Free-soil  party  of 
the  North,  being  in  a  majority,  refused  to  admit  her  because  she  had 
slavery  as  one  of  her  institutions.  Hence  this  first  slavery  agitation 
arose  upon  a  State  and  not  upon  a  Territory,  and  yet  Mr.  Lincoln 
does  not  know  why  the  word  State  was  placed  in  the  Kansas-Ne 
braska  bill.  The  whole  Abolition  agitation  arose  on  that  doctrine 
of  prohibiting  a  State  from  coming  in  with  slavery  or  not,  as  it 
pleased,  and  that  same  doctrine  is  here  in  this  Republican  platform 
of  1854 ;  it  has  never  been  repealed ;  and  every  Black  Republican 
stands  pledged  by  that  platform  never  to  vote  for  any  man  who  is 
not  in  favor  of  it.  Yet  Mr.  Lincoln  does  not  know  that  there  is  a 
man  in  the  world  who  is  in  favor  of  preventing  a  State  from  coming 
in  as  it  pleases,  notwithstanding  the  Springfield  platform  says  that 
they,  the  Republican  party,  will  not  allow  a  State  to  come  in  under 
such  circumstances.  He  is  an  ignorant  man. 

Now  you  see  that  upon  these  very  points  I  am  as  far  from  bringing 

Mr.  Lincoln  up  to  the  line  as  I  ever  was  before.     He  does  not  want 

*  to  avow  his  principles.    I  do  want  to  avow  mine,  as  clear  as  sun- 

<jA  light  in  midday.     Democracy  is  founded  upon  the  eternal  principles 

of  right.    The  plainer  these  principles  are  avowed  before  the  people, 

the  stronger  will  be  the  support  which  they  will  receive.     I  only 

wish  I  had  the  power  to  make  them  so  clear  that  they  would  shine 

in  the  heavens  for  every  man,  woman,  and  child  to  read.     The  first 

of  those  principles  that  I  would  proclaim  would  be  in  opposition  to 

Mr.  Lincoln's  doctrine  of  uniformity  between  the  different  States, 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          305 

and  I  would  declare  instead  the  sovereign  right  of  each  State  to 
decide  the  slavery  question  as  well  as  all  other  domestic  questions 
for  themselves,  without  interference  from  any  other  State  or  power 
whatsoever. 

When  that  principle  is  recognized  you  will  have  peace  and  har 
mony  and  fraternal  feeling  between  all  the  States  of  this  Union ; 
until  you  do  recognize  that  doctrine  there  will  be  sectional  warfare 
agitating  and  distracting  the  country.  What  does  Mr.  Lincoln  pro 
pose  !  He  says  that  the  Union  cannot  exist  divided  into  free  and 
slave  States.  If  it  cannot  endure  thus  divided,  then  he  must  strive  to 
make  them  all  free  or  all  slave,  which  will  inevitably  bring  about  a 
dissolution  of  the  Union. 

Gentlemen,  I  am  told  that  my  time  is  out,  and  I  am  obliged  to 
stop. 

August  22,  1858. —  LETTER  TO  J.  O.  CUNNINGHAM. 

OTTAWA,  August  22,  1858. 
J.  O.  CUNNINGHAM,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir  :  Yours  of  the  18th,  signed  as  secretary  of  the  Repub 
lican  club,  is  received.     In  the  matter  of  making  speeches  I  am  a 
food  deal  pressed  by  invitations  from  almost  all  quarters,  and  while 
hope  to  be  at  Urbana  some  time  during  the  canvass,  I  cannot  yet 
say  when.  Can  you  not  see  me  at  Monticello  on  the  6th  of  September  ! 
Douglas  and  I,  for  the  first  time  this  canvass,  crossed  swords  here 
yesterday ;  the  fire  flew  some,  and  I  am  glad  to  know  I  am  yet  alive. 
There  was  a  vast  concourse  of  people  —  more  than  could  get  near 
enough  to  hear.  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

August  27,  1858. — SECOND  JOINT  DEBATE  AT  FREEPORT,  ILLINOIS. 
Mr.  Lincoln's  Opening  Speech. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  On  Saturday  last,  Judge  Douglas  and  my 
self  first  met  in  public  discussion.  He  spoke  one  hour,  I  an  hour 
and  a  half,  and  he  replied  for  half  an  hour.  The  order  is  now  re 
versed.  I  am  to  speak  an  hour,  he  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  then  I 
am  to  reply  for  half  an  hour.  I  propose  to  devote  myself  during 
the  first  hour  to  the  scope  of  what  was  brought  within  the  range  of 
his  half-hour  speech  at  Ottawa.  Of  course  there  was  brought  within 
the  scope  of  that  half -hour's  speech  something  of  his  own  opening 
speech.  In  the  course  of  that  opening  argument  Judge  Douglas 
proposed  to  me  seven  distinct  interrogatories.  In  mv  speech  of  an 
hoar  and  a  half,  I  attended  to  some  other  parts  of  his  speech,  and 
incidentally,  as  I  thought,  answered  one  of  the  interrogatories  then. 
I  then  distinctly  intimated  to  him  that  I  would  answer  the  rest  of 
hie  interrogatories  on  condition  only  that  he  should  agree  to  answer 
as  many  for  me.  He  made  no  intimation  at  the  time  of  the  proposi 
tion,  nor  did  he  in  his  reply  allude  at  all  to  that  suggesting  of  mine. 
I  do  him  no  injustice  in  saying  that  he  occupied  at  least*hdf  of  his 
re-ply  in  dealing  with  me  as  though  I  had  refused  to  ans\.  >r  his  in- 
VOL.  I.— 20. 


306         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

terrogatories.  I  now  propose  that  I  will  answer  any  of  the  inter 
rogatories,  upon  condition  that  he  will  answer  questions  from  me  not 
jjexceeding  the  same  number.  I  give  him  an  opportunity  to  respond. 
'The  judge  remains  silent.  I  now  say  that  I  will  answer  his  inter 
rogatories,  whether  he  answers  mine  or  not  ;  and  that  after  I  have 
done  so,  I  shall  propound  mine  to  him. 

I  have  supposed  myself,  since  the  organization  of  the  Republican 
party  at  Bloomington,  in  May,  1856,  bound  as  a  party  man  by  the 
platforms  of  the  party  then  and  since.  If  in  any  interrogatories 
which  I  shall  answer  I  go  beyond  the  scope  of  what  is  within  these 
platforms,  it  will  be  perceived  that  no  one  is  responsible  but  myself. 
Having  said  this  much,  I  will  take  up  the  judge's  interrogatories  as 
I  find  them  printed  in  the  Chicago  "  Times,"  and  answer  them  seria 
tim.  In  order  that  there  may  be  no  mistake  about  it,  I  have  copied 
the  interrogatories  in  writing,  and  also  my  answers  to  them.  The 
first  one  of  these  interrogatories  is  in  these  words : 

Question  1.  "  I  desire  to  know  whether  Lincoln  to-day  stands  as 
he  did  in  1854,  in  favor  of  the  unconditional  repeal  of  the  fugitive- 
slave  law?" 

Answer.  I  do  not  now,  nor  ever  did,  stand  in  favor  of  the  uncon 
ditional  repeal  of  the  fugitive-slave  law. 

Q.  2.  "  I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  stands  pledged  to-day 
as  he  did  in  1854,  against  the  admission  of  any  more  slave  States 
into  the  Union,  even  if  the  people  want  them?" 

A.  I  do  not  now,  nor  ever  did,  stand  pledged  against  the  admission 
of  any  more  slave  States  into  the  Union. 

Q.  3.  "  I  want  to  know  whether  he  stands  pledged  against  the  ad 
mission  of  a  new  State  into  the  Union  with  such  a  constitution  as 
the  people  of  that  State  may  see  fit  to  make  ? " 

A.  I  do  not  stand  pledged  against  the  admission  of  a  new  State 
into  the  Union  with  such  a  constitution  as  the  people  of  that  State 
may  see  fit  to  make. 

Q.  4.  "  I  want  to  know  whether  he  stands  to-day  pledged  to  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  ?  " 

A.  I  do  not  stand  to-day  pledged  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia. 

Q.  5.  "I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  stands  pledged  to  the 
prohibition  of  the  slave-trade  between  the  different  States  ? w 

A.  I  do  not  stand  pledged  to  the  prohibition  of  the  slave-trade 
between  the  different  States. 

Q.  6.  "  I  desire  to  know  whether  he  stands  pledged  to  prohibit 
slavery  in  all  the  Territories  of  the  United  States,  North  as  well 
as  South  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line  ?  " 

A.  I  am  impliedly,  if  not  expressly,  pledged  to  a  belief  in  the 
right  and  duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit  slavery  in  all  the  United 
States  Territories. 

Q.  7.  "I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  is  opposed  to  the 
acquisition  of  any  new  territory  unless  slavery  is  first  prohibited 
therein  ?  'V. 

A.  I  priinpt  generally  opposed  to  honest  acquisition  of  territory ; 
and,  in  ol  „  given  case,  I  would  or  would  not  oppose  such  acquisition, 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          307 

accordingly  as  I  might  think  such  acquisition  would  or  would  not 
aggravate  the  slavery  question  among  ourselves. 

Now,  my  friends,  it  will  be  perceived  upon  an  examination  of  these 
questions  and  answers,  that  so  far  I  have  only  answered  that  I 
was  not  pledged  to  this,  that,  or  the  other.  The  judge  has  not 
framed  his  interrogatories  to  ask  me  anything  more  than  this,  and 
I  have  answered  in  strict  accordance  with  the  interrogatories,  and 
have  answered  truly  that  I  am  not  pledged  at  all  upon  any  of  the 
points  to  which  I  have  answered.  But  I  am  not  disposed  to  hang 
upon  the  exact  form  of  his  interrogatory.  I  am  really  disposed  to 
take  up  at  least  some  of  these  questions,  and  state  what  I  really 
think  upon  them. 

As  to  the  first  one,  in  regard  to  the  fugitive-slave  law,  I  have 
never  hesitated  to  say,  and  I  do  not  now  hesitate  to  say,  that  I  think, 
under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  people  of  the 
Southern  States  are  entitled  to  a  congressional  fugitive-slave  law. 
Having  said  that,  I  have  had  nothing  to  say  in  regard  to  the  existing 
fugitive-slave  law,  further  than  that  I  think  it  should  have  been 
framed  so  as  to  be  free  from  some  of  the  objections  that  pertain  to 
it,  without  lessening  its  efficiency.  And  inasmuch  as  we  are  not  I 
now  in  an  agitation  in  regard  to  an  alteration  or  modification  of  that  ' 
law,  I  would  not  be  the  man  to  introduce  it  as  a  new  subject  of 
agitation  upon  the  general  question  of  slavery. 

In  regard  to  the  other  question,  of  whether  I  am  pledged  to  the 
admission  of  any  more  slave  States  into  the  Union,  I  state  to  you 
very  frankly  that  I  would  be  exceedingly  sorry  ever  to  be  put  in  a 
position  of  having  to  pass  upon  that  question.  I  should  be  exceed 
ingly  glad  to  know  that  there  would  never  be  another  slave  State 
admitted  into  the  Union ;  but  I  must  add,  that  if  slavery  shall  be 
kept  out  of  the  Territories  during  the  territorial  existence  of  any 
one  given  Territory,  and  then  the  people  shall,  having  a  fair  chance 
and  a  clear  field,  when  they  come  to  adopt  the  Constitution,  do  such 
an  extraordinary  thing  as  to  adopt  a  slave  constitution,  uninfluenced 
by  the  actual  presence  of  the  institution  among  them,  I  see  no  alter 
native,  if  we  own  the  country,  but  to  admit  them  into  the  Union. 

The  third  interrogatory  is  answered  by  the  answer  to  the  second, 
it  being,  as  I  conceive,  the  same  as  the  second. 

The  fourth  one  is  in  regard  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia.  In  relation  to  that,  I  have  my  mind  very  dis 
tinctly  made  up.  I  should  be  exceedingly  glad  to  see  slavery  abol 
ished  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  I  believe  that  Congress  possesses 
the  constitutional  power  to  abolish  it.  Yet  as  a  member  of  Con 
gress,  I  should  not  with  my  present  views  be  in  favor  of  endeavor 
ing  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  unless  it  would 
be  upon  these  conditions :  First,  that  the  abolition  should  be  grad 
ual  ;  second,  that  it  should  be  on  a  vote  of  the  majority  of  qualified 
voters  in  the  District ;  and  third,  that  compensation  should  be  made 
to  unwilling  owners.  With  these  three  conditions,  I  confess  I  would 
be  exceedingly  glad  to  see  Congress  abolish  slavery  in  t^  District 
of  Columbia,  and,  in  the  language  of  Henry  Clay,  "  swef heYom  our 
capital  that  foul  blot  upon  our  nation.'7 


308         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF  ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

In  regard  to  the  fifth  interrogatory,  I  must  say  here  that  as  to  the 
question  of  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade  between  the  different 
States,  I  can  truly  answer,  as  I  have,  that  I  am  pledged  to  nothing 
about  it.  It  is  a  subject  to  which  I  have  not  given  that  mature  consid 
eration  that  would  make  me  feel  authorized  to  state  a  position  so  as 
to  hold  myself  entirely  bound  by  it.  In  other  words,  that  question  has 
never  been  prominently  enough  before  me  to  induce  me  to  investigate 
whether  we  really  have  the  constitutional  power  to  do  it.  I  could 
investigate  it  if  I  had  sufficient  time  to  bring  myself  to  a  conclusion 
upon  that  subject,  but  I  have  not  done  so,  and  I  say  so  frankly  to 
you  Here  and  to  Judge  Douglas.  I  must  say,  however,  that  if  I  should 
be  of  opinion  that  Congress  does  possess  the  constitutional  power  to 
.  abolish  the  slave-trade  among  the  different  States,  I  should  still  not 
be  in  favor  of  the  exercise  of  that  power  unless  upon  some  conser 
vative  principle  as  I  conceive  it,  akin  to  what  I  have  said  in  relation 
to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 

My  answer  as  to  whether  I  desire  that  slavery  should  be  prohibited 
in  all  the  Territories  of  the  United  States  is  full  and  explicit  within 
itself,  and  cannot  be  made  clearer  by  any  comments  of  mine.  So  I 
suppose  in  regard  to  the  question  whether  I  am  opposed  to  the  ac 
quisition  of  any  more  territory  unless  slavery  is  first  prohibited 
therein,  my  answer  is  such  that  I  could  add  nothing  by  way  of  illus 
tration,  or  making  myself  better  understood,  than  the  answer  which 
I  have  placed  in  writing. 

Now  in  all  this  the  judge  has  me,  and  he  has  me  on  the  record.  I 
suppose  he  had  flattered  himself  that  I  was  really  entertaining  one 
set  of  opinions  for  one  place  and  another  set  for  another  place — that 
I  was  afraid  to  say  at  one  place  what  I  uttered  at  another.  What  I 
am  saying  here  I  suppose  I  say  to  a  vast  audience  as  strongly  tending 
to  Abolitionism  as  any  audience  in  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  I  believe 
I  am  saying  that  which,  if  it  would  be  offensive  to  any  persons  and 
render  them  enemies  to  myself,  would  be  offensive  to  persons  in  this 
audience. 

I  now  proceed  to  propound  to  the  judge  the  interrogatories  so  far 
as  I  have  framed  them.  I  will  bring  forward  a  new  instalment  when 
I  get  them  ready.  I  will  bring  them  forward  now,  only  reaching  to 
number  four. 

The  first  one  is : 

Question  1.  If  the  people  of  Kansas  shall,  by  means  entirely  un 
objectionable  in  all  other  respects,  adopt  a  State  constitution,  and 
ask  admission  into  the  Union  under  it,  before  they  have  the  requisite 
number  of  inhabitants  according  to  the  English  bill, — some  ninety- 
three  thousand, — will  you  vote  to  admit  them? 

Q.  2.  Can  the  people"  of  a  United  States  Territory,  in  any  lawful 
way,  against  the  wish  of  any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude 
slavery  from  its  limits  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  State  constitu 
tion? 

Q.  3.  If  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  shall  decide  that 
States  c*>V  •  ot  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits,  are  you  in  favor  of 
acquiesvprr  in,  adopting,  and  following  such  decision  as  a  rule  of 
political  Diction  ? 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN          309 

Q.  4.  Are  you  in  favor  of  acquiring  additional  territory,  in  disre 
gard  of  how  such  acquisition  may  affect  the  nation  on  the  slavery 
question  ? 

As  introductory  to  these  interrogatories  which  Judge  Douglas 
propounded  to  me  at  Ottawa,  he  read  a  set  of  resolutions  which  he 
said  Judge  Trumbull  and  myself  had  participated  in  adopting,  in 
the  first  Republican  State  convention,  held  at  Springfield,  in  Octo 
ber,  1854.  He  insisted  that  I  and  Judge  Trumbull,  and  perhaps  the 
entire  Republican  party,  were  responsible  for  the  doctrines  contained 
in  the  set  of  resolutions  which  he  read,  and  I  understand  that  it  was 
from  that  set  of  resolutions  that  he  deduced  the  interrogatories 
which  he  propounded  to  me,  using  these  resolutions  as  a  sort  of  au 
thority  for  propounding  those  questions  to  me.  Now  I  say  here  to-day 
that  I  do  not  answer  his  interrogatories  because  of  their  springing 
at  all  from  that  set  of  resolutions  which  he  read.  I  answered  them 
because  Judge  Douglas  thought  fit  to  ask  them.  I  do  not  now,  nor  | 
ever  did,  recognize  any  responsibility  upon  myself  in  that  set  of  | 
resolutions.  When  I  replied  to  him  on  that  occasion,  I  assured  him 
that  I  never  had  anything  to  do  with  them.  I  repeat  here  to-day, 
that  I  never  in  any  possible  form  had  anything  to  do  with  that  set 
of  resolutions.  It  turns  out,  I  believe,  that  those  resolutions  were 
never  passed  at  any  convention  held  in  Springfield.  It  turns  out  that 
they  were  never  passed  at  any  convention  or  any  public  meeting  < 
that  I  had  any  part  in.  I  believe  it  turns  out,  in  addition  to  all  this,  ' 
that  there  was  not,  in  the  fall  of  1854,  any  convention  holding  a 
session  in  Springfield  calling  itself  a  Republican  State  convention  5 
yet  it  is  true  there  was  a  convention,  or  assemblage  of  men  calling 
themselves  a  convention,  at  Springfield,  that  did  pass  some  resolu 
tions.  But  so  little  did  I  really  know  of  the  proceedings  of  that 
convention,  or  what  set  of  resolutions  they  had  passed,  though  hav 
ing  a  general  knowledge  that  there  had  been  such  an  assemblage 
of  men  there,  that  when  Judge  Douglas  read  the  resolutions,  I  really 
did  not  know  but  that  they  had  been  the  resolutions  passed  then  and 
there.  I  did  not  question  that  they  were  the  resolutions  adopted. 
For  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  suppose  that  Judge  Douglas  could 
say  what  he  did  upon  this  subject  without  knowing  that  it  was  true. 
I  contented  myself,  on  that  occasion,  with  denying,  as  I  truly  could, 
all  connection  with  them,  not  denying  or  affirming  whether  they 
were  passed  at  Springfield.  Now  it  turns  out  that  he  had  got  hold 
of  some  resolutions  passed  at  some  convention  or  public  meeting  in 
Kane  County.  I  wish  to  say  here,  that  I  don'f  conceive  that  in  any 
fair  and  just  mind  this  discovery  relieves  me  at  all.  I  had  just  as 
much  to  do  with  the  convention  in  Kane  County  as  that  at  Spring-  ^ 
field.  I  am  just  as  much  responsible  for  the  resolutions  at  Kane 
County  as  those  at  Springfield,  the  amount  of  the  responsibility 
being  exactly  nothing  in  either  case ;  no  more  than  there  would  be^ 
in  regard  to  a  set  of  resolutions  passed  in  the  moon. 

I  allude  to  this  extraordinary  matter  in  this  canvass  for  some 
further  purpose  than  anything  yet  advanced.  Judge  Douglas  did 
not  make  his  statement  upon  that  occasion  as  matters  that  he  believed 
to  be  true,  but  he  stated  them  roundly  as  being  true,  in  such  form 


310          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

as  to  pledge  his  veracity  for  their  truth.  When  the  whole  matter 
turns  out  as  it  does,  and  when  we  consider  who  Judge  Douglas  is, — 
that  he  is  a  distinguished  senator  of  the  United  States  ;  that  he  has 
served  nearly  twelve  years  as  such  5  that  his  character  is  not  at  all 
limited  as  an  ordinary  senator  of  the  United  States,  but  that  his  name 
has  become  of  world-wide  renown, — it  is  most  extraordinary  that  he 
should  so  far  forget  all  the  suggestions  of  justice  to  an  adversary, 
or  of  prudence  to  himself,  as  to  venture  upon  the  assertion  of  that 
,  which  the  slightest  investigation  would  have  shown  him  to  be  wholly 
false.  I  can  only  account  for  his  having  done  so  upon  the  supposi 
tion  that  that  evil  genius  which  has  attended  him  through  his  life, 
giving  to  him  an  apparent  astonishing  prosperity,  such  as  to  lead  very 
many  good  men  to  doubt  there  being  any  advantage  in  virtue  over 
vice  —  I  say  I  can  only  account  for  it  on  the  supposition  that  that 
evil  genius  has  at  last  made  up  its  mind  to  forsake  him. 

And  I  may  add  that  another  extraordinary  feature  of  the  judge's 
conduct  in  this  canvass — made  more  extraordinary  by  this  incident 
—  is,  that  he  is  in  the  habit,  in  almost  all  the  speeches  he  makes,  of 
charging  falsehood  upon  his  adversaries,  myself  and  others.  I  now 
a^k  whether  he  is  able  to  find  in  anything  that  Judge  Trumbull, 
•  for  instance,  has  said,  or  in  anything  that  I  have  said,  a  justification 
at  all  compared  with  what  we  have,  in  this  instance,  for  that  sort  of 
vulgarity. 

I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  charging  as  a  matter  of  belief  on  my 
part,  that,  in  the  introduction  of  the  Nebraska  bill  into  Congress, 
there  was  a  conspiracy  to  make  slavery  perpetual  and  national.  I 
have  arranged  from  time  to  time  the  evidence  which  establishes  and 
proves  the  truth  of  this  charge.  I  recurred  to  this  charge  at  Ottawa. 
I  shall  not  now  have  time  to  dwell  upon  it  at  very  great  length ;  but 
inasmuch  as  Judge  Douglas  in  his  reply  of  half  an  hour  made  some 
points  upon  me  in  relation  to  it,  I  propose  noticing  a  few  of  them. 

The  judge  insists  that,  in  the  first  speech  I  made,  in  which  I  very 
distinctly  made  that  charge,  he  thought  for  a  good  while  I  was  in 
fun — that  I  was  playful — that  I  was  not  sincere  about  it — and 
that  he  only  grew  angry  and  somewhat  excited  when  he  found  that 
I  insisted  upon  it  as  a  matter  of  earnestness.  He  says  he  character 
ized  it  as  a  falsehood  as  far  as  I  implicated  his  moral  character  in 
that  transaction.  Well,  I  did  not  know,  till  he  presented  that  view, 
that  I  had  implicated  his  moral  character.  He  is  very  much  in  the 
habit,  when  he  argues  me  up  into  a  position  I  never  thought  of 
occupying,  of  very  dozily  saying  he  has  no  doubt  Lincoln  is  "  con 
scientious  n  in  saying  so.  He  should  remember  that  I  did  not  know 
but  what  he  was  altogether  "  conscientious  n  in  that  matter.  I  can 
conceive  it  possible  for  men  to  conspire  to  do  a  good  thing,  and  I 
really  find  nothing  in  Judge  Douglas's  course  of  arguments  that  is 
\  contrary  to  or  inconsistent  with  his  belief  of  a  conspiracy  to  nation 
alize  and  spread  slavery  as  being  a  good  and  blessed  thing,  and  so 
I  hope  he  will  understand  that  I  do  not  at  all  question  but  that  in 
all  this  matter  he  is  entirely  "  conscientious." 

But  to  draw  your  attention  to  one  of  the  points  I  made  in  this 
case,  beginning  at  the  beginning.  When  the  Nebraska  bill  was  in- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          311 

troduced,  or  a  short  time  afterward,  by  an  amendment,  I  believe,  it 
was  provided  that  it  must  be  considered  "  the  true  intent  and  mean 
ing  of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  State  or  Territory, 
or  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the  people  thereof  perfectly 
free  to  form  and  regulate  their  own  domestic  institutions  in  their 
own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States." 
I  have  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  when  he  and  some  others 
began  arguing  that  they  were  giving  an  increased  degree  of  liberty 
to  the  people  in  the  Territories  over  and  above  what  they  formerly 
had  on  the  question  of  slavery,  a  question  was  raised  whether  the 
law  was  enacted  to  give  such  unconditional  liberty  to  the  people; 
and  to  test  the  sincerity  of  this  mode  of  argument,  Mr.  Chase, 
of  Ohio,  introduced  an  amendment,  in  which  he  made  the  law — if 
the  amendment  were  adopted — expressly  declare  that  the  people  of 
the  Territory  should  have  the  power  to  exclude  slavery  if  they  saw\ 
fit.  I  have  asked  attention  also  to  the  fact  that  Judge  Douglas,  and  ft 
those  who  acted  with  him,  voted  that  amendment  down,  notwith- 1 
standing  it  expressed  exactly  the  thing  they  said  was  the  true  intent  | 
and  meaning  of  the  law.  I  have  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  11 
subsequent  times  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  has  been  made 
in  which  it  has  been  declared  that  a  Territorial  Legislature  has  no 
constitutional  right  to  exclude  slavery.  And  I  have  argued  and 
said  that  for  men  who  did  intend  that  the  people  of  the  Territory 
should  have  the  right  to  exclude  slavery  absolutely  and  uncondi 
tionally,  the  voting  down  of  Chase's  amendment  is  wholly  inexplic-  j 
able.  It  is  a  puzzle — a  riddle.  But  I  have  said  that  with  men  who 
did  look  forward  to  such  a  decision,  or  who  had  it  in  contemplation ' 
that  such  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  would  or  might  be  made,  * 
the  voting  down  of  that  amendment  would  be  perfectly  rational  and! 
intelligible.  It  would  keep  Congress  from  coming  in  collision  with 
the  decision  when  it  was  mad.e.  Anybody  can  conceive  that  if  there 
was  an  intention  or  expectation  that  such  a  decision  was  to  follow, 
it  would  not  be  a  very  desirable  party  attitude  to  get  into  for  the 
Supreme  Court  —  all  or  nearly  all  its  members  belonging  to  the  same 
party — to  decide  one  way,  when  the  party  in  Congress  had  decided 
the  other  way.  Hence  it  would  be  very  rational  for  men  expecting 
ftuch  a  decision  to  keep  the  niche  in  that  law  clear  for  it.  After  ^ 
pointing  this  out,  I  tell  Judge  Douglas  that  it  looks  to  me  as  though 
'here  was  the  reason  why  Chase's  amendment  was  voted  down.  I 
tell  him  that  as  he  did  it,  and  knows  why  he  did  it,  if  it  was  done 
for  a  reason  different  from  this,  he  knows  what  that  reason  was, 
and  can  tell  us  what  it  was.  I  tell  him,  also,  it  will  be  vastly  more 
satisfactory  to  the  country  for  him  to  give  some  other  plausible,  in 
telligible  reason  why  it  was  voted  down  than  to  stand  upon  his  dig 
nity  and  call  people  liars.  Well,  on  Saturday  he  did  make  his 
answer,  and  what  do  you  think  it  was  ?  He  says  if  I  had  only  taken 
upon  myself  to  tell  the  whole  truth  about  that  amendment  of 
Chase's,  no  explanation  would  have  been  necessary  on  his  part — or 
words  to  that  effect.  Now  I  say  here  that  I  am  quite  unconscious 
of  having  suppressed  anything  material  to  the  case,  and  I  am  very 
frank  to  admit  if  there  is  any  sound  reason  other  than  that  which 


312         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF  ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

appeared  to  me  material,  it  is  quite  fair  for  him  to  present  it.  What 
reason  does  he  propose ?  That  when  Chase  came  forward  with  his 
amendment  expressly  authorizing  the  people  to  exclude  slavery  from 
the  limits  of  every  Territory,  General  Cass  proposed  to  Chase,  if  he 
(Chase)  would  add  to  his  amendment  that  the  people  should  have 
the  power  to  introduce  or  exclude,  they  would  let  it  go. 

This  is  substantially  all  of  his  reply.  And  because  Chase  would 
not  do  that  they  voted  his  amendment  down.  Well,  it  turns  out,  I 
believe,  upon  examination,  that  General  Cass  took  some  part  in  the 
little  running  debate  upon  that  amendment,  and  then  ran  away  and 
did  not  vote  on  it  at  all.  Is  not  that  the  fact  ?  So  confident,  as  I 
think,  was  General  Cass  that  there  was  a  snake  somewhere  about,  he 
chose  to  run  away  from  the  whole  thing.  This  is  an  inference  I 
draw  from  the  fact  that  though  he  took  part  in  the  debate  his  name 
does  not  appear  in  the  ayes  and  noes.  But  does  Judge  Douglas's 
reply  amount  to  a  satisfactory  answer ?  [Cries  of  "  Yes,"  *'  Yes,"  and 
tt  fto»  a  -^On  j  There  is  some  little  difference  of  opinion  here.  But 
I  ask  attention  to  a  few  more  views  bearing  on  the  question  of 
whether  it  amounts  to  a  satisfactory  answer.  The  men  who  were  de 
termined  that  that  amendment  should  not  get  into  the  bill,  and  spoil 
the  place  where  the  Dred  Scott  decision  was  to  come  in,  sought  an 
excuse  to  get  rid  of  it  somewhere.  One  of  these  ways — one  of  these 
excuses — was  to  ask  Chase  to  add  to  his  proposed  amendment  a 

'  /  provision  that  the  people  might  introduce  slavery  if  they  wanted  to. 

VJThey  very  well  knew  Chase  would  do  no  such  thing — that  Mr. 
lj  Chase  was  one  of  the  men  differing  from  them  on  the  broad  prin- 
*  '  II  ciple  of  his  insisting  that  freedom  was  better  than  slavery  —  a  man 
who  would  not  consent  to  enact  a  law  penned  with  his  own  hand,  by 
which  he  was  made  to  recognize  slavery  on  the  one  hand  and  liberty 
on  the  other  as  precisely  equal  j  and  when  they  insisted  on  his  doing 
this,  they  very  well  knew  they  insisted  on  that  which  he  would  not 
for  a  moment  think  of  doing,  and  that  they  were  only  bluffing  him. 
I  believe — I  have  not,  since  he  made  his  answer,  had  a  chance  to  ex 
amine  the  journals  or  "  Congressional  Globe,"  and  therefore  speak 
from  memory — I  believe  the  state  of  the  bill  at  that  time,  according 
to  parliamentary  rules,  was  such  that  no  member  could  propose  an 
additional  amendment  to  Chase's  amendment.  I  rather  think  this  is 
the  truth — the  judge  shakes  his  head.  Very  well.  I  would  like  to 
know  then,  if  they  wanted  Chase's  amendment  fixed  over,  why  some 
body  else  could  not  have  offered  to  do  it?  If  they  wanted  it  amended,? 
why  did  they  not  offer  the  amendment  ?  Why  did  they  stand  there 
taunting  and  quibbling  at  Chase  ?  Why  did  they  not  put  it  in 
themselves?  But  to  put  it  on  the  other  ground :  suppose  that  there 
was  such  an  amendment  offered,  and  Chase's  was  an  amendment  to 
an  amendment;  until  one  is  disposed  of  by  parliamentary  law,  you 
cannot  pile  another  on.  Then  all  these  gentlemen  had  to  do  was  to 
vote  Chase's  on,  and  then,  ii  the  amended  form  in  which  the  whole 
stood,  add  their  own  amendment  to  it  if  they  wanted  to  put  it  in 
that  shape.  This  was  all  ;hey  were  obliged  to  do,  and  the  ayes  and 
noes  show  that  there  were  thirty-six  who  voted  it  down,  against  ten 
who  voted  in  favor  of  it.  The  thirty-six  held  entire  sway  and  con- 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          313 

trol.  They  could  in  some  form  or  other  have  put  that  bill  in  the 
exact  shape  they  wanted.  If  there  was  a  rule  preventing  their 
amending  it  at  the  time,  they  could  pass  that,  and  then,  Chase's 
amendment  being  merged,  put  it  in  the  shape  they  wanted.  They 
did  not  choose  to  do  so,  but  they  went  into  a  quibble  with  Chase  to 
get  him  to  add  what  they  knew  he  would  not  add,  and  because  he 
would  not,  they  stand  upon  that  flimsy  pretext  for  voting  down  what 
they  argued  was  the  meaning  and  intent  of  their  own  bill.  They  left 
room  thereby  for  this  Dred  Scott  decision,  which  goes  very  far  to 
make  slavery  national  throughout  the  United  States. 

I  pass  one  or  two  points  I  have  because  my  time  will  very  soon 
expire,  but  I  must  be  allowed  to  say  that  Judge  Douglas  recurs 
again,  as  he  did  upon  one  or  two  other  occasions,  to  the  enormity  of 
Lincoln  —  an  insignificant  individual  like  Lincoln  —  upon  his  ipse 
dixit  charging  a  conspiracy  upon  a  large  number  of  members  of 
Congress,  the  Supreme  Court,  and  two  Presidents,  to  nationalize 
slavery.  I  want  to  say  that,  in  the  first  place,  I  have  made  no  charge 
of  this  sort  upon  my  ipse  dixit.  I  have  only  arrayed  the  evidence 
tending  to  prove  it,  and  presented  it  to  the  understanding  of  others,  Jt  , 
saying  what  I  think  it  proves,  but  giving  you  the  means  of  judging ; 
whether  it  proves  it  or  not.  This  is  precisely  what  I  have  done.  I 
have  not  placed  it  upon  my  ipse  dixit  at  all.  On  this  occasion,  I 
wish  to  recall  his  attention  to  a  piece  of  evidence  which  I  brought 
forward  at  Ottawa  on  Saturday,  showing  that  he  had  made  substan 
tially  the  same  charge  against  substantially  the  same  persons,  ex 
cluding  his  dear  self  from  the  category.  I  ask  him  to  give  some 
attention  to  the  evidence  which  I  brought  forward,  that  he  himself 
had  discovered  a  "  fatal  blow  being  struck  "  against  the  right  of  the 
people  to  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits,  which  fatal  blow  he  as 
sumed  as  in  evidence  in  an  article  in  the  Washington  "  Union,"  pub 
lished  a  by  authority."  I  ask  by  whose  authority  ?  He  discovers  a 
similar  or  identical  provision  in  the  Lecompton  constitution.  Made 
by  whom  ?  The  f ramers  of  that  constitution .  Advocated  by  whom  ? 
By  all  the  members  of  the  party  in  the  nation,  who  advocated  the  intro 
duction  of  Kansas  into  the  Union  under  the  Lecompton  constitution. 

I  have  asked  his  attention  to  the  evidence  that  he  arrayed  to 
prove  that  such  a  fatal  blow  was  being  struck,  and  to  the  facts 
which  he  brought  forward  in  support  of  that  charge  —  being  identi 
cal  with  the  one  which  he  thinks  so  villainous  in  me.  He  pointed 
it  not  at  a  newspaper  editor  merely,  but  at  the  President  and  his 
cabinet,  and  the  members  of  Congress  advocating  the  Lecompton 
constitution,  and  those  framing  that  instrument.  I  must  again  be 
permitted  to  remind  him,  that  although  my  ipse  dixit  may  not  be  as 
great  as  his,  yet  it  somewhat  reduces  the  force  of  his  calling  my  at 
tention  to  the  enormity  of  my  making  a  like  charge  against  him. 

Go  on,  Judge  Douglas. 

Mr.  Douglas's  Reply  in  the  Freeport  Joint  Debate. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen :  The  silence  with  which  you  have  listened 
to  Mr.  Lincoln  during  his  hour  is  creditable  to  this  vast  audience, 


314         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

composed  of  men  of  various  political  parties.  Nothing  is  more  hon 
orable  to  any  large  mass  of  people  assembled  for  the  purpose  of  a 
fair  discussion,  than  that  kind  and  respectful  attention  that  is  yielded 
not  only  to  your  political  friends,  but  to  those  who  are  opposed  to 
you  in  politics. 

I  am  glad  that  at  last  I  have  brought  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  conclu 
sion  that  he  had  better  define  his  position  on  certain  political  ques 
tions  to  which  I  called  his  attention  at  Ottawa.  He  there  showed  no 
disposition,  no  inclination,  to  answer  them.  I  did  not  present  idle 
questions  for  him  to  answer  merely  for  my  gratification.  I  laid  the 
foundation  for  those  interrogatories  by  showing  that  they  constituted 
the  platform  of  the  party  whose  nominee  he  is  for  the  Senate.  I  did 
not  presume  that  I  had  the  right  to  catechize  him  as  I  saw  proper, 
unless  I  showed  that  his  party,  or  a  majority  of  it,  stood  upon  the 
platform,  and  were  in  favor  of  the  propositions  upon  which  my  ques 
tions  were  based.  I  desired  simply  to  know,  inasmuch  as  he  had 
been  nominated  as  the  first,  last,  and  only  choice  of  his  party,  whether 
he  concurred  in  the  platform  which  that  party  had  adopted  for  its 
government.  In  a  few  moments  I  will  proceed  to  review  the  answers 
which  he  has  given  to  these  interrogatories,  but  in  order  to  relieve 
his  anxiety  I  will  first  respond  to  these  which  he  has  presented  to  me. 
Mark  you,  he  has  not  presented  interrogatories  which  have  ever  re 
ceived  the  sanction  of  the  party  with  which  I  am  acting,  and  hence 
he  has  no  other  foundation  for  them  than  his  own  curiosity. 

First,  he  desires  to  know  if  the  people  of  Kansas  shall  form  a 
constitution  by  means  entirely  proper  and  unobjectionable  and  ask 
admission  into  the  Union  as  a  State,  before  they  have  the  requisite 
population  for  a  member  of  Congress,  whether  I  will  vote  for  that 
admission.  Well,  now,  I  regret  exceedingly  that  he  did  not  answer 
that  interrogatory  himself  before  he  put  it  to  me,  in  order  that  we 
might  understand,  and  not  be  left  to  infer,  on  which  side  he  is.  Mr. 
Trumbull,  during  the  last  session  of  Congress,  voted  from  the  begin 
ning  to  the  end  against  the  admission  of  Oregon,  although  a  free 
State,  because  she  had  not  the  requisite  population  for  a  member  of 
Congress.  Mr.  Trumbull  would  not  consent,  under  any  circumstances, 
to  let  a  State,  free  or  slave,  come  into  the  Union  until  it  had  the  re 
quisite  population.  As  Mr.  Trumbull  is  in  the  field,  fighting  for  Mr. 
Lincoln,  I  would  like  to  have  Mr.  Lincoln  answer  his  own  question 
and  tell  me  whether  he  is  fighting  Trumbull  on  that  issue  or  not. 
But  I  will  answer  his  question.  In  reference  to  Kansas,  it  is  my 
opinion  that  as  she  has  population  enough  to  constitute  a  slave 
State,  she  has  people  enough  for  a  free  State.  I  will  not  make  Kansas 
an  exceptional  case  to  the  other  States  of  the  Union.  I  hold  it  to  be 
a  sound  rule  of  universal  application  to  require  a  Territory  to  contain 
the  requisite  population  for  a  member  of  Congress,  before  it  is  ad 
mitted  as  a  State  into  the  Union.  I  made  that  proposition  in  the 
Senate  in  1856,  and  I  renewed  it  during  the  last  session,  in  a  bill  pro 
viding  that  no  Territory  of  the  United  States  should  form  a  consti 
tution  and  apply  for  admission  until  it  had  the  requisite  population. 
On  another  occasion  I  proposed  that  neither  Kansas,  nor  any  other 
Territory,  should  be  admitted  until  it  had  the  requisite  population. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN          315 

Congress  did  not  adopt  any  of  my  propositions  containing  this  gen 
eral  rule,  but  did  make  an  exception  of  Kansas.  I  will  stand  by 
that  exception.  Either  Kansas  must  come  in  as  a  free  State,  with 
whatever  population  she  may  have,  or  the  rule  must  be  applied  to  all 
the  other  Territories  alike.  I  therefore  answer  at  once  that,  it  having 
been  decided  that  Kansas  has  people  enough  for  a  slave  State,  I  hold 
that  she  has  enough  for  a  free  State.  I  hope  Mr.  Lincoln  is  satisfied 
with  my  answer  j  and  now  I  would  like  to  get  his  answer  to  his  own 
interrogatory — whether  or  not  he  will  vote  to  admit  Kansas  before 
she  has  the  requisite  population.  I  want  to  know  whether  he  will 
vote  to  admit  Oregon  before  that  Territory  has  the  requisite  popula 
tion.  Mr.  Trumbull  will  not,  and  the  same  reason  that  commits  Mr. 
Trumbull  against  the  admission  of  Oregon  commits  him  against 
Kansas,  even  if  she  should  apply  for  admission  as  a  free  State.  If 
there  is  any  sincerity,  any  truth,  in  the  argument  of  Mr.  Trumbull  in 
the  Senate,  against  the  admission  of  Oregon  because  she  had  not 
93,420  people,  although  her  population  was  larger  than  that  of  Kan 
sas,  he  stands  pledged  against  the  admission  of  both  Oregon  and 
Kansas  until  they  have  93,420  inhabitants.  I  would  like  Mr.  Lincoln 
to  answer  this  question.  I  would  like  him  to  take  his  own  medicine. 
If  he  differs  with  Mr.  Trumbull,  let  him  answer  his  argument  against 
the  admission  of  Oregon,  instead  of  poking  questions  at  me. 

The  next  question  propounded  to  me  by  Mr.  Lincoln  is:  Can  the 
people  of  a  Territory  in  any  lawful  way,  against  the  wishes  of  any 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits  prior 
to  the  formation  of  a  State  constitution  ?  I  answer  emphatically,  as 
Mr.  Lincoln  has  heard  me  answer  a  hundred  times  from  every  stump 
in  Illinois,  that  in  my  opinion  the  people  'of  a  Territory  can,  by  law 
ful  means,  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits  prior  to  the  formation 
of  a  State  constitution.  Mr.  Lincoln  knew  that  I  had  answered  that 
question  over  and  over  again.  He  heard  me  argue  the  Nebraska 
bill  on  that  principle  all  over  the  State  in  1854,  in  1855,  and  in  1856, 
and  he  has  no  excuse  for  pretending  to  be  in  doubt  as  to  my  posi 
tion  on  that  question.  It  matters  not  what  way  the  Supreme  Court 
may  hereafter  decide  as  to  the  abstract  question  "whether  slavery  may 
or  may  not  go  into  a  Territory  under  the  Constitution,  the  people 
have  the  lawful  means  to  introduce  it  or  exclude  it  as  they  please,  for 
the  reason  that  slavery  cannot  exist  a  day  or  an  hour  anywhere  un 
less  it  is  supported  by  local  police  regulations.  Those  police  regu 
lations  can  only  be  established  by  the  local  legislature,  and  if  the 
people  are  opposed  to  slavery  they  will  elect  representatives  to  that 
body  who  will  by  unfriendly  legislation  effectually  prevent  the  in 
troduction  of  it  into  their  midst.  If,  on  the  contrary,  they  are  for 
it,  their  legislation  will  favor  its  extension.  Hence,  no  matter  what 
the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  may  be  on  that  abstract  question, 
still  the  right  of  the  people  to  make  a  slave  Territory  or  a  free  Ter 
ritory  is  perfect  and  complete  under  the  Nebraska  bill.  I  hope  Mr. 
Lincoln  deems  my  answer  satisfactory  on  that  point. 

In  this  connection  I  will  notice  the  charge  which  he  has  introduced 
in  relation  to  Mr.  Chase's  amendment.  I  thought  that  I  had  chased 
that  amendment  out  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  brain  at  Ottawa ;  but  it  seems 


316          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

that  still  haunts  his  imagination,  and  he  is  not  yet  satisfied.  I  had 
supposed  that  he  would  be  ashamed  to  press  that  question  further. 
He  is  a  lawyer,  and  has  been  a  member  of  Congress,  and  has  occu 
pied  his  time  and  amused  you  by  telling  you  about  parliamentary 
proceedings.  He  ought  to  have  known  better  than  to  try  to  palm 
off  his  miserable  impositions  upon  this  intelligent  audience.  The 
Nebraska  bill  provided  that  the  legislative  power  and  authority  of 
the  said  Territory  should  extend  to  all  rightful  subjects  of  legislation 
consistent  with  the  organic  act  and  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  It  did  not  make  any  exception  as  to  slavery,  but  gave  all 
the  power  that  it  was  possible  for  Congress  to  give,  without  violat 
ing  the  Constitution,  to  the  territorial  legislature,  with  no  exception 
or  limitation  on  the  subject  of  slavery  at  all.  The  language  of  that 
bill  which  I  have  quoted  gave  the  full  power  and  the  full  authority 
over  the  subject  of  slavery,  affirmatively  and  negatively,  to  intro 
duce  it  or  exclude  it,  so  far  as  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
would  permit.  What  more  could  Mr.  Chase  give  by  his  amendment? 
Nothing.  He  offered  his  amendment  for  the  identical  purpose  for 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  is  using  it,  to  enable  demagogues  in  the  country 
to  try  and  deceive  the  people. 

His  amendment  was  to  this  effect.  It  provided  that  the  legis 
lature  should  have  the  power  to  exclude  slavery;  and  General 
Cass  suggested,  "  Why  not  give  the  power  to  introduce  as  well  as 
exclude  ? "  The  answer  was,  they  have  the  power  already  in  the  bill 
to  do  both.  Chase  was  afraid  his  amendment  would  be  adopted  if 
he  put  the  alternative  proposition  and  so  make  it  fair  both  ways, 
but  would  not  yield.  He  offered  it  for  the  purpose  of  having  it  re 
jected.  He  offered  it,  as  he  has  himself  avowed  over  and  over  again, 
simply  to  make  capital  out  of  it  for  the  stump.  He  expected  that 
it  would  be  capital  for  small  politicians  in  the  country,  and  that 
they  would  make  an  effort  to  deceive  the  people  with  it;  and  he  was 
not  mistaken,  for  Lincoln  is  carrying  out  the  plan  admirably.  Lin 
coln  knows  that  the  Nebraska  bill,  without  Chase's  amendment,  gave 
all  the  power  which  the  Constitution  would  permit.  Could  Congress 
confer  any  more  ?  Could  Congress  go  beyond  the  Constitution  of 
the  country  ?  We  gave  all — a  full  grant,  with  no  exception  in  regard 
to  slavery  one  way  or  the  other.  We  left  that  question  as  we  left 
all  others,  to  be  decided  by  the  people  for  themselves,  just  as  they 
pleased.  I  will  not  occupy  my  time  on  this  question.  I  have  argued 
it  before  all  over  Illinois.  I  have  argued  it  in  this  beautiful  city  of 
Freeport ;  I  have  argued  it  in  the  North,  the  South,  the  East,  and 
the  West,  avowing  the  same  sentiments  and  the  same  principles.  I 
have  not  been  afraid  to  avow  my  sentiments  up  here  for  fear  I  would 
be  trotted  down  into  Egypt. 

The  third  question  which  Mr.  Lincoln  presented  is,  if  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  shall  decide  that  a  State  of  this  Union 
cannot  exclude  slavery  from  its  own  limits,  will  I  submit  to  it  ?  I 
am  amazed  that  Lincoln  should  ask  such  a  question.  ["A  school 
boy  knows  better."]  Yes,  a  school-boy  does  know  better.  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  object  is  to  cast  an  imputation  upon  the  Supreme  Court.  He 
knows  that  there  never  was  but  one  man  in  America  claiming  any 


ADDKESSES    AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          317 

degree  of  intelligence  or  decency,  who  ever  for  a  moment  pretended 
such  a  thing.  It  is  true  that  the  Washington  "  Union,"  in  an  article 
published  on  the  17th  of  last  December,  did  put  forth  that  doctrine, 
and  I  denounced  the  article  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  in  a  speech 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  now  pretends  was  against  the  President.  The 
"  Union  "  had  claimed  that  slavery  had  a  right  to  go  into  the  free 
States,  and  that  any  provision  in  the  constitution  or  laws  of  the  free 
States  to  the  contrary  was  null  and  void.  I  denounced  it  in  the 
Senate,  as  I  said  before,  and  I  was  the  first  man  who  did.  Lincoln's 
friends,  Trumbull,  and  Seward,  and  Hale,  and  Wilson,  and  the 
whole  Black  Republican  side  of  the  Senate  were  silent.  They  left  it 
to  me  to  denounce  it.  And  what  was  the  reply  made  to  me  on  that 
occasion  ?  Mr.  Toombs,  of  Georgia,  got  up  and  undertook  to  lecture 
me  on  the  ground  that  I  ought  not  to  have  deemed  the  article  wor 
thy  of  notice,  and  ought  not  to  have  replied  to  it ;  that  there  was 
not  one  man,  woman,  or  child  south  of  the  Potomac,  in  any  slave 
State,  who  did  not  repudiate  any  such  pretension.  Mr.  Lincoln 
knows  that  that  reply  was  made  on  the  spot,  and  yet  now  he  asks 
this  question.  He  might  as  well  ask  me,  suppose  Mr.  Lincoln  should 
steal  a  horse,  would  I  sanction  it  ?  and  it  would  be  as  genteel  in  me 
to  ask  him,  in  the  event  he  stole  a  horse,  what  ought  to  be  done  with 
him.  He  casts  an  imputation  upon  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  by  supposing  that  they  would  violate  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  I  tell  him  that  such  a  thing  is  not  possible.  It 
would  be  an  act  of  moral  treason  that  no  man  on  the  bench  could 
ever  descend  to.  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  would  never  in  his  partizan 
feelings  so  far  forget  what  was  right  as  to  be  guilty  of  such  an  act. 

The  fourth  question  of  Mr.  Lincoln  is :  Are  you  in  favor  of  acquir 
ing  additional  territory,  in  disregard  as  to  how  such  acquisition 
may  affect  the  Union  on  the  slavery  question  ?  This  question  is 
very  ingeniously  and  cunningly  put. 

The  Black  Republican  creed  lays  it  down  expressly,  that  under  no 
circumstances  shall  we  acquire  any  more  territory  unless  slavery  is 
first  prohibited  in  the  country.  I  ask  Mr.  Lincoln  whether  he  is  in 
favor  of  that  proposition.  Are  you  [addressing  Mr.  Lincoln]  op 
posed  to  the  acquisition  of  any  more  territory,  under  any  circum 
stances,  unless  slavery  is  prohibited  in  it  ?  That  he  does  not  like 
to  answer.  When  I  ask  him  whether  he  stands  up  to  that  article  in 
the  platform  of  his  party,  he  turns,  Yankee-fashion,  and,  without 
answering  it,  asks  me  whether  I  am  in  favor  of  acquiring  territory 
without  regard  to  how  it  may  affect  the  Union  on  the  slavery  ques 
tion.  I  answer  that  whenever  it  becomes  necessary,  in  our  growth 
and  progress,  to  acquire  more  territory,  that  I  am  in  favor  of  it,  with 
out  reference  to  the  question  of  slavery,  and  when  we  have  acquired 
it,  I  will  leave  the  people  free  to  do  as  they  please,  either  to  make  it 
slave  or  free  territory,  as  they  prefer.  It  is  idle  to  tell  me  or  you 
that  we  have  territory  enough.  Our  fathers  supposed  that  we  had 
enough  when  our  territory  extended  to  the  Mississippi  River,  but  a 
few  years'  growth  and  expansion  satisfied  them  that  .we  needed 
more,  and  the  Louisiana  territory,  from  the  west  branch  of  the 
Mississippi  to  the  British  possessions,  was  acquired.  Then  we  ac- 


318          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

quired  Oregon,  then  California  and  New  Mexico.  We  have  enough 
now  for  the  present,  but  this  is  a  young  and  a  growing  nation.  It 
swarms  as  often  as  a  hive  of  bees,  and  as  new  swarms  are  turned 
out  each  year,  there  must  be  hives  in  which  they  can  gather  and 
make  their  honey.  In  less  than  fifteen  years,  if  the  same  progress 
that  has  distinguished  this  country  for  the  last  fifteen  years  con 
tinues,  every  foot  of  vacant  land  between  this  and  the  Pacific  ocean, 
owned  by  the  United  States,  will  be  occupied.  Will  you  not  con 
tinue  to  increase  at  the  end  of  fifteen  years  as  well  as  now  ?  I  tell 
you,  increase,  and  multiply,  and  expand,  is  the  law  of  this  nation's 
existence.  You  cannot  limit  this  great  republic  by  mere  boundary 
lines,  saying,  "  Thus  far  shalt  thou  go,  and  no  further."  Any  one  of 
you  gentlemen  might  as  well  say  to  a  son  twelve  years  old  that  he 
is  big  enough,  and  must  not  grow  any  larger,  and  in  order  to  pre 
vent  his  growth  put  a  hoop  around  him  to  keep  him  to  his  present 
size.  What  would  be  the  result  ?  Either  the  hoop  must  burst  and 
be  rent  asunder,  or  the  child  must  die.  So  it  would  be  with  this 
great  nation.  With  our  natural  increase,  growing  with  a  rapidity 
unknown  in  any  other  part  of  the  globe,  with  the  tide  of  emigration 
that  is  fleeing  from  despotism  in  the  Old  World  to  seek  refuge  in  our 
own,  there  is  a  constant  torrent  pouring  into  this  country  that  re 
quires  more  land,  more  territory  upon  which  to  settle,  and  just  as 
fast  as  our  interests  and  our  destiny  require  additional  territory  in 
the  North,  in  the  South,  or  on  the  islands  of  the  ocean,  I  am  for  it, 
and  when  we  acquire  it,  will  leave  the  people,  according  to  the 
Nebraska  bill,  free  to  do  as  they  please  on  the  subject  of  slavery 
and  every  other  question. 

I  trust  now  that  Mr.  Lincoln  will  deem  himself  answered  on  his 
four  points.  He  racked  his  brain  so  much  in  devising  these  four 
questions  that  he  exhausted  himself,  and  had  not  strength  enough 
to  invent  the  others.  As  soon  as  he  is  able  to  hold  a  council  with 
his  advisers,  Lovejoy,  Farnsworth,  and  Fred  Douglass,  he  will  frame 
and  propound  others.  ["  Good,  good.'7]  You  Black  Republicans  who 
say  good,  I  have  no  doubt  think  that  they  are  all  good  men.  I  have 
reason  to  recollect  that  some  people  in  this  country  think  that  Fred 
Douglass  is  a  very  good  man.  The  last  time  I  came  here  to  make  a 
speech,  while  talking  from  the  stand  to  you,  people  of  Freeport,  as 
I  am  doing  to-day,  I  saw  a  carriage,  and  a  magnificent  one  it  was, 
drive  up  and  take  a  position  on  the  outside  of  the  crowd ;  a  beautiful 
young  lady  was  sitting  on  the  box-seat,  whilst  Fred  Douglass  and 
her  mother  reclined  inside,  and  the  owner  of  the  carriage  acted  as 
driver.  I  saw  this  in  your  own  town.  ["  What  of  it  ? "]  All  I  have 
to  say  of  it  is  this,  that  if  you  Black  Republicans  think  that  the 
negro  ought  to  be  on  a  social  equality  with  your  wives  and  daugh 
ters,  and  ride  in  a  carriage  with  your  wife,  whilst  you  drive  the  team, 
you  have  perfect  right  to  do  so.  I  am  told  that  one  of  Fred  Doug 
lass's  kinsmen,  another  rich  black  negro,  is  now  traveling  in  this  part 
of  the  State  making  speeches  for  his  friend  Lincoln  as  the  champion 
of  black  men.  ["  What  have  you  to  say  against  it!"]  All  I  have 
to  say  on  that  subject  is,  that  those  of  you  who  believe  that  the  negro 
is  your  equal  and  ought  to  be  on  an  equality  with  you  socially,  po- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          319 

litically,  and  legally,  have  a  right  to  entertain  those  opinions,  and 
of  course  will  vote  for  Mr.  Lincoln. 

I  have  a  word  to  say  on  Mr.  Lincoln's  answer  to  the  interrogato 
ries  contained  in  my  speech  at  Ottawa,  and  which  he  has  pretended 
to  reply  to  here  to-day.  Mr.  Lincoln  makes  a  great  parade  of  the  fact 
that  I  quoted  a  platform  as  having  been  adopted  by  the  Black  Repub 
lican  party  at  Springfield  in  1854,  which,  it  turns  out,  was  adopted 
at  another  place.  Mr.  Lincoln  loses  sight  of  the  thing  itself  in  his  ec 
stasies  over  the  mistake  I  made  in  stating  the  place  where  it  was  done. 
He  thinks  that  that  platform  was  not  adopted  on  the  right  "  spot." 

When  I  put  the  direct  questions  to  Mr.  Lincoln  to  ascertain 
whether  he  now  stands  pledged  to  that  creed — to  the  unconditional 
repeal  of  the  fugitive-slave  law,  a  refusal  to  admit  any  more  slave 
States  into  the  Union  even  if  the  people  want  them,  a  determination 
to  apply  the  Wilmot  proviso,  not  only  to  all  the  territory  we  now  have, 
but  all  that  we  may  hereafter  acquire — he  refused  to  answer,  and  his 
followers  say,  in  excuse,  that  the  resolutions  upon  which  I  based  my 
interrogatories  were  not  adopted  at  the  right  "  spot.77  Lincoln  and 
his  political  friends  are  great  on  "spots.77  In  Congress,  as  a  repre 
sentative  of  this  State,  he  declared  the  Mexican  war  to  be  unjust  and 
infamous,  and  would  not  support  it,  or  acknowledge  his  own  country 
to  be  right  in  the  contest,  because  he  said  that  American  blood  was 
not  shed  on  American  soil  in  the  right  "spot."  And  now  he  cannot 
answer  the  questions  I  put  to  him  at  Ottawa  because  the  resolutions 
I  read  were  not  adopted  at  the  right "  spot."  It  may  be  possible  that 
I  was  led  into  an  error  as  to  the  spot  on  which  the  resolutions  I  then 
read  were  proclaimed,  but  I  was  not,  and  am  not  in  error  as  to  the 
fact  of  their  forming  the  basis  of  the  creed  of  the  Republican  party 
when  that  party  was  first  organized.  I  will  state  to  you  the  evidence 
I  had,  and  upon  which  I  relied  for  my  statement  that  the  resolutions 
in  question  were  adopted  at  Springfield  on  the  5th  of  October,  1854. 
Although  I  was  aware  that  such  resolutions  had  been  passed  in  this 
district,  and  nearly  all  the  northern  congressional  districts  and 
county  conventions,  I  had  not  noticed  whether  or  not  they  had  been 
adopted  by  any  State  convention.  In  1856  a  debate  arose  in  Con 
gress  between  Major  Thomas  L.  Harris,  of  the  Springfield  district, 
and  Mr.  Norton,  of  the  Joliet  district,  on  political  matters  connected 
with  our  State,  in  the  course  of  which  Major  Harris  quoted  those 
resolutions  as  having  been  passed  by  the  first  Republican  State  con 
vention  that  ever  assembled  in  Illinois.  I  knew  that  Major  Harris 
was  remarkable  for  his  accuracy,  that  he  was  a  very  conscientious 
and  sincere  man,  and  I  also  noticed  that  Norton  did  not  question  the 
accuracy  of  this  statement.  I  therefore  took  it  for  granted  that  it 
was  so,  and  the  other  day  when  I  concluded  to  use  the  resolutions  at 
Ottawa,  I  wrote  to  Charles  H.  Lanphier,  editor  of  the  "  State  Regis 
ter,77  at  Springfield,  calling  his  attention  to  them,  telling  him  that  I 
had  been  informed  that  Major  Harris  was  lying  sick  at  Springfield, 
and  desiring  him  to  call  upon  him  and  ascertain  all  the  facts  con 
cerning  the  resolutions,  the  time  and  the  place  where  they  were 
adopted.  In  reply  Mr.  Lanphier  sent  me  two  copies  of  his  paper, 
which  I  have  here.  The  first  is  a  copy  of  the  "  State  Register,"  pub- 


320          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

lished  at  Springfield,  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  town,  on  the  16th  of  October, 
1854,  only  eleven  days  after  the  adjournment  of  the  convention,  from 
which  I  desire  to  read  the  following: 

During  the  late  discussions  in  this  city,  Lincoln  made  a  speech,  to  which 
Judge  Douglas  replied.  In  Lincoln's  speech  he  took  the  broad  ground  that, 
according  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  whites  and  blacks  are 
equal.  From  this  he  drew  the  conclusion,  which  he  several  times  repeated, 
that  the  white  man  had  no  right  to  pass  laws  for  the  government  of  the 
black  man  without  the  nigger's  consent.  This  speech  of  Lincoln's  was 
heard  and  applauded  by  all  the  Abolitionists  assembled  in  Springfield.  So 
soon  as  Mr.  Lincoln  was  done  speaking,  Mr.  Codding  arose  and  requested 
all  the  delegates  to  the  Black  Republican  convention  to  withdraw  into  the 
Senate  chamber.  They  did  so,  and  after  long  deliberation,  they  laid  down 
the  following  Abolition  platform  as  the  platform  on  which  they  stood.  We 
call  the  particular  attention  of  our  readers  to  it. 

Then  follows  the  identical  platform,  word  for  word,  which  I  read 
at  Ottawa.  Now,  that  was  published  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  town, 
eleven  days  after  the  convention  was  held,  and  it  has  remained  on 
record  up  to  this  day  never  contradicted. 

When  I  quoted  the  resolutions  at  Ottawa  and  questioned  Mr.  Lin 
coln  in  relation  to  them,  he  said  that  his  name  was  on  the  committee 
that  reported  them,  but  he  did  not  serve,  nor  did  he  think  he  served, 
because  he  was,  or  thought  he  was,  in  Tazewell  County  at  the  time 
the  convention  was  in  session.  He  did  not  deny  that  the  resolutions 
were  passed  by  the  Springfield  convention.  He  did  not  know  better, 
and  evidently  thought  that  they  were,  but  afterward  his  friends 
declared  that  they  had  discovered  that  they  varied  in  some  respects 
from  the  resolutions  passed  by  that  convention.  I  have  shown  you 
that  I  had  good  evidence  for  believing  that  the  resolutions  had  been 
passed  at  Springfield.  Mr.  Lincoln  ought  to  have  known  better ; 
but  not  a  word  is  said  about  his  ignorance  on  the  subject,  whilst  I, 
notwithstanding  the  circumstances,  am  accused  of  forgery. 

Now,  I  will  show  you  that  if  I  have  made  a  mistake  as  to  the  place 
where  these  resolutions  were  adopted — and  when  I  get  down  to 
Springfield  I  will  investigate  the  matter  and  see  whether  or  not  I 
have  —  the  principles  they  enunciate  were  adopted  as  the  Black 
Republican  platform  ["  White,  white  "],  in  the  various  counties  and 
congressional  districts  throughout  the  north  end  of  the  State  in 
1854.  This  platform  was  adopted  in  nearly  every  county  that  gave 
a  Black  Republican  majority  for  the  legislature  in  that  year,  and 
here  is  a  man  [pointing  to  Mr.  Denio,  who  sat  on  the  stand  near 
Deacon  Bross]  who  knows  as  well  as  any  living  man  that  it  was  the 
creed  of  the  Black  Republican  party  at  that  time.  I  would  be  willing 
to  call  Denio  as  a  witness,  or  any  other  honest  man  belonging  to  that 
party.  I  will  now  read  the  resolutions  adopted  at  the  Rockf  ord  con 
vention  on  the  30th  of  August,  1854,  which  nominated  Washburne 
for  Congress.  You  elected  him  on  the  following  platform  : 

Resolved,  That  the  continued  and  increasing  aggressions  of  slavery  in  our 
country  are  destructive  of  the  best  rights  of  a  free  people,  and  that  such 
aggressions  cannot  be  successfully  resisted  without  the  united  political 
action  of  all  good  men. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          321 

Resolved,  That  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  hold  in  their  hands  peace 
ful,  constitutional,  and  efficient  remedy  against  the  encroachments  of  the 
slave  power,  the  ballot-box  ;  and  if  that  remedy  is  boldly  and  wisely  ap 
plied,  the  principles  of  liberty  and  eternal  justice  will  be  established. 

Resolved,  That  we  accept  this  issue  forced  upon  us  by  the  slave  power, 
and,  in  defense  of  freedom,  will  cooperate  and  be  known  as  Republicans, 
pledged  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  following  purposes : 

To  bring  the  administration  of  the  government  back  to  the  control  of 
first  principles ;  to  restore  Kansas  and  Nebraska  to  the  position  of  free  Ter 
ritories  j  to  repeal  and  entirely  abrogate  the  fugitive-slave  law  j  to  restrict 
slavery  to  those  States  in  which  it  exists;  to  prohibit  the  admission  of  any 
more  slave  States  into  the  Union ;  to  exclude  slavery  from  all  the  Territo 
ries  over  which  the  General  Government  has  exclusive  jurisdiction,  and  to 
resist  the  acquisition  of  any  more  Territories  unless  the  introduction  of 
slavery  therein  forever  shall  have  been  prohibited. 

Resolved,  That  in  furtherance  of  these  principles  we  will  use  such  consti 
tutional  and  lawful  means  as  shall  seem  best  adapted  to  their  accomplish 
ment,  and  that  we  will  support  no  man  for  office  under  the  General  or  State 
Government  who  is  not  positively  committed  to  the  support  of  these  prin 
ciples,  and  whose  personal  character  and  conduct  is  not  a  guaranty  that  he 
is  reliable  and  shall  abjure  all  party  allegiance  and  ties. 

Resolved,  That  we  cordially  invite  persons  of  all  former  political  parties 
whatever  in  favor  of  the  object  expressed  in  the  above  resolutions  to  unite 
with  us  in  carrying  them  into  effect. 

Well,  you  think  that  is  a  very  good  platform,  do  you  not  ?  If  you 
do,  if  you  approve  it  now,  and  think  it  is  all  right,  you  will  not  join 
with  those  men  who  say  that  I  libel  you  by  calling  these  your  prin 
ciples,  will  you  ?  Now,  Mr.  Lincoln  complains  j  Mr.  Lincoln  charges 
that  I  did  you  and  him  injustice  by  saying  that  this  was  the  plat 
form  of  your  party.  I  am  told  that  Washburne  made  a  speech  in 
Galena  last  night,  in  which  he  abused  me  awfully  for  bringing  to 
light  this  platform,  on  which  he  was  elected  to  Congress.  He 
thought  that  you  had  forgotten  it,  as  he  and  Mr.  Lincoln  desire  to. 
He  did  not  deny  but  that  you  had  adopted  it,  and  that  he  had  sub 
scribed  to  and  was  pledged  by  it,  but  he  did  not  think  it  was  fair  to 
call  it  up  and  remind  the  people  that  it  was  their  platform. 

But  I  am  glad  to  find  that  you  are  more  honest  in  your  Abolition 
ism  than  your  leaders,  by  avowing  that  it  is  your  platform,  and 
right  in  your  opinion. 

In  the  adoption  of  that  platform,  you  not  only  declared  that  you 
would  resist  the  admission  of  any  more  slave  States,  and  work  for 
the  repeal  of  the  fugitive-slave  law,  but  you  pledged  yourself  not 
to  vote  for  any  man  for  State  or  Federal  offices  who  was  not  com 
mitted  to  these  principles.  You  were  thus  committed.  Similar  res 
olutions  to  those  were  adopted  in  your  county  convention  here ; 
and  now  with  your  admissions  that  they  are  your  platform  and  em 
body  your  sentiments  now  as  they  did  then,  what  do  you  think  of 
Mr.  Lincoln,  your  candidate  for  the  United  States  Senate,  who  is  at 
tempting  to  dodge  the  responsibility  of  this  platform,  because  it  was 
not  adopted  in  the  right  spot!  I  thought  that  it  was  adopted  in 
Springfield,  but  it  turns  out  it  was  not,  that  it  was  adopted  at  Rock- 
ford,  and  in  the  various  counties  which  comprise  this  congressional 
district.  When  I  get  into  the  next  district,  I  will  show  that  the 
VOL.  I.— 21. 


322         ADDRESSES  AND  LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

same  platform  was  adopted  there,  and  so  on  through  the  State,  until 
I  nail  the  responsibility  of  it  upon  the  back  of  the  Black  Republican 
party  throughout  the  State.  [A  voice :  "  Could  n't  you  modify  and 
call  it  brown  ?"]  Not  a  bit.  I  thought  that  you  were  becoming  a 
little  brown  when  your  members  in  Congress  voted  for  the  Critten- 
den-Montgomery  bill,  but  since  you  have  backed  out  from  that  po 
sition,  and  gone  back  to  Abolitionism,  you  are  black  and  not  brown. 
Gentlemen,  I  have  shown  you  what  your  platform  was  in  1854. 
You  still  adhere  to  it.  The  same  platform  was  adopted  by  nearly 
all  the  counties  where  the  Black  Republican  party  had  a  majority 
in  1854.  I  wish  now  to  call  your  attention  to  the  action  of  your 
representatives  in  the  legislature  when  they  assembled  together  at 
Springfield.  In  the  first  place  you  must  remember  that  this  was  the 
organization  of  a  new  party.  It  is  so  declared  in  the  resolutions 
themselves,  which  say  that  you  are  going  to  dissolve  all  old  party 
ties  and  call  the  new  party  Republican.  The  Old  Whig  party  was  to 
have  its  throat  cut  from  ear  to  ear,  and  the  Democratic  party  was  to 
be  annihilated  and  blotted  out  of  existence,  whilst  in  lieu  of  these 
parties  the  Black  Republican  party  was  to  be  organized  on  this  Abo 
lition  platform.  You  know  who  the  chief  leaders  were  in  breaking 
up  and  destroying  these  two  great  parties.  Lincoln  on  the  one  hand 
and  Trumbull  on  the  other,  being  disappointed  politicians,  and  having 
retired  or  been  driven  to  obscurity  by  an  outraged  constituency  be 
cause  of  their  political  sins,  formed  a"  scheme  to  Abolitionize  the  two 
parties,  and  lead  the  old-line  Whigs  and  old-line  Democrats  captive, 
bound  hand  and  foot,  into  the  Abolition  camp.  Giddings,  Chase, 
Fred  Douglass,  and  Lovejoy  were  here  to  christen  them  whenever 
they  were  brought  in.  Lincoln  went  to  work  to  dissolve  the  old-line 
Whig  party.  Clay  was  dead,  and  although  the  sod  was  not  yet  green 
on  his  grave,  this  man  undertook  to  bring  into  disrepute  those  great 
compromise  measures  of  1850,  with  which  Clay  and  Webster  were 
identified.  Up  to  1854  the  Old  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party 
had  stood  on  a  common  platform  so  far  as  this  slavery  question  was 
concerned.  You  Whigs  and  we  Democrats  differed  about  the  bank, 
the  tariff,  distribution,  the  specie  circular,  and  the  subtreasury,  but 
we  agreed  on  this  slavery  question  and  the  true  mode  of  preserving 
the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  Union.  The  compromise  measures  of 
1850  were  introduced  by  Clay,  were  defended  by  Webster,  and  sup 
ported  by  Cass,  and  were  approved  by  Fillmore,  and  sanctioned  by  the 
national  men  of  both  parties.  They  constituted  a  common  plank 
upon  which  both  Whigs  and  Democrats  stood.  In  1852  the  Whig 
party,  in  its  last  national  convention  at  Baltimore,  indorsed  and  ap 
proved  these  measures  of  Clay,  and  so  did  the  national  convention 
of  the  Democratic  party  held  that  same  year.  Thus  the  old-line 
Whigs  and  the  old-line  Democrats  stood  pledged  to  the  great  prin 
ciple  of  self-government,  which  guarantees  to  the  people  of  each 
Territory  the  right  to  decide  the  slavery  question  for  themselves.  In 
1854,  after  the  death  of  Clay  and  Webster,  Mr.  Lincoln,  on  the  part 
of  the  Whigs,  undertook  to  Abolitionize  the  Whig  party  by  dissolving 
it,  transferring  the  members  into  the  Abolition  camp  and  making 
them  train  under  Giddings,  Fred  Douglass,  Lovejoy,  Chase,  Farns- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          323 

worth,  and  other  Abolition  leaders.  Trumbull  undertook  to  dissolve 
the  Democratic  party  by  taking  old  Democrats  into  the  Abolition 
camp.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  aided  in  his  efforts  by  many  leading  Whigs 
throughout  the  State — your  member  of  Congress,  Mr.  Washburne, 
being  one  of  the  most  active.  Trumbull  was  aided  by  many  rene 
gades  from  the  Democratic  party,  among  whom  were  John  Went- 
worth,  Tom  Turner,  and  others  with  whom  you  are  familiar. 

Mr.  Turner,  who  was  one  of  the  moderators,  here  interposed,  and 
said  that  he  had  drawn  the  resolutions  which  Senator  Douglas  had 
read. 

Mr.  Douglas :  Yes,  and  Turner  says  that  he  drew  these  resolutions. 
["  Hurrah  for  Turner !  "  "  Hurrah  for  Douglas ! "]  That  is  right ; 
give  Turner  cheers  for  drawing  the  resolutions,  if  you  approve  them. 
If  he  drew  those  resolutions,  he  will  not  deny  that  they  are  the  creed 
of  the  Black  Republican  party. 

Mr.  Turner :  They  are  our  creed  exactly. 

Mr.  Douglas :  And  yet  Lincoln  denies  that  he  stands  on  them. 
Mr.  Turner  says  that  the  creed  of  the  Black  Republican  party  is  the 
admission  of  no  more  slave  States,  and  yet  Mr.  Lincoln  declares  that 
he  would  not  like  to  be  placed  in  a  position  where  he  would  have  to 
vote  for  them.  All  I  have  to  say  to  friend  Lincoln  is,  that  I  do  not 
think  there  is  much  danger  of  his  being  placed  in  such  a  position. 
As  Mr.  Lincoln  would  be  very  sorry  to  be  placed  in  such  an  embar 
rassing  position  as  to  be  obliged  to  vote  on  the  admission  of  any 
more  slave  States,  I  propose,  out  of  mere  kindness,  to  relieve  him 
from  any  such  necessity.  When  the  bargain  between  Lincoln  and 
Trumbull  was  completed  for  Abolitionizing  the  Whig  and  Demo 
cratic  parties,  they  "  spread"  over  the  State,  Lincoln  still  pretending 
to  be  an  old-line  Whig,  in  order  to  "rope  in"  the  Whigs,  and  Trum 
bull  pretending  to  be  as  good  a  Democrat  as  he  ever  was,  in  order 
to  coax  the  Democrats  over  into  the  Abolition  ranks.  They  played 
the  part  that  " decoy  ducks"  play  down  on  the  Potomac  River.  In 
that  part  of  the  country  they  make  artificial  ducks,  and  put  them  on 
the  water  in  places  where  the  wild  ducks  are  to  be  found,  for  the 
purpose  of  decoying  them.  Well,  Lincoln  and  Trumbull  played  the 
part  of  these  "  decoy  ducks,"  and  deceived  enough  old-line  Whigs 
and  old-line  Democrats  to  elect  a  Black  Republican  legislature. 
When  that  legislature  met,  the  first  thing  it  did  was  to  elect  as 
Speaker  of  the  House  the  very  man  who  is  now  boasting  that  he  wrote 
the  Abolition  platform  on  which  Lincoln  will  not  stand.  I  want  to 
know  of  Mr.  Turner  whether  or  not,  when  he  was  elected,  he  was  a 
good  embodiment  of  Republican  principles ! 

Mr.  Turner :    I  hope  I  was  then  and  am  now. 

Mr.  Douglas :  He  swears  that  he  hopes  he  was  then  and  is  now. 
He  wrote  that  Black  Republican  platform,  and  is  satisfied  with  it 
now.  I  admire  and  acknowledge  Turner's  honesty.  Every  man  of 
you  knows  what  he  says  about  these  resolutions  being  the  platform 
of  the  Black  Republican  party  is  true,  and  you  also  know  that  each 
one  of  these  men  who  are  shuffling  and  trying  to  deny  it  is  only 
trying  to  cheat  the  people  out  of  their  votes  for  the  purpose  of  deceiv 
ing  them  still  more  after  the  election.  I  propose  to  trace  this  thing 


324          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

a  little  further,  in  order  that  you  can  see  what  additional  evidence 
there  is  to  fasten  this  revolutionary  platform  upon  the  Black  Re 
publican  party.  When  the  legislature  assembled,  there  was  a  United 
States  senator  to  elect  in  the  place  of  General  Shields,  and  before 
they  proceeded  to  ballot,  Lovejoy  insisted  on  laying  down  certain 
principles  by  which  to  govern  the  party.  It  has  been  published  to 
the  world  and  satisfactorily  proven  that  there  was,  at  the  time  the  al 
liance  was  made  between  Trumbull  and  Lincoln  to  Abolitionize  the 
two  parties,  an  agreement  that  Lincoln  should  take  Shields's  place  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  and  Trumbull  should  have  mine  so  soon 
as  they  could  conveniently  get  rid  of  me.  When  Lincoln  was  beaten 
for  Shields's  place,  in  a  manner  I  will  refer  to  in  a  few  minutes,  he 
felt  very  sore  and  restive ;  his  friends  grumbled,  and  some  of  them 
came  out  and  charged  that  the  most  infamous  treachery  had  been 
practised  against  him ;  that  the  bargain  was  that  Lincoln  was  to  have 
had  Shields's  place,  and  Trumbull  was  to  have  waited  for  mine,  but 
that  Trumbull,  having  the  control  of  a  few  Abolitionized  Democrats, 
prevented  them  from  voting  for  Lincoln,  thus  keeping  him  within 
a  few  votes  of  an  election  until  he  succeeded  in  forcing  the  party  to 
drop  him  and  elect  Trumbull.  Well,  Trumbull  having  cheated  Lin 
coln,  his  friends  made  a  fuss,  and  in  order  to  keep  them  and  Lincoln 
quiet,  the  party  were  obliged  to  come  forward,  in  advance,  at  the  last 
State  election,  and  make  a  pledge  that  they  would  go  for  Lincoln  and 
nobody  else.  Lincoln  could  not  be  silenced  in  any  other  way. 

Now,  there  are  a  great  many  Black  Republicans  of  you  who  do  not 
know  this  thing  was  done.  ["  White,  white,"  and  great  clamor.]  I 
wish  to  remind  you  that  while  Mr.  Lincoln  was  speaking  there  was 
not  a  Democrat  vulgar  and  blackguard  enough  to  interrupt  him. 
But  I  know  that  the  shoe  is  pinching  you.  I  am  clinching  Lincoln 
now,  and  you  are  scared  to  death  for  the  result.  I  have  seen  this 
thing  before.  I  have  seen  men  make  appointments  for  joint  dis 
cussions,  and,  the  moment  their  man  has  been  heard,  try  to  inter 
rupt  and  prevent  a  fair  hearing  of  the  other  side.  I  have  seen  your 
mobs  before,  and  defy  your  wrath.  [Tremendous  applause.]  My 
friends,  do  not  cheer,  for  I  need  my  whole  time.  The  object  of  the 
opposition  is  to  occupy  my  attention  in  order  to  prevent  me  from 
giving  the  whole  evidence  and  nailing  this  double-dealing  on  the 
Black  Republican  party.  As  I  have  before  said,  Lovejoy  demanded 
a  declaration  of  principles  on  the  part  of  the  Black  Republicans  of 
the  legislature  before  going  into  an  election  for  United  States  sen 
ator.  He  offered  the  following  preamble  and  resolutions  which  I 
hold  in  my  hand : 

WHEREAS,  Human  slavery  is  a  violation  of  the  principles  of  natural  and 
revealed  rights ;  and  whereas,  the  fathers  of  the  Revolution,  fully  imbued 
with  the  spirit  of  these  principles,  declared  freedom  to  be  the  inalienable 
birthright  of  all  men ;  and  whereas,  the  preamble  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  avers  that  that  instrument  was  ordained  to  establish 
justice  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  posterity ; 
and  whereas,  in  furtherance  of  the  above  principles,  slavery  was  forever 
prohibited  in  the  old  Northwest  Territory,  and  more  recently  in  all  that 
territory  lying  west  and  north  of  the  State  of  Missouri  by  the  act  of  the 
Federal  Government ;  and  whereas,  the  repeal  of  the  prohibition  last  re- 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN        -325 

ferred  to  was  contrary  to  the  wishes  of  the  people  of  Illinois,  a  violation 
of  an  implied  compact,  long  deemed  sacred  by  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  and  a  wide  departure  from  the  uniform  action  of  the  General  Gov 
ernment  in  relation  to  the  extension  of  slavery ;  therefore, 

Resolved,  ~by  the  House  of  Representatives,  the  Senate  concurring  therein,  That 
our  senators  in  Congress  be  instructed,  and  our  representatives  requested 
to  introduce,  if  not  otherwise  introduced,  and  to  vote  for  a  bill  to  restore 
such  prohibition  to  the  aforesaid  Territories,  and  also  to  extend  a  similar 
prohibition  to  all  territory  which  now  belongs  to  the  United  States,  or 
which  may  hereafter  come  under  their  jurisdiction. 

Resolved,  That  our  senators  in  Congress  be  instructed,  and  our  repre 
sentatives  requested,  to  vote  against  the  admission  of  any  State  into  the 
Union,  the  constitution  of  which  does  not  prohibit  slavery,  whether  the 
territory  out  of  which  such  State  may  have  been  formed  shall  have  been 
acquired  by  conquest,  treaty,  purchase,  or  from  original  territory  of  the 
United  States. 

Resolved,  That  our  senators  in  Congress  be  instructed,  and  our  repre 
sentatives  requested,  to  introduce  and  vote  for  a  bill  to  repeal  an  act  en 
titled  "An  act  respecting  fugitives  from  justice  and  persons  escaping  from 
the  services  of  their  masters"  j  and,  failing  in  that,  for  such  a  modification 
of  it  as  shall  secure  the  right  of  habeas  corpus  and  trial  by  jury  before  the 
regularly  constituted  authorities  of  the  State,  to  all  persons  claimed  as 
owing  service  or  labor. 

Those  resolutions  were  introduced  by  Mr.  Lovejoy  immediately 
preceding  the  election  of  senator.  They  declared  first,  that  the 
Wilmot  proviso  must  be  applied  to  all  territory  north  of  36°  30 ' ;  sec 
ondly,  that  it  must  be  applied  to  all  territory  south  of  36°  30' ;  thirdly, 
that  it  must  be  applied  to  all  the  territory  now  owned  by  the 
United  States ;  and  finally,  that  it  must  be  applied  to  all  territory 
hereafter  to  be  acquired  by  the  United  States.  The  next  resolu 
tion  declares  that  no  more  slave  States  shall  be  admitted  into 
this  Union  under  any  circumstances  whatever,  no  matter  whether 
they  are  formed  out  of  territory  now  owned  by  us  or  that  we  may 
hereafter  acquire,  by  treaty,  by  Congress,  or  in  any  manner  what 
ever.  The  next  resolution  demands  the  unconditional  repeal  of 
the  fugitive-slave  law,  although  its  unconditional  repeal  would  leave 
no  provision  for  carrying  out  that  clause  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  which  guarantees  the  surrender  of  fugitives.  If  they 
could  not  get  an  unconditional  repeal,  they  demanded  that  that  law 
should  be  so  modified  as  to  make  it  as  nearly  useless  as  possible. 
Now,  I  want  to  show  you  who  voted  for  these  resolutions.  When 
the  vote  was  taken  on  the  first  resolution,  it  was  decided  in  the  affir 
mative —  yeas  41,  nays  32.  You  will  find  that  this  is  a  strict  party 
vote,  between  the  Democrats  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Black  Repub 
licans  on  the  other.  [Cries  of  "  White,  white,"  and  clamor.]  I  know 
your  name,  and  always  call  things  by  their  right  name.  The  point  I 
wish  to  call  your  attention  to  is  this :  that  these  resolutions  were 
adopted  on  the  7th  day  of  February,  and  that  on  the  8th  they  went 
into  an  election  for  a  United  States  senator,  and  that  day  every  man 
who  voted  for  these  resolutions,  with  but  two  exceptions,  voted  for 
Lincoln  for  the  United  States  Senate.  ["  Give  us  their  names."]  I 
will  read  the  names  over  to  you  if  you  want  them,  but  I  believe  your 
object  is  to  occupy  my  time. 


326          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

On  the  next  resolution  the  vote  stood,  yeas  33,  nays  40 ;  and  on 
the  third  resolution,  yeas  35,  nays  47.  I  wish  to  impress  upon  you 
that  every  man  who  voted  for  those  resolutions,  with  but  two  excep 
tions,  voted  on  the  next  day  for  Lincoln  for  United  States  senator. 
Bear  in  mind  that  the  members  who  thus  voted  for  Lincoln  were 
elected  to  the  legislature  pledged  to  vote  for  no  man  for  office  under 
the  State  or  Federal  Government  who  was  not  committed  to  this 
Black  Republican  platform.  They  were  all  so  pledged.  Mr.  Turner, 
who  stands  by  me,  and  who  then  represented  you,  and  who  says  that 
he  wrote  those  resolutions,  voted  for  Lincoln,  when  he  was  pledged 
not  to  do  so  unless  Lincoln  was  in  favor  of  those  resolutions.  I  now 
ask  Mr.  Turner  [turning  to  Mr.  Turner],  did  you  violate  your  pledge 
in  voting  for  Mr.  Lincoln,  or  did  he  commit  himself  to  your  plat 
form  before  you  cast  your  vote  for  him  ? 

I  could  go  through  the  whole  list  of  names  here  and  show  you  that 
all  the  Black  Republicans  in  the  legislature,  who  voted  for  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  had  voted  on  the  day  previous  for  these  resolutions.  For  in 
stance,  here  are  the  names  of  Sargent  and  Little,  of  Jo  Daviess  and 
Carroll;  Thomas  J.  Turner,  of  Stephenson;  Lawrence,  of  Boone  and 
McHenry;  Swan, of  Lake;  Pinckney,  of  Ogle  County;  andLyman,  of 
Winnebago.  Thus  you  see  every  member  from  your  congressional 
district  voted  for  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  they  were  pledged  not  to  vote  for 
him  unless  he  was  committed  to  the  doctrine  of  no  more  slave  States, 
the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Territories,  and  the  repeal  of  the 
fugitive-slave  law.  Mr.  Lincoln  tells  you  to-day  that  he  is  not 
pledged  to  any  such  doctrine.  Either  Mr.  Lincoln  was  then  com 
mitted  to  those  propositions,  or  Mr.  Turner  violated  his  pledges  to 
you  when  he  voted  for  him.  Either  Lincoln  was  pledged  to  each  one 
of  those  propositions,  or  else  every  Black  Republican  representative 
from  this  congressional  district  violated  his  pledge  of  honor  to  his 
constituents  by  voting  for  him.  I  ask  you  which  horn  of  the  di 
lemma  will  you  take?  "Will  you  hold  Lincoln  up  to  the  platform  of 
his  party,  or  will  you  accuse  every  representative  you  had  in  the  leg 
islature  of  violating  his  pledge  of  honor  to  his  constituents  ?  There 
is  no  escape  for  you.  Either  Mr.  Lincoln  was  committed  to  those 
propositions,  or  your  members  violated  their  faith.  Take  either 
horn  of  the  dilemma  you  choose.  There  is  no  dodging  the  question ; 
I  want  Lincoln's  answer.  He  says  he  was  not  pledged  to  repeal  the 
fugitive-slave  law,  that  he  does  not  quite  like  to  do  it ;  he  will  not 
introduce  a  law  to  repeal  it,  but  thinks  there  ought  to  be  some  law; 
he  does  not  tell  what  it  ought  to  be;  upon  the  whole,  he  is  altogether 
undecided,  and  don't  know  what  to  think  or  do.  That  is  the  sub 
stance  of  his  answer  upon  the  repeal  of  the  fugitive-slave  law.  I 
put  the  question  to  him  distinctly,  whether  he  indorsed  that  part  of 
the  Black  Republican  platform  which  calls  for  the  entire  abroga 
tion  and  repeal  of  the  fugitive-slave  law.  He  answers,  no !  —  that 
he  does  not  indorse  that;  but  he  does  not  tell  what  he  is  for,  or 
what  he  will  vote  for.  His  answer  is,  in  fact,  no  answer  at  all.  Why 
cannot  he  speak  out  and  say  what  he  is  for  and  what  he  will  do  ? 

In  regard  to  there  being  no  more  slave  States,  he  is  not  pledged  to 
that.     He  would  not  like,  he  says,  to  be  put  in  a  position  where  he 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          327 

would  have  to  vote  one  way  or  another  upon  that  question.  I  pray 
you,  do  not  put  him  in  a  position  that  would  embarrass  him  so  much. 
Gentlemen,  if  he  goes  to  the  Senate  he  may  be  put  in  that  position, 
and  then  which  way  will  he  vote?  [A  voice :  "  How  will  you  vote?7'] 
I  will  vote  for  the  admission  of  just  such  a  State  as  \)y  the  form  of 
their  constitution  the  people  show  they  want.  If  they  want  slavery, 
they  shall  have  it;  if  they  prohibit  slavery,  it  shall  be  prohibited. 
They  can  form  their  institutions  to  please  themselves,  subject  only  to 
the  Constitution  ;  and  I  for  one  stand  ready  to  receive  them  into  the 
Union.  Why  cannot  your  Black  Republican  candidates  talk  out  as 
plain  as  that  when  they  are  questioned! 

I  do  not  want  to  cheat  any  man  out  of  his  vote.  No  man  is 
deceived  in  regard  to  my  principles  if  I  have  the  power  to  express 
myself  in  terms  explicit  enough  to  convey  my  ideas. 

Mr.  Lincoln  made  a  speech  when  he  was  nominated  for  the  United 
State  Senate  which  covers  all  these  Abolition  platforms.  He  there 
lays  down  a  proposition  so  broad  in  its  Abolitionism  as  to  cover  the 
whole  ground. 

In  my  opinion  it  [the  slavery  agitation]  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall 
have  been  reached  and  passed.  "A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand."  I  believe  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave 
and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall  —  but  I  do  expect  it  will 
cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.  Either 
the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it 
where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ulti 
mate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward  till  it  shall  become 
alike  lawful  in  all  the  States  —  old  as  weh1  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South. 

There  you  find  that  Mr.  Lincoln  lays  down  the  doctrine  that  this 
Union  cannot  endure  divided  as  our  fathers  made  it,  with  free  and 
slave  States.  He  says  they  must  all  become  one  thing  or  all  the  other; 
that  they  must  all  be  free  or  all  slave,  or  else  the  Union  cannot 
continue  to  exist.  It  being  his  opinion  that  to  admit  any  more  slave 
States,  to  continue  to  divide  the  Union  into  free  and  slave  States, 
will  dissolve  it,  I  want  to  know  of  Mr.  Lincoln  whether  he  will  vote 
for  the  admission  of  another  slave  State. 

He  tells  you  the  Union  cannot  exist  unless  the  States  are  all  free 
or  all  slave ;  he  tells  you  that  he  is  opposed  to  making  them  all  slave, 
and  hence  he  is  for  making  them  all  free,  in  order  that  the  Union 
may  exist ;  and  yet  he  will  not  say  that  he  will  not  vote  against 
another  slave  State,  knowing  that  the  Union  must  be  dissolved  if  he 
votes  for  it.  I  ask  you  if  that  is  fair  dealing  ?  The  true  intent  and 
inevitable  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  his  first  Springfield  speech 
is,  that  he  is  opposed  to  the  admission  of  any  more  slave  States 
under  any  circumstances.  If  he  is  so  opposed,  why  not  say  so  ?  If  he 
believes  this  Union  cannot  endure  divided  into  free  and  slave  States, 
that  they  must  all  become  free  in  order  to  save  the  Union,  he  is 
bound  as  an  honest  man,  to  vote  against  any  more  slave  States.  If 
he  believes  it  he  is  bound  to  do  it.  Show  me  that  it  is  my  duty  in 
order  to  save  the  Union  to  do  a  particular  act,  and  I  will  do  it  if  the 
Constitution  does  not  prohibit  it.  I  am  not  for  the  dissolution  of 
the  Union  under  any  circumstances.  I  will  pursue  no  course  of  con- 


328          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

duct  that  will  give  just  cause  for  the  dissolution  of  the  Union.  The 
hope  of  the  friends  of  freedom  throughout  the  world  rests  upon  the 
perpetuity  of  this  Union.  The  downtrodden  and  oppressed  people 
who  are  suffering  under  European  despotism  all  look  with  hope  and 
anxiety  to  the  American  Union  as  the  only  resting-place  and  perma 
nent  home  of  freedom  and  self-government. 

Mr.  Lincoln  says  that  he  believes  that  this  Union  cannot  continue 
to  endure  with  slave  States  in  it,  and  yet  he  will  not  tell  you  dis 
tinctly  whether  he  will  vote  for  or  against  the  admission  of  any 
more  slave  States,  but  says  he  would  not  like  to  be  put  to  the  test. 
I  do  not  think  he  will  be  put  to  the  test.  I  do  not  think  that  the 
people  of  Illinois  desire  a  man  to  represent  them  who  would  not  like 
to  be  put  to  the  test  on  the  performance  of  a  high  constitutional 
duty.  I  will  retire  in  shame  from  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 
when  I  am  not  willing  to  be  put  to  the  test  in  the  performance  of  my 
duty.  I  have  been  put  to  severe  tests.  I  have  stood  by  my  princi 
ples  in  fair  weather  and  in  foul,  in  the  sunshine  and  in  the  rain.  I 
have  defended  the  great  principles  of  self-government  here  among 
you  when  Northern  sentiment  ran  in  a  torrent  against  me,  and  I 
have  defended  that  same  great  principle  when  Southern  sentiment 
came  down  like  an  avalanche  upon  me.  I  was  not  afraid  of  any  test 
they  put  to  me.  I  knew  I  was  right — I  knew  my  principles  were 
sound — I  knew  that  the  people  would  see  in  the  end  that  I  had  done 
right,  and  I  knew  that  the  God  of  Heaven  would  smile  upon  me  if  I 
was  faithful  in  the  performance  of  my  duty. 

Mr.  Lincoln  makes  a  charge  of  corruption  against  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  and  two  Presidents  of  the  United  States, 
and  attempts  to  bolster  it  up  by  saying  that  I  did  the  same  against 
the  Washington  "  Union."  Suppose  I  did  make  that  charge  of  cor 
ruption  against  the  Washington  "  Union,"  when  it  was  true,  does 
that  justify  him  in  making  a  false  charge  against  me  and  others? 
That  is  the  question  I  would  put.  He  says  that  at  the  time  the 
Nebraska  bill  was  introduced,  and  before  it  was  passed,  there  was  a 
conspiracy  between  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  President 
Pierce,  President  Buchanan,  and  myself  by  that  bill,  and  the  deci 
sion  of  the  court,  to  break  down  the  barrier  and  establish  slavery  all 
over  the  Union.  Does  he  not  know  that  that  charge  is  historically 
false  as  against  President  Buchanan  ?  He  knows  that  Mr.  Buchanan 
was  at  that  time  in  England,  representing  this  country  with  distin 
guished  ability  at  the  Court  of  St.  James,  that  he  was  there  for  a 
long  time  before,  and  did  not  return  for  a  year  or  more  after.  He 
knows  that  to  be  true,  and  that  fact  proves  his  charge  to  be  false  as 
against  Mr.  Buchanan.  Then  again,  I  wish  to  call  his  attention  to 
the  fact  that  at  the  time  the  Nebraska  bill  was  passed,  the  Dred  Scott 
case  was  not  before  the  Supreme  Court  at  all  j  it  was  not  upon  the 
docket  of  the  Supreme  Court;  it  had  not  been  brought  there,  and 
the  judges  in  all  probability  knew  nothing  of  it.  Thus  the  history 
of  the  country  proves  the  charge  to  be  false  as  against  them.  As 
to  President  Pierce,  his  high  character  as  a  man  of  integrity  and 
honor  is  enough  to  vindicate  him  from  such  a  charge ;  and  as  to  my 
self,  I  pronounce  the  charge  an  infamous  lie,  whenever  and  wher- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          329 

ever  made,  and  by  whomsoever  made.  I  am  willing  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
should  go  and  rake  up  every  public  act  of  mine,  every  measure  I  have 
introduced,  report  I  have  made,  speech  delivered,  and  criticize  them  j 
but  when  he  charges  upon  me  a  corrupt  conspiracy  for  the  purpose 
of  perverting  the  institutions  of  the  country,  I  brand  it  as  it  deserves. 
I  say  the  history  of  the  country  proves  it  to  be  false,  and  that  it  could 
not  have  been  possible  at  the  time.  But  now  he  tries  to  protect  him 
self  in  this  charge,  because  I  made  a  charge  against  the  Washington 
"  Union."  My  speech  in  the  Senate  against  the  Washington  "  Union " 
was  made  because  it  advocated  a  revolutionary  doctrine,  by  declaring 
that  the  free  States  had  not  the  right  to  prohibit  slavery  within  their 
own  limits.  Because  I  made  that  charge  against  the  Washington 
"Union,"  Mr.  Lincoln  says  it  was  a  charge  against  Mr.  Buchanan. 
Suppose  it  was ;  is  Lincoln  the  peculiar  defender  of  Mr.  Buchanan  ? 
Is  he  so  interested  in  the  Federal  administration,  and  so  bound  to 
it,  that  he  must  jump  to  the  rescue  and  defend  it  from  every  attack 
that  I  may  make  against  it  ?  I  understand  the  whole  thing.  The 
Washington  "  Union,"  under  that  most  corrupt  of  all  men,  Cornelius 
Wendell,  is  advocating  Mr.  Lincoln's  claim  to  the  Senate.  Wendell 
was  the  printer  of  the  last  Black  Republican  House  of  Representatives  ; 
he  was  a  candidate  before  the  present  Democratic  House,  but  was 
ignominiously  kicked  out,  and  then  he  took  the  money  which  he  had 
made  out  of  the  public  printing  by  means  of  the  Black  Republicans, 
bought  the  Washington  "  Union,"  and  is  nowpublishing  it  in  the  name 
of  the  Democratic  party,  and  advocating  Mr.  Lincoln's  election  to  the 
Senate.  Mr.  Lincoln  therefore  considers  an  attack  upon  Wendell 
and  his  corrupt  gang  as  a  personal  attack  upon  him.  This  only 
proves  what  I  have  charged,  that  there  is  an  alliance  between  Lin 
coln  and  his  supporters,  and  the  Federal  office-holders  of  this  State, 
and  presidential  aspirants  out  of  it,  to  break  me  down  at  home. 

Mr.  Lincoln  feels  bound  to  come  in  to  the  rescue  of  the  Wash 
ington  "  Union."  In  that  speech  which  I  delivered  in  answer  to  the 
Washington  "  Union,"  I  made  it  distinctly  against  the  "  Union " 
alone.  I  did  not  choose  to  go  beyond  that.  If  I  have  occasion  to 
attack  the  President's  conduct,  I  will  do  it  in  language  that  will  not 
be  misunderstood.  When  I  differed  with  the  President  I  spoke  out 
so  that  you  all  heard  me.  That  question  passed  away  ;  it  resulted 
in  the  triumph  of  my  principle  by  allowing  the  people  to  dp  as  they 
please,  and  there  is  an  end  of  the  controversy.  Whenever  the  great 
principle  of  self-government — the  right  of  the  people  to  make  their 
own  constitution,  and  come  into  the  Union  with  slavery  or  without 
it,  as  they  see  proper  —  shall  again  arise,  you  will  find  me  standing 
firm  in  defense  of  that  principle,  and  fighting  whoever  fights  it.  If 
Mr.  Buchanan  stands,  as  I  doubt  not  he  will,  by  the  recommenda 
tion  contained  in  his  message,  that  hereafter  all  State  constitutions 
ought  to  be  submitted  to  the  people  before  the  admission  of  the 
State  into  the  Union,  he  will  find  me  standing  by  him  firmly,  shoul 
der  to  shoulder,  in  carrying  it  out.  I  know  Mr.  Lincoln's  object; 
he  wants  to  divide  the  Democratic  party,  in  order  that  he  may  de 
feat  me  and  go  to  the  Senate. 

[Mr.  Douglas's  time  here  expired,  and  he  stopped  on  the  moment.] 


330         ADDRESSES  AND  LETTERS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


Mr.  Lincoln's  Rejoinder  in  the  Freeport  Joint  Debate. 

My  Friends :  It  will  readily  occur  to  you  that  I  cannot  in  half  an 
hour  notice  all  the  things  that  so  able  a  man  as  Judge  Douglas  can 
say  in  an  hour  and  a  half ;  and  I  hope,  therefore,  if  there  be  any 
thing  that  he  has  said  upon  which  you  would  like  to  hear  something 
from  me,  but  which  I  omit  to  comment  upon,  you  will  bear  in  mind 
that  it  would  be  expecting  an  impossibility  for  me  to  go  over  his 
whole  ground.  I  can  but  take  up  some  of  the  points  that  he  has 
dwelt  upon,  and  employ  my  half  hour  specially  on  them. 

The  first  thing  I  have  to  say  to  you  is  a  word  in  regard  to  Judge 
Douglas's  declaration  about  the  "  vulgarity  and  blackguardism  "  in 
the  audience  —  that  no  such  thing,  as  he  says,  was  shown  by  any 
Democrat  while  I  was  speaking.  Now  I  only  wish,  by  way  of  reply 
on  this  subject,  to  say  that  while  I  was  speaking  I  used  no  "  vul 
garity  or  blackguardism  w  toward  any  Democrat. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  come  to  all  this  long  portion  of  the  judge's 
speech  —  perhaps  half  of  it  —  which  he  has  devoted  to  the  various 
resolutions  and  platforms  that  have  been  adopted  in  the  different 
counties,  in  the  different  congressional  districts,  and  in  the  Illinois 
legislature  —  which  he  supposes  are  at  variance  with  the  positions 
I  have  assumed  before  you  to-day.  It  is  true  that  many  of  these 
resolutions  are  at  variance  with  the  positions  I  have  here  assumed. 
All  I  have  to  ask  is  that  we  talk  reasonably  and  rationally  about  it. 
I  happen  to  know,  the  judge's  opinion  to  the  contrary  notwithstand 
ing,  that  I  have  never  tried  to  conceal  my  opinions,  nor  tried  to 
deceive  any  one  in  reference  to  them.  He  may  go  and  examine  all 
the  members  who  voted  for  me  for  United  States  senator  in  1855, 
after  the  election  of  1854.  They  were  pledged  to  certain  things  here 
at  home,  and  were  determined  to  have  pledges  from  me,  and  if  he 
will  find  any  of  these  persons  who  will  tell  him  anything  inconsis 
tent  with  what  I  say  now,  I  will  retire  from  the  race,  and  give  him 
110  more  trouble. 

The  plain  truth  is  this.  At  the  introduction  of  the  Nebraska 
policy,  we  believed  there  was  a  new  era  being  introduced  in  the 
history  of  the  republic,  which  tended  to  the  spread  and  perpetuation 
of  slavery.  But  in  our  opposition  to  that  measure  we  did  not  agree 
with  one  another  in  everything.  The  people  in  the  north  end  of 
the  State  were  for  stronger  measures  of  opposition  than  we  of  the 
central  and  southern  portions  of  the  State,  but  we  were  all  opposed 
to  the  Nebraska  doctrine.  We  had  that  one  feeling  and  that  one 
sentiment  in  common.  You  at  the  north  end  met  in  your  conven 
tions  and  passed  your  resolutions.  We  in  the  middle  of  the  State 
and  further  south  did  not  hold  such  conventions  and  pass  the  same 
resolutions,  although  we  had  in  general  a  common  view  and  a 
common  sentiment.  So  that  these  meetings  which  the  judge  has 
alluded  to,  and  the  resolutions  he  has  read  from,  were  local, 
and  did  not  spread  over  the  whole  State.  We  at  last  met  together 
in  1856,  from  all  parts  of  the  State,  and  we  agreed  upon  a 
common  platform.  You  who  held  more  extreme  notions,  either 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN          331 

yielded  those  notions,  or  if  not  wholly  yielding  them,  agreed  to  yield 
them  practically,  for  the  sake  of  embodying  the  opposition  to  the 
measures  which  the  opposite  party  were  pushing  forward  at  that 
time.  We  met  you  then,  and  if  there  was  anything  yielded,  it  was 
for  practical  purposes.  We  agreed  then  upon  a  platform  for  the 
party  throughout  the  entire  State  of  Illinois,  and  now  we  are  all 
bound,  as  a  party,  to  that  platform.  And  I  say  here  to  you,  if  any 
one  expects  of  me,  in  the  case  of  my  election,  that  I  will  do  any 
thing  not  signified  by  our  Republican  platform  and  my  answers  here 
to-day,  I  tell  you  very  frankly  that  person  will  be  deceived.  I  do 
not  ask  for  the  vote  of  any  one  who  supposes  that  I  have  secret  pur 
poses  or  pledges  that  I  dare  not  speak  out.  Cannot  the  judge  be 
satisfied?  If  he  fears,  in  the  unfortunate  case  of  my  election,  that 
my  going  to  Washington  will  enable  me  to  advocate  sentiments 
contrary  to  those  which  I  expressed  when  you  voted  for  and  elected 
me,  I  assure  him  that  his  fears  are  wholly  needless  and  groundless. 
Is  the  judge  really  afraid  of  any  such  thing1?  I  '11  tell  you  what  he 
is  afraid  of.  He  is  afraid  we  '11  all  pull  together.  This  is  what 
alarms  him  more  than  anything  else.  For  my  part,  I  dp  hope  that 
all  of  us,  entertaining  a  common  sentiment  in  opposition  to  what* 
appears  to  us  a  design  to  nationalize  and  perpetuate  slavery,  will 
waive  minor  differences  on  questions  which  either  belong  to  tlie  dead 
past  or  the  distant  future,  and  all  pull  together  in  this  struggle. 
What  are  your  sentiments  ?  If  it  be  true  that  on  the  ground  which 
I  occupy  —  ground  which  I  occupy  as  frankly  and  boldly  as  Judge 
Douglas  does  his  —  my  views,  though  partly  coinciding  with  yours, 
are  not  as  perfectly  in  accordance  with  your  feelings  as  his  are,  I  do 
say  to  you  in  all  candor,  go  for  him  and  not  for  me.  I  hope  to  deal 
in  all  things  fairly  with  Judge  Douglas,  and  with  the  people  of 
the  State,  in  this  contest.  And  if  I  should  never  be  elected  to  any 
office,  I  trust  I  may  go  down  with  no  stain  of  falsehood  upon  my  rep 
utation,  notwithstanding  the  hard  opinions  Judge  Douglas  chooses 
to  entertain  of  me. 

The  judge  has  again  addressed  himself  to  the  Abolition  tendencies 
of  a  speech  of  mine,  made  at  Springfield  in  June  last.  I  have  so 
often  tried  to  answer  what  he  is  always  saying  on  that  melancholy 
theme,  that  I  almost  turn  with  disgust  from  the  discussion — from 
the  repetition  of  an  answer  to  it.  I  trust  that  nearly  all  of  this 
intelligent  audience  have  read  that  speech.  If  you  have,  I  may 
venture  to  leave  it  to  you  to  inspect  it  closely,  and  see  whether  it 
contains  any  of  those  "  bugaboos  "  which  frighten  Judge  Douglas. 

The  judge  complains  that  I  did  not  fully  answer  his  questions. 
If  I  have  the  sense  to  comprehend  and  answer  those  questions,  I 
have  done  so  fairly.  If  it  can  be  pointed  out  to  me  how  I  can  more 
fully  and  fairly  answer  him,  I  will  do  it — but  I  aver  I  have  not  the 
sense  to  see  how  it  is  to  be  done.  He  says  I  do  not  declare  I  would 
in  any  event  vote  for  the  admission  of  a  slave  State  into  the  Union. 
If  I  have  been  fairly  reported,  he  will  see  that  I  did  give  an  explicit 
answer  to  his  interrogatories.  I  did  not  merely  say  that  I  would  dis 
like  to  be  put  to  the  test ;  but  I  said  clearly,  if  I  were  put  to  the  test, 
and  a  Territory  from  which  slavery  had  been  excluded  should  pre- 


332          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

sent  herself  with  a  State  constitution  sanctioning  slavery, —  a  most 
extraordinary  thing  and  wholly  unlikely  to  happen, —  I  did  not  see 
how  I  could  avoid  voting  for  her  admission.  But  he  refuses  to  un 
derstand  that  I  said  so,  and  he  wants  this  audience  to  understand 
that  I  did  not  say  so.  Yet  it  will  be  so  reported  in  the  printed 
speech  that  he  cannot  help  seeing  it. 

He  says  if  I  should  vote  for  the  admission  of  a  slave  State  I  would 
be  voting  for  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  because  I  hold  that  the 
Union  cannot  permanently  exist  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  repeat 
that  I  do  not  believe  this  government  can  endure  permanently  half 
slave  and  half  free,  yet  I  do  not  admit,  nor  does  it  at  all  follow, 
that  the  admission  of  a  single  slave  State  will  permanently  fix  the 
character  and  establish  this  as  a  universal  slave  nation.  The  judge 
is  very  happy  indeed  at  working  up  these  quibbles.  Before  leaving 
the  subject  of  answering  questions,  I  aver  as  my  confident  belief, 
when  you  come  to  see  our  speeches  in  print,  that  you  will  find  every 
question  which  he  has  asked  me  more  fairly  and  boldly  and  fully 
answered  than  he  has  answered  those  which  I  put  to  him.  Is  not 
that  so?  The  two  speeches  may  be  placed  side  by  side;  and  I  will 
venture  to  leave  it  to  impartial  judges  whether  his  questions  have 
not  been  more  directly  and  circumstantially  answered  than  mine. 

Judge  Douglas  says  he  made  a  charge  upon  the  editor  of  the 
Washington  "Union,"  alone,  of  entertaining  a  purpose  to  rob  the 
States  of  their  power  to  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits.  I  under 
take  to  say,  and  I  make  the  direct  issue,  that  he  did  not  make  his 
charge  against  the  editor  of  the  "  Union7'  alone.  I  will  undertake  to 
prove  by  the  record  here  that  he  made  that  charge  against  more  and 
higher  dignitaries  than  the  editor  of  the  Washington  "  Union."  I 
am  quite  aware  that  he  was  shirking  and  dodging  around  the  form 
in  which  he  put  it,  but  I  can  make  it  manifest  that  he  leveled  his 
"fatal  blow"  against  more  persons  than  this  Washington  editor. 
Will  he  dodge  it  now  by  alleging  that  I  am  trying  to  defend  Mr. 
Buchanan  against  the  charge?  Not  at  all.  Am  I  not  making  the 
same  charge  myself?  I  am  trying  to  show  that  you,  Judge  Douglas, 
are  a  witness  on  my  side.  I  am  not  defending  Buchanan,  and  I  will 
tell  Judge  Douglas  that  in  my  opinion  when  he  made  that  charge  he 
had  an  eye  farther  north  than  he  was  to-day.  He  was  then  fighting 
against  people  who  called  him  a  Black  Republican  and  an  Abolitionist. 
It  is  mixed  all  through  his  speech,  and  it  is  tolerably  manifest  that 
his  eye  was  a  great  deal  farther  north  than  it  is  to-day.  The  judge 
says  that  though  he  made  this  charge,  Toombs  got  up  and  declared 
there  was  not  a  man  in  the  United  States,  except  the  editor  of  the 
"Union,"  who  was  in  favor  of  the  doctrines  put  forth  in  that  article. 
And  thereupon  I  understand  that  the  judge  withdrew  the  charge. 
Although  he  had  taken  extracts  from  the  newspaper,  and  then  from 
the  Lecompton  constitution,  to  show  the  existence  of  a  conspiracy  to 
bring  about  a  "fatal  blow,"  by  which  the  States  were  to  be  deprived  of 
the  right  of  excluding  slavery,  it  all  went  to  pot  as  soon  as  Toombs  got 
up  and  told  him  it  was  not  true.  It  reminds  me  of  the  story  that  John 
Phoenix,  the  California  railroad  surveyor,  tells.  He  says  they  started 
out  from  the  Plaza  to  the  Mission  of  Dolores.  They  had  two  ways 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          333 

of  determining  distances.  One  was  by  a  chain  and  pins  taken  over 
the  ground;  the  other  was  by  a  "  go-it-ometer," — an  invention  of 
his  own, —  a  three-legged  instrument,  with  which  he  computed  a 
series  of  triangles  between  the  points.  At  night  he  turned  to  the 
chain-man  to  ascertain  what  distance  they  had  come,  and  found  that 
by  some  mistake  he  had  merely  dragged  the  chain  over  the  ground 
without  keeping  any  record.  By  the  "go-it-ometer"  he  found  he 
had  made  ten  miles.  Being  skeptical  about  this,  he  asked  a  dray 
man  who  was  passing  how  far  it  was  to  the  Plaza.  The  drayman 
replied  it  was  just  half  a  mile,  and  the  surveyor  put  it  down  in  his 
book — just  as  Judge  Douglas  says,  after  he  had  made  his  calcula 
tions  and  computations,  he  took  Toombs's  statement.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  after  Judge  Douglas  had  made  his  charge,  he  was  as 
easily  satisfied  about  its  truth  as  the  surveyor  was  of  the  dray 
man's  statement  of  the  distance  to  the  Plaza.  Yet  it  is  a  fact  that 
the  man  Avho  put  forth  all  that  matter  which  Douglas  deemed  a 
"fatal  blow"  at  State  sovereignty,  was  elected  by  the  Democrats  as 
public  printer. 

Now,  gentlemen,  you  may  take  Judge  Douglas's  speech  of  March 
22,  1858,  beginning  about  the  middle  of  page  21,  and  reading  to  the 
bottom  of  page  24,  and  you  will  find  the  evidence  on  which  I  say 
that  he  did  not  make  his  charge  against  the  editor  of  the  "  Union" 
alone.  I  cannot  stop  to  read  it,  but  I  will  give  it  to  the  reporters. 
Judge  Douglas  said : 

Mr.  President,  you  here  find  several  distinct  propositions  advanced 
boldly  by  the  Washington  "Union"  editorially,  and  apparently  authori 
tatively,  and  every  man  who  questions  any  of  them  is  denounced  as  an 
Abolitionist,  a  Free-soiler,  a  fanatic.  The  propositions  are :  first,  that  the 
primary  object  of  all  government  at  its  original  institution  is  the  protection 
of  persons  and  property ;  second,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
declares  that  the  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all  the  privileges 
and  immunities  of  citizens  in  the  several  States;  and  that,  therefore, 
thirdly,  all  State  laws,  whether  organic  or  otherwise,  which  prohibit  the 
citizens  of  one  State  from  settling  in  another  with  their  slave  property,  and 
especially  declaring  it  forfeited,  are  direct  violations  of  the  original  inten 
tion  of  the  government  and  Constitution  of  the  United  States ;  and  fourth, 
that  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  of  the  Northern  States  was  a  gross  out 
rage  on  the  rights  of  property,  inasmuch  as  it  was  involuntarily  done  on  the 
part  of  the  owner. 

Remember  that  this  article  was  published  in  the  "  Union  "  on  the  17th  of 
November,  and  on  the  18th  appeared  the  first  article  giving  the  adhesion  of 
the  "  Union  "  to  the  Lecompton  constitution.  It  was  in  these  words : 

"  KANSAS  AND  HER  CONSTITUTION. — The  vexed  question  is  settled.  The 
problem  is  solved.  The  dead  point  of  danger  is  passed.  All  serious  trouble 
to  Kansas  affairs  is  over  and  gone." 

And  a  column,  nearly,  of  the  same  sort.  Then,  when  you  come  to  look 
into  the  Lecompton  constitution,  you  find  the  same  doctrine  incorporated 
in  it  which  was  put  forth  editorially  in  the  "  Union."  What  is  it  ? 

"  ARTICLE  7,  Section  1.  The  right  of  property  is  before  and  higher  than 
any  constitutional  sanction ;  and  the  right  of  the  owner  of  a  slave  to  such 
slave  and  its  increase  is  the  same  and  as  invariable  as  the  right  of  the  owner 
of  any  property  whatever." 


334          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Then  in  the  schedule  is  a  provision  that  the  constitution  may  be  amended 
after  1864  by  a  two-thirds  vote. 

"  But  no  alteration  shall  be  made  to  affect  the  right  of  property  in  the 
ownership  of  slaves." 

It  will  be  seen  by  these  clauses  in  the  Lecompton  constitution  that  they 
are  identical  in  spirit  with  this  authoritative  article  in  the  Washington 
"  Union"  of  the  day  previous  to  its  indorsement  of  this  constitution. 

"Vyhen  I  saw  that  article  in  the  "  Union"  of  the  17th  of  November,  fol 
lowed  by  the  glorification  of  the  Lecompton  constitution  on  the  18th  of 
November,  and  this  clause  in  the  constitution  asserting  the  doctrine  that  a 
State  has  no  right  to  prohibit  slavery  within  its  limits,  I  saw  that  there  was 
a  fatal  blow  being  struck  at  the  sovereignty  of  the  States  of  this  Union. 

Here  he  says,  "  Mr.  President,  you  here  find  several  distinct 
propositions  advanced  boldly,  and  apparently  authoritatively.'7  By 
whose  authority,  Judge  Douglas  ?  Again,  he  says  in  another  place, 
"  It  will  be  seen  by  these  clauses  in  the  Lecompton  constitution  that 
they  are  identical  in  spirit  with  this  authoritative  article."  By  whose 
authority  ?  Who  do  you  mean  to  say  authorized  the  publication  of 
these  articles  ?  He  knows  that  the  Washington  "  Union  "  is  consid 
ered  the  organ  of  the  administration.  I  demand  of  Judge  Douglas 
by  whose  authority  he  meant  to  say  those  articles  were  published, 
if  not  by  the  authority  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  and 
his  cabinet?  I  defy  him  to  show  whom  he  referred  to,  if  not  to 
these  high  functionaries  in  the  Federal  Government.  More  than 
this,  he  says  the  articles  in  that  paper  and  the  provisions  of  the 
Lecompton  constitution  are  "identical," and  being  identical,  he  argues 
that  the  authors  are  cooperating  and  conspiring  together.  He  does 
not  use  the  word  "  conspiring,"  but  what  other  construction  can  you 
put  upon  it  ?  He  winds  up  with  this : 

When  I  saw  that  article  in  the  "Union"  of  the  17th  of  November,  fol 
lowed  by  the  glorification  of  the  Lecompton  constitution  on  the  18th  of 
November,  and  this  clause  in  the  constitution  asserting  the  doctrine  that 
a  State  has  no  right  to  prohibit  slavery  within  its  limits,  I  saw  that  there 
was  a  fatal  blow  being  struck  at  the  sovereignty  of  the  States  of  this  Union. 

I  ask  him  if  all  this  fuss  was  made  over  the  editor  of  this  news 
paper.  It  would  be  a  terribly •" fatal  blow"  indeed  which  a  single 
man  could  strike,  when  no  President,  no  cabinet  officer,  no  member  of 
Congress,  was  giving  strength  and  efficiency  to  the  movement.  Out 
of  respect  to  Judge  Douglas's  good  sense  I  must  believe  he  did  n't 
manufacture  his  idea  of  the  "fatal"  character  of  that  blow  out  of 
such  a  miserable  scapegrace  as  he  represents  that  editor  to  be.  But 
the  judge's  eye  is  farther  south  now.  Then,  it  was  very  peculiarly 
and  decidedly  north.  His  hope  rested  on  the  idea  of  enlisting  the 

freat  "  Black  Republican  "  party,  and  making  it  the  tail  of  his  new 
ite.  He  knows  he  was  then  expecting  from  day  to  day  to  turn  Re 
publican  and  place  himself  at  the  head  of  our  organization.  He  has 
found  that  these  despised  "  Black  Republicans  "  estimate  him  by  a 
standard  which  he  has  taught  them  only  too  well.  Hence  he  is 
crawling  back  into  his  old  camp,  and  you  will  find  him  eventually 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          335 

installed  in  full  fellowship  among  those  whom  he  was  then  battling, 
and  with  whom  he  now  pretends  to  be  at  such  fearful  variance. 
[Loud  applause,  and  cries  of  "  Go  on,  go  on."]  I  cannot,  gentlemen, 
my  time  has  expired. 

September  15,  1858. —  THIRD  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  JONESBOEO, 

ILLINOIS. 

Mr.  Douglas's  Opening  Speech. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  I  appear  before  you  to-day  in  pursuance 
of  a  previous  notice,  and  have  made  arrangements  with  Mr.  Lincoln 
to  divide  time,  and  discuss  with  him  the  leading  political  topics  that 
now  agitate  the  country. 

Prior  to  1854  this  country  was  divided  into  two  great  political 
parties  known  as  Whig  and  Democratic.  These  parties  differed 
from  each  other  on  certain  questions  which  were  then  deemed  to  be 
important  to  the  best  interests  of  the  republic.  Whigs  and  Demo 
crats  differed  about  a  bank,  the  tariff,  distribution,  the  specie  circu 
lar,  and  the  subtreasury.  On  those  issues  we  went  before  the  country, 
and  discussed  the  principles,  objects,  and  measures  of  the  two  great 
parties.  Each  of  the  parties  could  proclaim  its  principles  in  Louisi 
ana  as  well  as  in  Massachusetts,  in  Kentucky  as  well  as  in  Illinois. 
Since  that  period,  a  great  revolution  has  taken  place  in  the  forma 
tion  of  parties,  by  which  they  now  seem  to  be  divided  by  a  geograph 
ical  line,  a  large  party  in  the  North  being  arrayed  under  the  Abolition 
or  Republican  banner,  in  hostility  to  the  Southern  States,  Southern 
people,  and  Southern  institutions.  It  becomes  important  for  us  to 
inquire  how  this  transformation  of  parties  has  occurred,  made  from 
those  of  national  principles  to  geographical  factions.  You  remember 
that  in  1850  —  this  country  was  agitated  from  its  center  to  its  cir 
cumference  about  this  slavery  question  —  it  became  necessary  for 
the  leaders  of  the  great  Whig  party  and  the  leaders  of  the  great 
Democratic  party  to  postpone  for  the  time  being  their  particular 
disputes,  and  unite  first  to  save  the  Union  before  they  should  quarrel 
as  to  the  mode  in  which  it  was  to  be  governed.  During  the  Congress 
of  1849-50,  Henry  Clay  was  the  leader  of  the  Union  men,  supported 
by  Cass  and  Webster,  and  the  leaders  of  the  Democracy  and  the 
leaders  of  the  Whigs,  in  opposition  to  Northern  Abolitionists  or 
Southern  Disunionists.  The  great  contest  of  1850  resulted  in  the 
establishment  of  the  compromise  measures  of  that  year,  which 
measures  rested  on  the  great  principle  that  the  people  of  each  State 
and  each  Territory  of  this  Union  ought  to  be  permitted  to  regulate 
their  own  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  to  no  other 
limitation  than  that  which  the  Federal  Constitution  imposes. 

I  now  wish  to  ask  you  whether  that  principle  was  right  or  wrong 
which  guaranteed  to  every  State  and  every  community  the  right  to 
form  and  regulate  their  domestic  institutions  to  suit  themselves. 
These  measures  were  adopted,  as  I  have  previously  said,  by  the  joint 
action  of  the  Union  Whigs  and  Union  Democrats  in  opposition  to 
Northern  Abolitionists  and  Southern  Disunionists.  In  1858,  when 


336          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

the  Whig  party  assembled  at  Baltimore  in  national  convention  for 
the  last  time,  they  adopted  the  principle  of  the  compromise  measures 
of  1850  as  their  rule  of  party  action  in  the  future.  One  month  there 
after  the  Democrats  assembled  at  the  same  place  to  nominate  a  can 
didate  for  the  presidency,  and  declared  the  same  great  principle  as 
the  rule  of  action  by  which  the  Democracy  would  be  governed.  The 
presidential  election  of  1852  was  fought  on  that  basis.  It  is  true  that 
the  Whigs  claimed  special  merit  for  the  adoption  of  those  measures, 
because  they  asserted  that  their  great  Clay  originated  them,  their 
godlike  Webster  defended  them,  and  their  Fillmore  signed  the  bill 
making  them  the  law  of  the  land ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  the  Demo 
crats  claimed  special  credit  for  the  Democracy  upon  the  ground  that 
we  gave  twice  as  many  votes  in  both  houses  of  Congress  for  the  pas 
sage  of  these  measures  as  the  Whig  party. 

Thus  you  see  that  in  the  presidential  election  of  1852  the  Whigs 
were  pledged  by  their  platform  and  their  candidate  to  the  principle 
of  the  compromise  measures  of  1850,  and  the  Democracy  were  like 
wise  pledged  by  our  principles,  our  platform,  and  our  candidate  to 
the  same  line  of  policy,  to  preserve  peace  and  quiet  between  the  dif 
ferent  sections  of  this  Union.  Since  that  period  the  Whig  party  has 
been  transformed  into  a  sectional  party,  under  the  name  of  the 
Republican  party,  whilst  the  Democratic  party  continues  the  same 
national  party  it  was  at  that  day.  All  sectional  men,  all  men  of  Abo 
lition  sentiments  and  principles,  no  matter  whether  they  were  old 
Abolitionists  or  had  been  Whigs  or  Democrats,  rally  under  the  sec 
tional  Republican  banner,  and  consequently  all  national  men,  all 
Union-loving  men,  whether  Whigs,  Democrats,  or  by  whatever  name 
they  have  been  known,  ought  to  rally  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes  in 
defense  of  the  Constitution  as  our  fathers  made  it,  and  of  the  Union 
as  it  has  existed  under  the  Constitution. 

How  has  this  departure  from  the  faith  of  the  Democracy  and  the 
faith  of  the  Whig  party  been  accomplished?  In  1854,  certain  rest 
less,  ambitious,  and  disappointed  politicians  throughout  the  land 
took  advantage  of  the  temporary  excitement  created  by  the  Nebraska 
bill  to  try  and  dissolve  the  Old  Whig  party  and  the  old  Democratic 

Earty,  to  Abolitionize  their  members,  and  lead  them,  bound  hand  and 
3ot,  captives  into  the  Abolition  camp.  In  the  State  of  New  York  a 
convention  was  held  by  some  of  these  men,  and  a  platform  adopted, 
every  plank  of  which  was  as  black  as  night,  each  one  relating  to 
the  negro,  and  not  one  referring  to  the  interests  of  the  white  man. 
That  example  was  followed  throughout  the  Northern  States,  the 
effort  being  made  to  combine  all  the  free  States  in  hostile  array 
against  the  slave  States.  The  men  who  thus  thought  that  they  could 
build  up  a  great  sectional  party,  and  through  its  organization  con 
trol  the  political  destinies  of  this  country,  based  all  their  hopes  on 
the  single  fact  that  the  North  was  the  stronger  division  of  the  nation, 
and  hence,  if  the  North  could  be  combined  against  the  South,  a  sure 
victory  awaited  their  efforts.  I  am  doing  no  more  than  justice  to 
the  truth  of  history  when  I  say  that  in  this  State  Abraham  Lincoln, 
on  behalf  of  the  Whigs,  and  Lyman  Trumbull,  on  behalf  of  the 
Democrats,  were  the  leaders  who  undertook  to  perform  this  grand 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          337 

scheme  of  Abolitionizing  the  two  parties  to  which  they  belonged. 
They  had  a  private  arrangement  as  to  what  should  be  the  political 
destiny  of  each  of  the  contracting  parties  before  they  went  into  the 
operation.  The  arrangement  was  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  to  take  the 
old-line  Whigs  with  him,  claiming  that  he  was  still  as  good  a  Whig 
as  ever,  over  to  the  Abolitionists,  and  Mr.  Trumbull  was  to  run  for 
Congress  in  the  Belleville  district,  and,  claiming  to  be  a  good  Demo 
crat,  coax  the  old  Democrats  into  the  Abolition  camp,  and  when,  by 
the  joint  efforts  of  the  Abolitionized  Whigs,  the  Abolitionized  Demo 
crats,  and  the  old-line  Abolition  and  Free-soil  party  of  this  State,  they 
should  secure  a  majority  in  the  legislature,  Lincoln  was  then  to  be 
made  United  States  senator  in  Shields's  place,  Trumbull  remaining 
in  Congress  until  I  should  be  accommodating  enough  to  die  or  resign, 
and  give  him  a  chance  to  follow  Lincoln.  That  was  a  very  nice  little 
bargain  so  far  as  Lincoln  and  Trumbull  were  concerned,  if  it  had 
been  carried  out  in  good  faith,  and  friend  Lincoln  had  attained  to 
senatorial  dignity  according  to  the  contract.  They  went  into  the 
contest  in  every  part  of  the  State,  calling  upon  all  disappointed  poli 
ticians  to  join  in  the  crusade  against  the  Democracy,  and  appealed 
to  the  prevailing  sentiments  and  prejudices  in  all  the  northern 
counties  of  the  State.  In  three  congressional  districts  in  the  north 
end  of  the  State  they  adopted,  as  the  platform  of  this  new  party  thus 
formed  by  Lincoln  and  Trumbull  in  connection  with  the  Abolition 
ists,  all  of  those  principles  which  aimed  at  a  warfare  on  the  part 
of  the  North  against  the  South.  They  declared  in  that  platform  that 
the  Wilmot  proviso  was  to  be  applied  to  all  the  Territories  of  the 
United  States,  North  as  well  as  South  of  36°  30',  and  not  only  to 
all  the  territory  we  then  had,  but  all  that  we  might  hereafter  ac 
quire  ;  that  hereafter  no  more  slave  States  should  be  admitted  into 
this  Union,  even  if  the  people  of  such  States  desired  slavery ;  that  the 
fugitive-slave  law  should  be  absolutely  and  unconditionally  repealed ; 
that  slavery  should  be  abolished  in  the  District  of  Columbia;  that 
the  slave-trade  should  be  abolished  between  the  different  States,  and, 
in  fact,  every  article  in  their  creed  related  to  this  slavery  question, 
and  pointed  to  a  Northern  geographical  party  in  hostility  to  the 
Southern  States  of  this  Union. 

Such  were  their  principles  in  northern  Illinois.  A  little  further 
south  they  became  bleached  and  grew  paler  just  in  proportion  as 
public  sentiment  moderated  and  changed  in  this  direction.  There 
were  Republicans  or  Abolitionists  in  the  North,  anti-Nebraska  men 
down  about  Springfield,  and  in  this  neighborhood  they  contented 
themselves  with  talking  about  the  inexpediency  of  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise.  In  the  extreme  northern  counties  they 
brought  out  men  to  canvass  the  State  whose  complexion  suited  their 
political  creed,  and  hence  Fred  Douglass,  the  negro,  was  to  be  found 
there,  following  General  Cass,  and  attempting  to  speak  on  behalf 
of  Lincoln,  Trumbull,  and  Abolitionism,  against  that  illustrious  sen 
ator.  Why,  they  brought  Fred  Douglass  to  Freeport,  when  I  was 
addressing  a  meeting  there,  in  a  carriage  driven  by  the  white  owner, 
the  negro  sitting  inside  with  the  white  lady  and  her  daughter. 
When  I  got  through  canvassing  the  northern  counties  that  year, 
VOL.  I.— 22. 


338          ADDEESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  progressed  as  far  south  as  Springfield,  I  was  met  and  opposed 
in  discussion  by  Lincoln,  Lovejoy,  Trumbull,  and  Sidney  Breese, 
who  were  on  one  side.  Father  Giddings,  the  high  priest  of  Abo 
litionism,  had  just  been  there,  and  Chase  came  about  the  time  I  left. 
["  Why  did  n't  you  shoot  him  ?."]  I  did  take  a  running  shot  at  them, 
but  as  I  was  single-handed  against  the  white,  black,  and  mixed 
drove,  I  had  to  use  a  shot-gun  and  fire  into  the  crowd  instead  of 
taking  them  off  singly  with  a  rifle.  Trumbull  had  for  his  lieu 
tenants  in  aiding  him  to  Abolitionize  the  Democracy,  such  men  as 
John  Wentworth  of  Chicago,  Governor  Reynolds  of  Belleville,  Sid 
ney  Breese  of  Carlisle,  and  John  Dougherty  of  Union,  each  of  whom 
modified  his  opinions  to  suit  the  locality  he  was  in.  Dougherty,  for 
instance,  would  not  go  much  further  than  to  talk  about  the  inex 
pediency  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  whilst  his  allies  at  Chicago  advocated 
negro  citizenship  and  negro  equality,  putting  the  white  man  and  the 
negro  on  the  same  basis  under  the  law.  Now  these  men,  four  years 
ago,  were  engaged  in  a  conspiracy  to  break  down  the  Democracy  5 
to-day  they  are  again  acting  together  for  the  same  purpose  !  They  do 
not  hoist  the  same  flag ;  they  do  not  own  the  same  principles,  or  pro 
fess  the  same  faith  ;  but  conceal  their  union  for  the  sake  of  policy. 
In  the  northern  counties  you  find  that  all  the  conventions  are  called 
in  the  name  of  the  Black^Republican  party ;  at  Springfield  they  dare 
not  call  a  Republican  convention,  but  invite  all  the  enemies  of  the 
Democracy  to  unite,  and  when  they  get  down  into  Egypt,  Trumbull 
issues  notices  calling  upon  the  "  Free  Democracy  "  to  assemble  and 
hear  him  speak.  I  have  one  of  the  handbills  calling  a  Trumbull 
meeting  at  Waterloo  the  other  day,  which  I  received  there,  which  is 
in  the  following  language : 

A  meeting  of  the  Free  Democracy  will  take  place  in  Waterloo,  on  Mon 
day,  Sept.  13th  inst.,  whereat  Hon.  Lyman  Trumbull,  Hon.  Jehu  Baker, 
and  others  will  address  the  people  upon  the  different  political  topics  of 
the  day.  Members  of  all  parties  are  cordially  invited  to  be  present  and 
hear  and  determine  for  themselves. 

THE  MONROE  FREE  DEMOCRACY. 

What  is  that  name  of  "  Free  Democrats  "  put  forth  for  unless  to 
deceive  the  people,  and  make  them  believe  that  Trumbull  and  his 
followers  are  not  the  same  party  as  that  which  raises  the  black  flag 
of  Abolitionism  in  the  northern  part  of  this  State,  and  makes  war 
upon  the  Democratic  party  throughout  the  State.  When  I  put  that 
question  to  them  at  Waterloo  on  Saturday  last,  one  of  them  rose 
and  stated  that  they  had  changed  their  name  for  political  effect  in 
order  to  get  votes.  There  was  a  candid  admission.  Their  object  in 
changing  their  party  organization  and  principles  in  different  locali 
ties  was  avowed  to  be  an  attempt  to  cheat  and  deceive  some  portion 
of  the  people  until  after  the  election.  Why  cannot  a  political  party 
that  is  conscious  of  the  rectitude  of  its  purposes  and  the  soundness 
of  its  principles  declare  them  everywhere  alike  ?  I  would  disdain  to 
hold  any  political  principles  that  I  could  not  avow  in  the  same  terms 
in  Kentucky  that  I  declared  in  Illinois,  in  Charleston  as  well  as  in 
Chicago,  in  New  Orleans  as  well  as  in  New- York.  So  long  as  we 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          339 

live  under  a  constitution  common  to  all  the  States,  our  political 
faith  ought  to  be  as  broad,  as  liberal,  and  just  as  that  constitution 
itself,  and  should  be  proclaimed  alike  in  every  portion  of  the  Union. 
But  it  is  apparent  that  our  opponents  find  it  necessary,  for  partizan 
effect,  to  change  their  colors  in  different  counties  in  order  to  catch 
the  popular  breeze,  and  hope  with  these  discordant  materials  com 
bined  together  to  secure  a  majority  in  the  legislature  for  the  pur 
pose  of  putting  down  the  Democratic  party.  This  combination  did 
succeed  in  1854  so  far  as  to  elect  a  majority  of  their  confederates  to 
the  legislature,  and  the  first  important  act  which  they  performed 
was  to  elect  a  senator  in  the  place  of  the  eminent  and  gallant  Sena 
tor  Shields.  His  term  expired  in  the  United  States  Senate  at  that 
time,  and  he  had  to  be  crushed  by  the  Abolition  coalition  for  the 
simple  reason  that  he  would  not  join  in  their  conspiracy  to  wage 
war  against  one  half  of  the  Union.  That  was  the  only  objection  to 
General  Shields.  He  had  served  the  people  of  the  State  with  ability 
in  the  legislature,  he  had  served  you  with  fidelity  and  ability  as 
auditor,  he  had  performed  his  duties  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  whole 
country  at  the  head  of  the  Land  Department  at  Washington,  he  had 
covered  the  State  and  the  Union  with  immortal  glory  on  the  bloody 
fields  of  Mexico  in  defense  of  the  honor  of  our  flag,  and  yet  he  had 
to  be  stricken  down  by  this  unholy  combination.  And  for  what 
cause?  Merely  because  he  would  not  join  a  combination  of  one 
half  of  the  States  to  make  war  upon  the  other  half,  after  having 
poured  out  his  heart's  blood  for  all  the  States  in  the  Union.  Trum- 
bull  was  put  in  his  place  by  Abolitionism.  How  did  Trumbull  get 
there  ? 

Before  the  Abolitionists  would  consent  to  go  into  an  election  for 
United  States  senator,  they  required  all  the  members  of  this  new 
combination  to  show  their  hands  upon  this  question  of  Abolitionism. 
Love  joy,  one  of  their  high  priests,  brought  in  resolutions  defining 
the  Abolition  creed,  and  required  them  to  commit  themselves  on  it 
by  their  votes — yea  or  nay.  In  that  creed  as  laid  down  by  Love  joy, 
they  declared  first,  that  the  Wilmot  proviso  must  be  put  on  all  the 
Territories  of  the  United  States,  north  as  well  as  south  of  36°  30', 
and  that  no  more  territory  should  ever  be  acquired  unless  slavery 
was  at  first  prohibited  therein ;  second,  that  no  more  States  should 
ever  be  received  into  the  Union  unless  slavery  was  first  prohibited, 
by  constitutional  provision,  in  such  States ;  third,  that  the  fugitive- 
slave  law  must  be  immediately  repealed,  or,  failing  in  that,  then 
such  amendments  were  to  be  made  to  it  as  would  render  it  useless 
and  inefficient  for  the  objects  for  which  it  was  passed,  etc.  The 
next  day  after  these  resolutions  were  offered  they  were  voted  upon, 
part  of  them  carried,  and  the  others  defeated,  the  same  men  who 
voted  for  them,  with  only  two  exceptions,  voting  soon  after  for  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  as  their  candidate  for  the  United  States  Senate.  He  came 
within  one  or  two  votes  of  being  elected,  but  he  could  not  quite  get 
the  number  required,  for  the  simple  reason  that  his  friend  Trum 
bull,  who  was  a  party  to  the  bargain  by  which  Lincoln  was  to  take 
Shields's  place,  controlled  a  few  Abolitionized  Democrats  in  the  legis 
lature,  and  would  not  allow  them  all  to  vote  for  him,  thus  wronging 


340         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Lincoln  by  permitting  him  on  each  ballot  to  be  almost  elected,  but 
not  quite,  until  he  forced  them  to  drop  Lincoln  and  elect  him  (Trum 
bull),  in  order  to  unite  the  party.  Thus  you  find  that  although  the 
legislature  was  carried  that  year  by  the  bargain  between  Trumbull, 
Lincoln,  and  the  Abolitionists,  and  the  union  of  these  discordant  ele 
ments  in  one  harmonious  party,  yet  Trumbull  violated  his  pledge, 
and  played  a  Yankee  trick  on  Lincoln  when  they  came  to  divide  the 
spoils.  Perhaps  you  would  like  a  little  evidence  on  this  point.  If 
you  would,  I  will  call  Colonel  James  H.  Matheny  of  Springfield, 
to  the  stand,  Mr.  Lincoln's  especial  confidential  friend  for  the  last 
twenty  years,  and  see  what  he  will  say  upon  the  subject  of  this  bar 
gain.  Matheny  is  now  the  Black  Republican  or  Abolition  candidate 
for  Congress  in  the  Springfield  district  against  the  gallant  Colonel 
Harris,  and  is  making  speeches  all  over  that  part  of  the  State  against 
me  and  in  favor  of  Lincoln,  in  concert  with  Trumbull.  He  ought 
to  be  a  good  witness,  and  I  will  read  an  extract  from  a  speech 
which  he  made  in  1856,  when  he  was  mad  because  his  friend  Lincoln 
had  been  cheated.  It  is  one  of  numerous  speeches  of  the  same  tenor 
that  were  made  about  that  time,  exposing  this  bargain  between  Lin 
coln,  Trumbull,  and  the  Abolitionists.  Matheny  then  said : 

The  Whigs,  Abolitionists,  Know-nothings,  and  renegade  Democrats  made 
a  solemn  compact  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  this  State  against  the  De 
mocracy,  on  this  plan :  First,  that  they  would  all  combine  and  elect  Mr. 
Trumbull  to  Congress,  and  thereby  carry  his  district  for  the  legislature,  in 
order  to  throw  all  the  strength  that  could  be  obtained  into  that  body  against 
the  Democrats  ;  second,  that  when  the  legislature  should  meet,  the  officers 
of  that  body,  such  as  speaker,  clerks,  doorkeepers,  etc.,  would  be  given  to 
the  Abolitionists ;  and  third,  that  the  Whigs  were  to  have  the  United  States 
senator.  That,  accordingly,  in  good  faith,  Trumbull  was  elected  to  Con 
gress,  and  his  district  carried  for  the  legislature,  and,  when  it  convened,  the 
Abolitionists  got  all  the  officers  of  that  body,  and  thus  far  the  "bond  "  was 
fairly  executed.  The  Whigs,  on  their  part,  demanded  the  election  of  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  to  the  United  States  Senate,  that  the  bond  might  be  fulfilled, 
the  other  parties  to  the  contract  having  already  secured  to  themselves  all 
that  was  called  for.  But,  in  the  most  perfidious  manner,  they  refused  to 
elect  Mr.  Lincoln ;  and  the  mean,  low-lived,  sneaking  Trumbull  succeeded, 
by  pledging  all  that  was  required  by  any  party,  in  thrusting  Lincoln  aside 
and  foisting  himself,  an  excrescence  from  the  rotten  bowels  of  the  De 
mocracy,  into  the  United  States  Senate  ;  and  thus  it  has  ever  been,  that  an 
honest  man  makes  a  bad  bargain  when  he  conspires  or  contracts  with 
rogues. 

Matheny  thought  his  friend  Lincoln  made  a  bad  bargain  when 
he  conspired  and  contracted  with  such  rogues  as  Trumbull  and  his 
Abolition  associates  in  that  campaign.  Lincoln  was  shoved  off  the 
track,  and  he  and  his  friends  all  at  once  began  to  mope  ;  became  sour 
and  mad,  and  disposed  to  tell,  but  dare  not ;  and  thus  they  stood  for 
a  long  time,  until  the  Abolitionists  coaxed  and  flattered  him  back  by 
their  assurances  that  he  should  certainly  be  a  senator  in  Douglas's 
place.  In  that  way  the  Abolitionists  have  been  able  to  hold  Lincoln 
to  the  alliance  up  to  this  time,  and  now  they  have  brought  him  into 
a  fight  against  me,  and  he  is  to  see  if  he  is  again  to  be  cheated  by 
them.  Lincoln  this  time,  though,  required  more  of  them  than  a 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          341 

promise,  and  holds  their  bond,  if  not  security,  that  Lovejoy  shall  not 
cheat  him  as  Trumbull  did. 

When  the  Republican  convention  assembled  at  Springfield  in  June 
last,  for  the  purpose  of  nominating  State  officers  only,  the  Aboli 
tionists  could  not  get  Lincoln  and  his  friends  into  it  until  they  would 
pledge  themselves  that  Lincoln  should  be  their  candidate  for  the 
Senate ;  and  you  will  find,  in  proof  of  this,  that  that  convention  passed 
a  resolution  unanimously  declaring  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  the 
"  first,  last,  and  only  choice  n  of  the  Republicans  for  United  States 
senator,  lie  was  not  willing  to  have  it  understood  that  he  was 
merely  their  first  choice,  or  their  last  choice,  but  their  only  choice. 
The  Black  Republican  party  had  nobody  else.  Browning  was  no 
where  ;  Governor  Bissell  was  of  no  account  j  Archie  Williams  was 
not  to  be  taken  into  consideration ;  John  Wentworth  was  not  worth 
mentioning;  John  M.  Palmer  was  degraded;  and  their  party  pre 
sented  the  extraordinary  spectacle  of  having  but  one — the  first,  the 
last,  and  only  choice  for  the  Senate.  Suppose  that  Lincoln  should 
die,  what  a  horrible  condition  the  Republican  party  would  be  in ! 
They  would  have  nobody  left.  They  have  no  other  choice,  and  it 
was  necessary  for  them  to  put  themselves  before  the  world  in  this 
ludicrous,  ridiculous  attitude  of  having  no  other  choice  in  order  to 
quiet  Lincoln's  suspicions,  and  assure  him  that  he  was  not  to  be 
cheated  by  Lovejoy,  and  the  trickery  by  which  Trumbull  out-gen- 
eraled  him.  Well,  gentlemen,  I  think  they  will  have  a  nice  time  of  it 
before  they  get  through.  I  do  not  intend  to  give  them  any  chance  to 
cheat  Lincoln  at  all  this  time.  I  intend  to  relieve  him  of  all  anxiety 
upon  that  subject,  and  spare  them  the  mortification  of  more  exposures 
of  contracts  violated,  and  the  pledged  honor  of  rogues  forfeited. 

But  I  wish  to  invite  your  attention  to  the  chief  points  at  issue  be 
tween  Mr.  Lincoln  and  myself  in  this  discussion.  Mr.  Lincoln,  know 
ing  that  he  was  to  be  the  candidate  of  his  party  on  account  of  the 
arrangement  of  which  I  have  already  spoken,  knowing  that  he  was 
to  receive  the  nomination  of  the  convention  for  the  United  States 
Senate,  had  his  speech,  accepting  that  nomination,  all  written  and 
committed  to  memory,  ready  to  be  delivered  the  moment  the  nomi 
nation  was  announced.  Accordingly  when  it  was  made  he  was  in 
readiness  and  delivered  his  speech,  a  portion  of  which  I  will  read  in 
order  that  I  may  state  his  political  principles  fairly,  by  repeating 
them  in  his  own  language: 

We  are  now  far  into  the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  instituted  for  the 
avowed  object,  and  with  the  confident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to  slavery 
agitation ;  under  the  operation  of  that  policy,  that  agitation  has  not  only 
not  ceased,  but  has  constantly  augmented.  I  believe  it  will  not  cease  until  a 
crisis  shall  have  been  reached  and  passed.  "  A  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand."  I  believe  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently  half 
slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved — I  do  not 
expect  the  house  to  fall — but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will 
become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will 
arrest  the  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the 
belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push 
it  forward  until  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States,  North  as  well 
as  South. 


342          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

There  you  have  Mr.  Lincoln's  first  and  main  proposition,  upon 
which  he  bases  his  claims,  stated  in  his  own  language.  He  tells 
you  that  this  republic  cannot  endure  permanently  divided  into  slave 
and  free  States,  as  our  fathers  made  it.  He  says  that  they  must  all 
become  free  or  all  become  slave,  that  they  must  all  be  one  thing  or 
all  be  the  other,  or  this  government  cannot  last.  "Why  can  it  not 
last,  if  we  will  execute  the  government  in  the  same  spirit  and 
upon  the  same  principles  upon  which  it  is  founded  ?  Lincoln,  by  his 
proposition,  says  to  the  South,  "  If  you  desire  to  maintain  your  in 
stitutions  as  they  are  now,  you  must  not  be  satisfied  with  minding 
your  own  business,  but  you  must  invade  Illinois  and  all  the  other 
Northern  States,  establish  slavery  in  them,  and  make  it  universal "  j 
and  in  the  same  language  he  says  to  the  North,  "  You  must  not  be 
content  with  regulating  your  own  affairs,  and  minding  your  own 
business,  but  if  you  desire  to  maintain  your  freedom,  you  must  in 
vade  the  Southern  States,  abolish  slavery  there  and  everywhere,  in 
order  to  have  the  States  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other."  I  say  that 
this  is  the  inevitable  and  irresistible  result  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  argu 
ment,  inviting  a  warfare  between  the  North  and  the  South,  to 
be  carried  on  with  ruthless  vengeance,  until  the  one  section  or  the 
other  shall  be  driven  to  the  wall,  and  become  the  victim  of  the  ra 
pacity  of  the  othjer.  What  good  would  follow  such  a  system  of  war 
fare  ?  Suppose  the  North  should  succeed  in  conquering  the  South, 
how  much  would  she  be  the  gainer  ?  or  suppose  the  South  should 
conquer  the  North,  could  the  Union  be  preserved  in  that  way  ?  Is 
this  sectional  warfare  to  be  waged  between  Northern  States  and 
Southern  States  until  they  all  shall  become  uniform  in  their  local 
and  domestic  institutions  merely  because  Mr.  Lincoln  says  that  a 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand,  and  pretends  that  this 
scriptural  quotation,  this  language  of  our  Lord  and  Master,  is  ap 
plicable  to  the  American  Union  and  the  American  Constitution? 
Washington  and  his  compeers,  in  the  convention  that  framed  the 
Constitution,  made  this  government  divided  into  free  and  slave 
States.  It  was  composed  then  of  thirteen  sovereign  and  indepen 
dent  States,  each  having  sovereign  authority  over  its  local  and 
domestic  institutions,  and  all  bound  together  by  the  Federal  Consti 
tution.  Mr.  Lincoln  likens  that  bond  of  the  Federal  Constitution, 
joining  free  and  slave  States  together,  to  a  house  divided  against 
itself,  and  says  that  it  is  contrary  to  the  law  of  God  and  cannot 
stand.  When  did  he  learn,  and  by  what  authority  does  he  proclaim, 
that  this  government  is  contrary  to  the  law  of  God  and  cannot 
stand  ?  It  has  stood  thus  divided  into  free  and  slave  States  from 
its  organization  up  to  this  day. 

During  that  period  we  have  increased  from  four  millions  to  thirty 
millions  of  people ;  we  have  extended  our  territory  from  the  Missis 
sippi  to  the  Pacific  ocean  5  we  have  acquired  the  Floridas  and  Texas, 
and  other  territory  sufficient  to  double  our  geographical  extent  j  we 
have  increased  in  population,  in  wealth,  and  in  power  beyond  any 
example  on  earth ;  we  have  risen  from  a  weak  and  feeble  power  to 
become  the  terror  and  admiration  of  the  civilized  world ;  and  all  this 
has  been  done  under  a  Constitution  which  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  substance, 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          343 

says  is  in  violation  of  the  law  of  God,  and  under  a  Union  divided 
into  free  and  slave  States,  which  Mr.  Lincoln  thinks,  because  of  such 
division,  cannot  stand.  Surely,  Mr.  Lincoln  is  a  wiser  man  than 
those  who  framed  the  government.  Washington  did  not  believe, 
nor  did  his  compatriots,  that  the  local  laws  and  domestic  institutions 
that  were  well  adapted  to  the  Green  Mountains  of  Vermont  were 
suited  to  the  rice  plantations  of  South  Carolina ;  they  did  not  believe 
at  that  day  that  in  a  republic  so  broad  and  expanded  as  this;  con 
taining  such  a  variety  of  climate,  soil,  and  interest,  uniformity  in 
the  local  laws  and  domestic  institutions  was  either  desirable  or  pos 
sible.  They  believed  then,  as  our  experience  has  proved  to  us  now, 
that  each  locality,  having  different  interests,  a  different  climate,  and 
different  surroundings,  required  different  local  laws,  local  policy,  and 
local  institutions,  adapted  to  the  wants  of  that  locality.  Thus  our 
government  was  formed  on  the  principle  of  diversity  in  the  local  in 
stitutions  and  laws,  and  not  on  that  of  uniformity. 

As  my  time  flies,  I  can  only  glance  at  these  points  and  not  present 
them  as  fully  as  I  would  wish,  because  I  desire  to  bring  all  the  points 
in  controversy  between  the  two  parties  before  you  in  order  to  have 
Mr.  Lincoln's  reply.  He  makes  war  on  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  in  the  case  known  as  the  Dred  Scott  case.  I  wish  to  say  to 
you,  fellow-citizens,  that  I  have  no  war  to  make  on  that  decision,  or 
any  other  ever  rendered  by  the  Supreme  Court.  I  am  content  to 
take  that  decision  as  it  stands  delivered  by  the  highest  judicial  tri 
bunal  on  earth,  a  tribunal  established  by  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  for  that  purpose,  and  hence  that  decision  becomes  the 
law  of  the  land,  binding  on  you,  on  me,  and  on  every  other  good  citi 
zen,  whether  we  like  it  or  not.  Hence  I  do  not  choose  to  go  into  an 
argument  to  prove,  before  this  audience,  whether  or  not  Chief  Justice 
Taney  understood  the  law  better  than  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Mr.  Lincoln  objects  to  that  decision,  first  and  mainly  because  it 
deprives  the  negro  of  the  rights  of  citizenship.  I  am  as  much  op 
posed  to  his  reason  for  that  objection  as  I  am  to  the  objection  itself. 
I  hold  that  a  negro  is  not  and  never  ought  to  be  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States.  I  hold  that  this  government  was  made  on  the  white 
basis,  by  white  men  for  the  benefit  of  white  men  and  their  posterity 
forever,"  and  should  be  administered  by  white  men,  and  none  others. 
I  do  not  believe  that  the  Almighty  made  the  negro  capable  of  self- 
government.  I  am  aware  that  all  the  Abolition  lecturers  that  you 
find  traveling  about  through  the  country,  are  in  the  habit  of  reading 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  to  prove  that  all  men  were  created 
equal  and  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights, 
among  which  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  Mr. 
Lincoln  is  very  much  in  the  habit  of  following  in  the  track  of  Love- 
joy  in  this  particular,  by  reading  that  part  of  the  Declaration  of  In 
dependence  to  prove  that  the  negro  was  endowed  by  the  Almighty 
with  the  inalienable  right  of  equality  with  white  men.  Now,  I  say 
to  you,  my  fellow-citizens,  that  in  my  opinion  the  signers  of  the 
Declaration  had  no  reference  to  the  negro  whatever,  when  they  de 
clared  all  men  to  be  created  equal.  They  desired  to  express  by  that 
phrase  white  men,  men  of  European  birth  and  European  descent, 


344         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

and  had  no  reference  either  to  the  negro,  the  savage  Indians,  the 
Feejee,  the  Malay,  or  any  other  inferior  and  degraded  race,  when 
they  spoke  of  the  equality  of  men.  One  great  evidence  that  such 
was  their  understanding,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  at  that  time 
every  one  of  the  thirteen  colonies  was  a  slaveholding  colony,  every 
signer  of  the  Declaration  represented  a  slaveholding  constituency, 
and  we  know  that  no  one  of  them  emancipated  his  slaves,  much  less 
offered  citizenship  to  them,  when  they  signed  the  Declaration ;  and 
yet,  if  they  intended  to  declare  that  the  negro  was  the  equal  of  the 
white  man,  and  entitled  by  divine  right  to  an  equality  with  him, 
they  were  bound,  as  honest  men,  that  day  and  hour  to  have  put 
their  negroes  on  an  equality  with  themselves.  Instead  of  doing  so? 
with  uplifted  eyes  to  heaven  they  implored  the  divine  blessing  upon 
them,  during  the  seven  years'  bloody  war  they  had  to  fight  to  main 
tain  that  Declaration,  never  dreaming  that  they  were  violating  di 
vine  law  by  still  holding  the  negroes  in  bondage  and  depriving  them 
of  equality. 

My  friends,  I  am  in  favor  of  preserving  this  government  as  our 
fathers  made  it.  It  does  not  follow  by  any  means  that  because  a 
negro  is  not  your  equal  or  mine,  that  hence  he  must  necessarily  be  a 
slave.  On  the  contrary,  it  does  follow  that  we  ought  to  extend  to 
the  negro  every  right,  every  privilege,  every  immunity  which  he  is 
capable  of  enjoying,  consistent  with  the  good  of  society.  When 
you  ask  me  what  these  rights  are,  what  their  nature  and  extent  isr 
I  tell  you  that  that  is  a  question  which  each  State  of  this  Union  must 
decide  for  itself.  Illinois  has  already  decided  the  question.  We 
have  decided  that  the  negro  must  not  be  a  slave  within  pur  limits  ; 
but  we  have  also  decided  that  the  negro  shall  not  be  a  citizen  within 
our  limits ;  that  he  shall  not  vote,  hold  office,  or  exercise  any  political 
rights.  I  maintain  that  Illinois,  as  a  sovereign  State,  has  a  right  thus 
to  fix  her  policy  with  reference  to  the  relation  between  the  white 
man  and  the  negro ;  but  while  we  had  that  right  to  decide  the  ques 
tion  for  ourselves,  we  must  recognize  the  same  right  in  Kentucky 
and  in  every  other  State  to  make  the  same  decision,  or  a  different 
one.  Having  decided  our  own  policy  with  reference  to  the  black 
race,  we  must  leave  Kentucky  and  Missouri  and  every  other  State 
perfectly  free  to  make  just  such  a  decision  as  they  see  proper  on  that 
question. 

Kentucky  has  decided  that  question  for  herself.  She  has  said  that 
within  her  limits  a  negro  shall  not  exercise  any  political  rights,  and 
she  has  also  said  that  a  portion  of  the  negroes  under  the  laws  of  that 
State  shall  be  slaves.  She  had  as  much  right  to  adopt  that  as  her 
policy  as  we  had  to  adopt  the  contrary  for  our  policy.  New  York 
has  decided  that  in  that  State  a  negro  may  vote  if  he  has  two  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars'  worth  of  property,  and  if  he  owns  that  much  he  may 
vote  upon  an  equality  with  the  white  man.  I,  for  one,  am  utterly 
opposed  to  negro  suffrage  anywhere  and  under  any  circumstances  ; 

S?t,  inasmuch  as  the  Supreme  Court  has  decided  in  the  celebrated 
red  Scott  case  that  a  State  has  a  right  to  confer  the  privilege  of 
voting  upon  free  negroes,  I  am  not  going  to  make  war  upon  New 
York  because  she  has  adopted  a  policy  repugnant  to  my  feelings. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          345 

But  New  York  must  mind  her  own  business,  and  keep  her  negro 
suffrage  to  herself,  and  not  attempt  to  force  it  upon  us. 

In  the  State  of  Maine  they  have  decided  that  a  negro  may  vote  and 
hold  office  on  an  equality  with  a  white  man.  I  had  occasion  to  say 
to  the  senators  from  Maine,  in  a  discussion  last  session,  that  if  they 
thought  that  the  white  people  within  the  limits  of  their  State  were 
no  better  than  negroes,  I  would  not  quarrel  with  them  for  it,  but 
they  must  not  say  that  my  white  constituents  of  Illinois  were  no 
better  than  negroes,  or  we  would  be  sure  to  quarrel. 

The  Bred  Scott  decision  covers  the  whole  question,  and  declares 
that  each  State  has  the  right  to  settle  this  question  of  suffrage  for 
itself,  and  all  questions  as  to  the  relations  between  the  white  man 
and  the  negro.  Judge  Taney  expressly  lays  down  the  doctrine.  I 
receive  it  as  law,  and  I  say  that  while  those  States  are  adopting  regu 
lations  on  that  subject  disgusting  and  abhorrent,  according  to  my 
views,  I  will  not  make  war  on  them  if  they  will  mind  their  own  busi 
ness  and  let  us  alone. 

I  now  come  back  to  the  question,  why  cannot  this  Union  exist  for 
ever  divided  into  free  and  slave  States,  as  our  fathers  made  it  ?  It 
can  thus  exist  if  each  State  will  carry  out  the  principles  upon  which 
our  institutions  were  founded — to  wit,  the  right  of  each  State  to  do 
as  it  pleases,  without  meddling  with  its  neighbors.  Just  act  upon 
that  great  principle,  and  this  Union  will  not  only  live  forever,  but 
it  will  extend  and  expand  until  it  covers  the  whole  continent,  and 
makes  this  confederacy  one  grand,  ocean-bound  republic.  We  must 
bear  in  mind  that  we  are  yet  a  young  nation,  growing  with  a  rapidity 
unequaled  in  the  history  of  the  world,  that  our  national  increase  is 
great,  and  that  the  emigration  from  the  Old  World  is  increasing,  re 
quiring  us  to  expand  and  acquire  new  territory  from  time  to  time, 
in  order  to  give  our  people  land  to  live  upon. 

If  we  live  up  to  the  principle  of  State  rights  and  State  sovereignty, 
each  State  regulating  its  own  affairs  and  minding  its  own  business, 
we  can  go  on  and  extend  indefinitely,  just  as  fast  and  as  far  as  we 
need  the  territory.  The  time  may  come,  indeed  has  now  come,  when 
our  interests  would  be  advanced  by  the  acquisition  of  the  island  of 
Cuba.  When  we  get  Cuba  we  must  take  it  as  we  find  it,  leaving  the 
people  to  decide  the  question  of  slavery  for  themselves,  without  in 
terference  on  the  part  of  the  Federal  Government,  or  of  any  State  of 
this  Union.  So  when  it  becomes  necessary  to  acquire  any  portion 
of  Mexico  or  Canada,  or  of  this  continent  or  the  adjoining  islands, 
we  must  take  them  as  we  find  them,  leaving  the  people  free  to  do  as 
they  please — to  have  slavery  or  not,  as  they  choose.  I  never  have 
inquired,  and  never  will  inquire,  whether  a  new  State  applying  for 
admission  has  slavery  or  not  for  one  of  her  institutions.  If  the  con 
stitution  that  is  presented  be  the  act  and  deed  of  the  people,  and 
embodies  their  will,  and  they  have  the  requisite  population,  I  will 
admit  them  with  slavery  or  without  it,  just  as  that  people  shall  de 
termine.  My  objection  to  the  Lecompton  constitution  did  not  con 
sist  in  the  fact  that  it  made  Kansas  a  slave  State.  I  would  have 
been  as  much  opposed  to  its  admission  under  such  a  constitution  as 
a  free  State  as  I  was  opposed  to  its  admission  under  it  as  a  slave 


346         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

State.  I  hold  that  that  was  a  question  which  that  people  had  a  right 
to  decide  for  themselves,  and  that  no  power  on  earth  ought  to  have 
interfered  with  that  decision.  In  my  opinion,  the  Lecompton  con 
stitution  was  not  the  act  and  deed  of  the  people  of  Kansas,  and  did  not 
embody  their  will,  and  the  recent  election  in  that  Territory,  at  which 
it  was  voted  down  by  nearly  ten  to  one,  shows  conclusively  that  I 
was  right  in  saying,  when  the  constitution  was  presented,  that  it  was 
not  the  act  and  deed  of  the  people,  and  did  not  embody  their  will. 

If  we  wish  to  preserve  our  institutions  in  their  purity  and  trans 
mit  them  unimpaired  to  our  latest  posterity,  we  must  preserve  with 
religious  good  faith  that  great  principle  of  self-government  which 
guarantees  to  each  and  every  State,  old  and  new,  the  right  to  make 
just  such  constitutions  as  they  desire,  and  come  into  the  Union  with 
their  own  constitution,  and  not  one  palmed  upon  them.  Whenever 
you  sanction  the  doctrine  that  Congress  may  crowd  a  constitution 
down  the  throats  of  an  unwilling  people,  against  their  consent,  you 
will  subvert  the  great  fundamental  principle  upon  which  all  our  free 
institutions  rest.  In  the  future  I  have  no  fear  that  the  attempt  will 
ever  be  made.  President  Buchanan  declared  in  his  annual  message, 
that  hereafter  the  rule  adopted  in  the  Minnesota  case,  requiring  a 
constitution  to  be  submitted  to  the  people,  should  be  followed  in  all 
future  cases,  and  if  he  stands  by  that  recommendation  there  will  be 
no  division  in  the  Democratic  party  on  that  principle  in  the  future. 
Hence  the  great  mission  of  the  Democracy  is  to  unite  the  fraternal 
feeling  of  the  whole  country,  restore  peace  and  quiet  by  teaching 
each  State  to  mind  its  own  business  and  regulate  its  own  domestic 
affairs,  and  all  to  unite  in  carrying  out  the  Constitution  as  our  fathers 
made  it,  and  thus  to  preserve  the  Union  and  render  it  perpetual  in 
all  time  to  come.  Why  should  we  not  act  as  our  fathers  who  made 
the  government?  There  was  no  sectional  strife  in  Washington's 
army.  They  were  all  brethren  of  a  common  confederacy ;  they  fought 
under  a  common  flag  that  they  might  bestow  upon  their  posterity  a 
common  destiny,  and  to  this  end  they  poured  out  their  blood  in  com 
mon  streams,  and  shared,  in  some  instances,  a  common  grave. 


Mr.  Lincoln's  Reply  in  the  Jonesboro  Joint  Debate. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen :  There  is  very  much  in  the  principles  that 
Judge  Douglas  has  here  enunciated  that  I  most  cordially  approve, 
and  over  which  I  shall  have  no  controversy  with  him.  In  so  far 
as  he  has  insisted  that  all  the  States  have  the  right  to  do  exactly  as 
they  please  about  all  their  domestic  relations,  including  that  of 
slavery,  I  agree  entirely  with  him.  He  places  me  wrong  in  spite  of 
all  I  can  tell  him,  though  I  repeat  it  again  and  again,  insisting  that 
I  have  made  no  difference  with  him  upon  this  subject.  I  have  made 
a  great  many  speeches,  some  of  which  have  been  printed,  and  it  will 
be  utterly  impossible  for  him  to  find  anything  that  I  have  ever  put 
in  print  contrary  to  what  I  now  say  upon  this  subject.  I  hold  myself 
under  constitutional  obligations  to  allow  the  people  in  all  the  States, 
without  interference,  direct  or  indirect,  to  do  exactly  as  they  please, 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          347 

and  I  deny  that  I  have  any  inclination  to  interfere  with  them,  even 
if  there  were  no  such  constitutional  obligation.  I  can  only  say  again 
that  I  am  placed  improperly —  altogether  improperly,  in  spite  of  all  I 
can  say  —  when  it  is  insisted  that  I  entertain  any  other  view  or  pur 
pose  in  regard  to  that  matter. 

While  I  am  upon  this  subject,  I  will  make  some  answers  briefly  to 
certain  propositions  that  Judge  Douglas  has  put.  He  says,  "  Why 
can't  this  Union  endure  permanently,  half  slave  and  half  free  ? "  I 
have  said  that  I  supposed  it  could  not,  and  I  will  try,  before  this  new 
audience,  to  give  briefly  some  of  the  reasons  for  entertaining  that 
opinion.  Another  form  of  his  question  is, "  Why  can't  we  let  it  stand 
as  our  fathers  placed  it  ? "  That  is  the  exact  difficulty  between  us. 
I  say  that  Judge  Douglas  and  his  friends  have  changed  it  from 
the  position  in  which  our  fathers  originally  placed  it.  I  say,  in  the 
way  our  fathers  originally  left  the  slavery  question,  the  institution 
was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  and  the  public  mind  rested 
in  the  belief  that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  I  say 
when  this  government  was  first  established,  it  was  the  policy  of  its 
founders  to  prohibit  the  spread  of  slavery  into  the  new  Territories  of 
the  United  States,  where  it  had  not  existed.  But  Judge  Douglas  and 
his  friends  have  broken  up  that  policy,  and  placed  it  upon  a  new  basis 
by  which  it  is  to  become  national  and  perpetual.  All  I  have  asked  or 
desired  anywhere  is  that  it  should  be  placed  back  again  upon  the 
basis  that  the  fathers  of  our  government  originally  placed  it  upon. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  it  would  become  extinct,  for  all  time  to  come, 
if  we  but  readopted  the  policy  of  the  fathers  by  restricting  it  to  the 
limits  it  has  already  covered  —  restricting  it  from  the  new  Territories. 

I  do  not  wish  to  dwell  at  great  length  on  this  branch  of  the  sub 
ject  at  this  time,  but  allow  me  to  repeat  one  thing  that  I  have  stated 
before.  Brooks,  the  man  who  assaulted  Senator  Sumner  on  the  floor 
of  the  Senate,  and  who  was  complimented  with  dinners,  and  silver 
pitchers,  and  gold-headed  canes,  and  a  good  many  other  things  for 
that  feat,  in  one  of  his  speeches  declared  that  when  this  government 
was  originally  established,  nobody  expected  that  the  institution  of 
slavery  would  last  until  this  day.  That  was  but  the  opinion  of  one 
man,  but  it  was  such  an  opinion  as  we  can  never  get  from  Judge 
Douglas,  or  anybody  in  favor  of  slavery  in  the  North  at  all.  You 
can  sometimes  get  it  from  a  Southern  man.  He  said  at  the  same 
time  that  the  framers  of  our  government  did  not  have  the  know 
ledge  that  experience  has  taught  us — that  experience  and  the  inven 
tion  of  the  cotton-gin  have  taught  us  that  the  perpetuation  of  slavery 
is  a  necessity.  He  insisted,  therefore,  upon  its  being  changed  from 
the  basis  upon  which  the  fathers  of  the  government  left  it  to  the 
basis  of  its  perpetuation  and  nationalization. 

I  insist  that  this  is  the  difference  between  Judge  Douglas  and  my 
self — that  Judge  Douglas  is  helping  that  change  along.  I  insist 
upon  this  government  being  placed  where  our  fathers  originally 
placed  it. 

I  remember  Judge  Douglas  once  said  that  he  saw  the  evidences  on 
the  statute-books  of  Congress  of  a  policy  in  the  origin  of  govern 
ment  to  divide  slavery  and  freedom  by  a  geographical  line — that  he 


348         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

saw  an  indisposition  to  maintain  that  policy,  and  therefore  he  set 
about  studying  up  a  way  to  settle  the  institution  on  the  right  basis — 
the  basis  which  he  thought  it  ought  to  have  been  placed  upon  at 
first ;  and  in  that  speech  he  confesses  that  he  seeks  to  place  it,  not 
upon  the  basis  that  the  fathers  placed  it  upon,  but  upon  one  gotten 
up  on  "  original  principles."  When  he  asks  me  why  we  cannot  get 
along  with  it  in  the  attitude  where  our  fathers  placed  it,  he  had 
better  clear  up  the  evidences  that  he  has  himself  changed  it  from 
that  basis ;  that  he  has  himself  been  chiefly  instrumental  in  chang 
ing  the  policy  of  the  fathers.  Any  one  who  will  read  his  speech  of 
the  22d  of  last  March  will  see  that  he  there  makes  an  open  confes 
sion,  showing  that  he  set  about  fixing  the  institution  upon  an  alto 
gether  different  set  of  principles.  I  think  I  have  fully  answered  him 
when  he  asks  me  why  we  cannot  let  it  alone  upon  the  basis  where 
our  fathers  left  it,  by  showing  that  he  has  himself  changed  the  whole 
policy  of  the  government  in  that  regard. 

Now,  fellow-citizens,  in  regard  to  this  matter  about  a  contract  that 
was  made  between  Judge  Trumbull  and  myself,  and  all  that  long 
portion  of  Judge  Douglas's  speech  on  this  subject,  I  wish  simply 
to  say  what  I  have  said  to  him  before,  that  he  cannot  know  whether 
it  is  true  or  not,  and  I  do  know  that  there  is  not  a  word  of  truth  in  it. 
And  I  have  told  him  so  before.  I  don't  want  any  harsh  language  in 
dulged  in,  but  I  do  not  know  how  to  deal  with  this  persistent  insist 
ing  on  a  story  that  I  know  to  be  utterly  without  truth.  It  used  to  be  a 
fashion  amongst  men  that  when  a  charge  was  made,  some  sort  of 
proof  was  brought  forward  to  establish  it,  and  if  no  proof  was  found 
to  exist,  the  charge  was  dropped.  I  don't  know  how  to  meet  this 
kind  of  an  argument.  I  don't  want  to  have  a  fight  with  Judge  Doug 
las,  and  I  have  no  way  of  making  an  argument  up  into  the  consis 
tency  of  a  corn-cob  and  stopping  his  mouth  with  it.  All  I  can  do  is, 
good-humoredly,  to  say  that  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  all 
that  story  about  a  bargain  between  Judge  Trumbull  and  myself, 
there  is  not  a  word  of  truth  in  it.  I  can  only  ask  him  to  show  some 
sort  of  evidence  of  the  truth  of  his  story.  He  brings  forward  here 
and  reads  from  what  he  contends  is  a  speech  by  James  H.  Matheny, 
charging  such  a  bargain  between  Trumbull  and  myself.  My  own 
opinion  is  that  Matheny  did  do  some  such  immoral  thing  as  to  tell  a 
story  that  he  knew  nothing  about.  I  believe  he  did.  I  contradicted  it 
instantly,  and  it  has  been  contradicted  by  Judge  Trumbull,  while  no 
body  has  produced  any  proof,  because  there  is  none.  Now,  whether 
the  speech  which  the  judge  brings  forward  here  is  really  the  one 
Matheny  made,  I  do  not  know,  and  I  hope  the  judge  will  pardon  me 
for  doubting  the  genuineness  of  this  document,  since  his  production 
of  those  Springfield  resolutions  at  Ottawa.  I  do  not  wish  to  dwell 
at  any  great  length  upon  this  matter.  I  can  say  nothing  when  a  long 
story  like  this  is  told,  except  that  it  is  not  true,  and  demand  that  he 
who  insists  upon  it  shall  produce  some  proof.  That  is  all  any  man 
can  do,  and  I  leave  it  in  that  way,  for  I  know  of  no  other  way  of  deal 
ing  with  it. 

The  judge  has  gone  over  a  long  account  of  the  Old  Whig  and 
Democratic  parties,  and  it  connects  itself  with  this  charge  against 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          349 

Trumbull  and  myself.  He  says  that  they  agreed  upon  a  compromise 
in  regard  to  the  slavery  question  in  1850;  that  in  a  national  Demo 
cratic  convention  resolutions  were  passed  to  abide  by  that  compro 
mise  as  a  finality  upon  the  slavery  question.  He  also  says  that  the 
Whig  party  in  national  convention  agreed  to  abide  by  and  regard  as 
a  finality  the  compromise  of  1850.  I  understand  the  judge  to  be  al 
together  right  about  that;  I  understand  that  part  of  the  history  of 
the  country  as  stated  by  him  to  be  correct.  I  recollect  that  I,  as  a 
member  of  that  party,  acquiesced  in  that  compromise.  I  recollect  in 
the  presidential  election  which  followed,  when  we  had  General  Scott 
up  for  the  presidency,  Judge  Douglas  was  around  berating  us  Whigs 
as  Abolitionists,  precisely  as  he  does  to-day — not  a  bit  of  difference. 
I  have  often  heard  him.  We  could  do  nothing  when  the  Old  Whig 
party  was  alive  that  was  not  Abolitionism,  but  it  has  got  an  extremely 
good  name  since  it  has  passed  away. 

When  that  compromise  was  made,  it  did  not  repeal  the  old  Mis 
souri  Compromise.  It  left  a  region  of  United  States  territory  half 
as  large  as  the  present  territory  of  the  United  States,  north  of  the 
line  of  36°  30',  in  which  slavery  was  prohibited  by  act  of  Congress. 
This  compromise  did  not  repeal  that  one.  It  did  not  affect  or  pro 
pose  to  repeal  it.  But  at  last  it  became  Judge  Douglas's  duty,  as 
he  thought  (and  I  find  no  fault  with  him),  as  chairman  of  the  Com 
mittee  on  Territories,  to  bring  in  a  bill  for  the  organization  of  a 
territorial  government  —  first  of  one,  then  of  two  Territories  north 
of  that  line.  When  he  did  so  it  ended  in  his  inserting  a  provision 
substantially  repealing  the  Missouri  Compromise.  That  was  be 
cause  the  compromise  of  1850  had  not  repealed  it.  And  now  I  ask 
why  he  could  not  have  left  that  compromise  alone  ?  We  were  quiet 
from  the  agitation  of  the  slavery  question.  We  were  making  no 
fuss  about  it.  All  had  acquiesced  in  the  compromise  measures  of 
1850.  We  never  had  been  seriously  disturbed  by  any  Abolition  agi 
tation  before  that  period.  When  he  came  to  form  governments  for 
the  Territories  north  of  the  line  of  36°  30',  why  could  he  not  have 
let  that  matter  stand  as  it  was  standing  ?  Was  it  necessary  to  the 
organization  of  a  Territory !  Not  at  all.  Iowa  lay  north  of  the  line 
and  had  been  organized  as  a  Territory,  and  came  into  the  Union  as  a 
State  without  disturbing  that  compromise.  There  was  no  sort  of 
necessity  for  destroying  it  to  organize  these  Territories.  But,  gen 
tlemen,  it  would  take  up  all  my  time  to  meet  all  the  little  quibbling 
arguments  of  Judge  Douglas  to  show  that  the  Missouri  Compromise 
was  repealed  by  the  compromise  of  1850.  My  own  opinion  is  that 
a  careful  investigation  of  all  the  arguments  to  sustain  the  position 
that  that  compromise  was  virtually  repealed  by  the  compromise  of 
1850  would  show  that  they  are  the  merest  fallacies.  I  have  the  re 
port  that  Judge  Douglas  first  brought  into  Congress  at  the  time  of 
the  introduction  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  which  in  its  original  form  did 
not  repeal  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  he  there  expressly  stated 
that  he  had  forborne  to  do  so  because  it  had  not  been  done  by  the 
compromise  of  1850.  I  close  this  part  of  the  discussion  on  my  part 
by  asking  him  the  question  again,  "  Why,  when  we  had  peace  under 
the  Missouri  Compromise,  could  you  not  have  let  it  alone  ?  " 


350          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

In  complaining  of  what  I  said  in  my  speech  at  Springfield,  in 
which  he  says  I  accepted  my  nomination  for  the  senatorship  (where, 
by  the  way,  he  is  at  fault,  for  if  he  will  examine  it,  he  will  find  no 
acceptance  in  it),  he  again  quotes  that  portion  in  which  I  said  that 
"  a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand."  Let  me  say  a  word 
in  regard  to  that  matter. 

He  tries  to  persuade  us  that  there  must  be  a  variety  in  the  differ 
ent  institutions  of  the  States  of  the  Union ;  that  that  variety  neces 
sarily  proceeds  from  the  variety  of  soil,  climate,  of  the  face  of  the 
country,  and  the  difference  in  the  natural  features  of  the  States.  I 
agree  to  all  that.  Have  these  very  matters  ever  produced  any  diffi 
culty  amongst  us  ?  Not  at  all.  Have  we  ever  had  any  quarrel  over 
the  fact  that  they  have  laws  in  Louisiana  designed  to  regulate  the 
commerce  that  springs  from  the  production  of  sugar?  or  because 
we  have  a  different  class  relative  to  the  production  of  flour  in  this 
State?  Have  they  produced  any  differences?  Not  at  all.  They 
are  the  very  cements  of  this  Union.  They  don't  make  the  house  a 
house  divided  against  itself.  They  are  the  props  that  hold  up  the 
house  and  sustain  the  Union. 

But  has  it  been  so  with  this  element  of  slavery  ?  Have  we  not  al 
ways  had  quarrels  and  difficulties  over  it  ?  And  when  will  we  cease 
to  have  quarrels  over  it  ?  Like  causes  produce  like  effects.  It  is 
worth  while  to  observe  that  we  have  generally  had  comparative 
peace  upon  the  slavery  question,  and  that  there  has  been  no  cause 
for  alarm  until  it  was  excited  by  the  effort  to  spread  it  into  new  ter 
ritory.  Whenever  it  has  been  limited  to  its  present  bounds,  and 
there  has  been  no  effort  to  spread  it,  there  has  been  peace.  All  the 
trouble  and  convulsion  has  proceeded  from  efforts  to  spread  it  over 
more  territory.  It  was  thus  at  the  date  of  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise.  It  was  so  again  with  the  annexation  of  Texas;  so  with  the 
territory  acquired  by  the  Mexican  war  j  and  it  is  so  now.  Whenever 
there  has  been  an  effort  to  spread  it  there  has  been  agitation  and 
resistance.  Now,  I  appeal  to  this  audience  (very  few  of  whom  are 
my  political  friends),  as  national  men,  whether  we  have  reason  to 
expect  that  the  agitation  in  regard  to  this  subject  will  cease  while 
the  causes  that  tend  to  reproduce  agitation  are  actively  at  work  ? 
Will  not  the  same  cause  that  produced  agitation  in  1820,  when  the 
Missouri  Compromise  was  formed, — that  which  produced  the  agita 
tion  upon  the  annexation  of  Texas,  and  at  other  times, — work  out 
the  same  results  always?  Do  you  think  that  the  nature  of  man  will 
be  changed  —  that  the  same  causes  that  produced  agitation  at  one 
time  will  not  have  the  same  effect  at  another  ? 

This  has  been  the  result  so  far  as  my  observation  of  the  slavery 
question  and  my  reading  in  history  extend.  What  right  have  we 
then  to  hope  that  the  trouble  will  cease,  that  the  agitation  will 
come  to  an  end ;  until  it  shall  either  be  placed  back  where  it  origi 
nally  stood,  and  where  the  fathers  originally  placed  it,  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  until  it  shall  entirely  master  all  opposition  ?  This  is  the  view 
I  entertain,  and  this  is  the  reason  why  I  entertained  it,  as  Judge 
Douglas  has  read  from  my  Springfield  speech. 

Now,  my  friends,  there  is  one  other  thing  that  I  feel  under  some 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          351 

sort  of  obligation  to  mention.  Judge  Douglas  has  here  to-day —  in 
a  very  rambling  way,  I  was  about  saying  —  spoken  of  the  platforms 
for  which  he  seeks  to  hold  me  responsible.  He  says,  "  Why  can't 
you  come  out  and  make  an  open  avowal  of  principles  in  all  places 
alike  ? "  and  he  reads  from  an  advertisement  that  he  says  was  used 
to  notify  the  people  of  a  speech  to  be  made  by  Judge  Trumbull  at 
Waterloo.  In  commenting  on  it  he  desires  to  know  whether  we 
cannot  speak  frankly  and  manfully  as  he  and  his  friends  do  !  How, 
I  ask,  do  his  friends  speak  out  their  own  sentiments?  A  conven 
tion  of  his  party  in  this  State  met  on  the  21st  of  April,  at  Springfield, 
and  passed  a  set  of  resolutions  which  they  proclaim  to  the  country 
as  their  platform.  This  does  constitute  their  platform,  and  it  is 
because  Judge  Douglas  claims  it  is  his  platform  —  that  these  are  his 
principles  and  purposes  —  that  he  has  a  right  to  declare  that  he 
speaks  his  sentiments  "  frankly  and  manfully."  On  the  9th  of  June, 
Colonel  John  Dougherty,  Governor  Reynolds,  and  others,  calling 
themselves  National  Democrats,  met  in  Springfield,  and  adopted  a  set 
of  resolutions  which  are  as  easily  understood,  as  plain  and  as  definite 
in  stating  to  the  country  and  to  the  world  what  they  believed  in 
and  would  stand  upon,  as  Judge  Douglas's  platform.  Now,  what  is 
the  reason  that  Judge  Douglas  is  not  willing  that  Colonel  Dougherty 
and  Governor  Reynolds  should  stand  upon  their  own  written  and 
printed  platform  as  well  as  he  upon  his  ?  Why  must  he  look  farther 
than  their  platform  when  he  claims  himself  to  stand  by  his  platform  ? 

Again,  in  reference  to  our  platform :  On  the  16th  of  June  the  Re 
publicans  had  their  convention  and  published  their  platform,  which 
is  as  clear  and  distinct  as  Judge  Douglas's.  In  it  they  spoke  their 
principles  as  plainly  and  as  definitely  to  the  world.  What  is  the 
reason  that  Judge  Douglas  is  not  willing  that  I  should  stand  upon 
that  platform  ?  Why  must  he  go  around  hunting  for  some  one  who 
is  supporting  me,  or  has  supported  me  at  some  time  in  his  life,  and 
who  has  said  something  at  some  time  contrary  to  that  platform  ? 
Does  the  judge  regard  that  rule  as  a  good  one?  If  it  turn  out  that 
the  rule  is  a  good  one  for  me, — that  I  am  responsible  for  any  and 
every  opinion  that  any  man  has  expressed  who  is  my  friend, — then 
it  is  a  good  rule  for  him.  I  ask,  is  it  not  as  good  a  rule  for  him  as 
it  is  for  me  ?  In  my  opinion,  it  is  not  a  good  rule  for  either  of  us. 
Do  you  think  differently,  judge! 

Mr.  Douglas:  I  do  not. 

Mr.  Lincoln:  Judge  Douglas  says  he  does  not  think  differently. 
I  am  glad  of  it.  Then  can  he  tell  me  why  he  is  looking  up  resolu 
tions  of  five  or  six  years  ago,  and  insisting  that  they  were  my  plat 
form,  notwithstanding  my  protest  that  they  are  not,  and  never 
were,  my  platform,  and  my  pointing  out  the  platform  of  the  State 
convention  which  he  delights  to  say  nominated  me  for  the  Senate? 
I  cannot  see  what  he  means  by  parading  these  resolutions,  if  it  is 
not  to  hold  me  responsible  for  them  in  some  way.  If  he  says  to 
me  here,  that  he  does  not  hold  the  rule  to  be  good,  one  way  or  the 
other,  I  do  not  comprehend  how  he  could  answer  me  more  fully  if 
he  answered  me  at  greater  length.  I  will  therefore  put  in  as  my 
answer  to  the  resolutions  that  he  has  hunted  up  against  me  what  I, 


352          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

as  a  lawyer,  would  call  a  good  plea  to  a  bad  declaration.  I  under 
stand  that  it  is  a  maxim  of  law,  that  a  poor  plea  may  be  a  good  plea 
to  a  bad  declaration.  I  think  that  the  opinions  the  judge  brings 
from  those  who  support  me,  yet  differ  from  me,  are  a  bad  declaration 
against  me,  but  if  I  can  bring  the  same  things  against  him,  I  am 
putting  in  a  good  plea  to  that  kind  of  declaration,  and  now  I  pro 
pose  to  try  it. 

At  Freeport  Judge  Douglas  occupied  a  large  part  of  his  time  in 
producing  resolutions  and  documents  of  various  sorts,  as  I  under 
stood,  to  make  me  somehow  responsible  for  them ;  and  I  propose 
now  doing  a  little  of  the  same  sort  of  thing  for  him.  In  1850  a  very 
clever  gentleman  by  the  name  of  Thompson  Campbell,  a  personal 
friend  of  Judge  Douglas  and  myself,  a  political  friend  of  Judge  Doug 
las  and  opponent  of  mine,  was  a  candidate  for  Congress  in  the  Galena 
district.  He  was  interrogated  as  to  his  views  on  this  same  slavery 
question.  I  have  here  before  me  the  interrogatories,  and  Campbell's 
answers  to  them.  I  will  read  them : 

Interrogatories. 

1.  Will  you,  if  elected,  vote  for  and  cordially  support  a  bill  prohibiting 
slavery  in  the  Territories  of  the  United  States  ? 

2.  Will  you  vote  for  and  support  a  bill  abolishing  slavery  in  the  District 
of  Columbia1? 

3.  Will  you  oppose  the  admission  of  any  slave  States  which  may  be 
formed  out  of  Texas  or  the  Territories'? 

4.  Will  you  vote  for  and  advocate  the  repeal  of  the  fugitive-slave  law 
passed  at  the  recent  session  of  Congress  ? 

5.  Will  you  advocate  and  vote  for  the  election  of  a   Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  who  shall  be  willing  to  organize  the  committees  of 
that  House  so  as  to  give  the  free  States  their  just  influence  in  the  business  of 
legislation  ? 

6.  What  are  your  views,  not  only  as  to  the  constitutional  right  of  Con 
gress  to  prohibit  the  slave-trade  between  the  States,  but  also  as  to  the  expe 
diency  of  exercising  that  right  immediately  ? 

Campbell's  Reply. 

To  the  first  and  second  interrogatories,  I  answer  unequivocally  in  the 
affirmative. 

To  the  third  interrogatory,  I  reply  that  I  am  opposed  to  the  admission  of 
any  more  slave  States  into  the  Union,  that  may  be  formed  out  of  Texan  or 
any  other  territory. 

To  the  fourth  and  fifth  interrogatories,  I  unhesitatingly  answer  in  the  af 
firmative. 

To  the  sixth  interrogatory,  I  reply  that  so  long  as  the  slave  States  continue 
to  treat  slaves  as  articles  of  commerce,  the  Constitution  confers  power  on 
Congress  to  pass  laws  regulating  that  peculiar  commerce,  and  that  the  pro 
tection  of  human  rights  imperatively  demands  the  interposition  of  every 
constitutional  means  to  prevent  this  most  inhuman  and  iniquitous  traffic. 

T.  CAMPBELL. 

I  want  to  say  here  that  Thompson  Campbell  was  elected  to  Con 
gress  on  that  platform,  as  the  Democratic  candidate  in  the  Galena 
district,  against  Martin  P.  Sweet. 

Judge  Douglas :  Give  me  the  date  of  the  letter. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN          353 

Mr.  Lincoln:  The  time  Campbell  ran  was  in  1850.  I  have  not 
the  exact  date  here.  It  was  some  time  in  1850  that  these  interroga 
tories  were  put  and  the  answer  given.  Campbell  was  elected  to  Con 
gress,  and  served  out  his  term.  I  think  a  second  election  came  up 
before  he  served  out  his  term,  and  he  was  not  reflected.  Whether 
defeated  or  not  nominated,  I  do  not  know.  [Mr.  Campbell  was  nom 
inated  for  reelection  by  the  Democratic  party,  by  acclamation.]  At 
the  end  of  his  term  his  very  good  friend,  Judge  Douglas,  got  him  a 
high  office  from  President  Pierce,  and  sent  him  off  to  California.  Is 
not  that  the  fact  ?  Just  at  the  end  of  his  term  in  Congress  it  appears 
that  our  mutual  friend  Judge  Douglas  got  our  mutual  friend  Camp 
bell  a  good  office,  and  sent  him  to  California  upon  it.  And  not  only 
so,  but  on  the  27th  of  last  month,  when  Judge  Douglas  and  myself 
spoke  at  Freeport  in  joint  discussion,  there  was  his  same  friend 
Campbell,  come  all  the  way  from  California,  to  help  the  judge  beat 
me ;  and  there  was  poor  Martin  P.  Sweet  standing  on  the  platform, 
trying  to  help  poor  me  to  be  elected.  That  is  true  of  one  of  Judge 
Douglas's  friends. 

So  again,  in  that  same  race  of  1850,  there  was  a  congressional 
convention  assembled  at  Joliet,  and  it  nominated  R.  S.  Molony  for 
Congress,  and  unanimously  adopted  the  following  resolution : 

Besolved,  That  we  are  uncompromisingly  opposed  to  the  extension  of 
slavery  ;  and  while  we  would  not  make  such  opposition  a  ground  of  inter 
ference  with  the  interests  of  the  States  where  it  exists,  yet  we  moderately 
but  firmly  insist  that  it  is  the  duty  of  Congress  to  oppose  its  extension  into 
territory  now  free  by  all  means  compatible  with  the  obligations  of  the  Con 
stitution,  and  with  good  faith  to  our  sister  States;  that  these  principles  were 
recognized  by  the  ordinance  of  1787,  which  received  the  sanction  of  Thomas 
Jefferson,  who  is  acknowledged  by  all  to  be  the  great  oracle  and  expounder 
of  our  faith. 

Subsequently  the  same  interrogatories  were  propounded  to  Dr. 
Molony  which  had  been  addressed  to  Campbell,  as  above,  with  the 
exception  of  the  sixth,  respecting  the  interstate  slave-trade,  to  which 
Dr.  Molony,  the  Democratic  nominee  for  Congress,  replied  as  follows: 

I  received  the  interrogatories  this  day,  and  as  you  will  see  by  the  La  Salle 
"  Democrat"  and  Ottawa  "  Free  Trader,"  I  took  at  Peru  on  the  5th  and  at 
Ottawa  on  the  7th,  the  affirmative  side  of  interrogatories  1st  and  2d ;  and 
in  relation  to  the  admission  of  any  more  slave  States  from  free  territory, 
my  position  taken  at  these  meetings,  as  correctly  reported  in  said  papers, 
was  emphatically  and  distinctly  opposed  to  it.  In  relation  to  the  admission 
of  any  more  slave  States  from  Texas,  whether  I  shall  go  against  it  or  not 
will  depend  upon  the  opinion  that  I  may  hereafter  form  of  the  true  mean 
ing  and  nature  of  the  resolutions  of  annexation.  If  by  said  resolutions  the 
honor  and  good  faith  of  the  nation  is  pledged  to  admit  more  slave  States 
from  Texas  when  she  (Texas)  may  apply  for  admission  of  such  State,  then 
I  should,  if  in  Congress,  vote  for  their  admission.  But  if  not  so  pledged  and 
bound  by  sacred  contract,  then  a  bill  for  the  admission  of  more  slave  States 
from  Texas  would  never  receive  my  vote. 

To  your  fourth  interrogatory  I  answer  most  decidedly  in  the  affirmative, 
and  for  reasons  set  forth  in  my  reported  remarks  at  Ottawa  last  Monday. 

To  your  fifth  interrogatory  I  also  reply  in  the  affirmative  most  cordially, 
and  that  I  will  use  my  utmost  exertions  to  secure  the  nomination  and  elec- 
VOL.  I.— 23. 


354          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

tion  of  a  man  who  will  accomplish  the  objects  of  said  interrogatories.  I 
most  cordially  approve  of  the  resolutions  adopted  at  the  union  meeting  held 
at  Princeton  on  the  27th  September  ult.  Yours,  etc., 

R.  S.  MOLONY. 

All  I  have  to  say  in  regard  to  Dr.  Molony  is  that  he  was  the  reg 
ularly  nominated  Democratic  candidate  for  Congress  in  his  district ; 
was  elected  at  that  time ;  at  the  end  of  his  term  was  appointed  to  a 
land-office  at  Danville.  (I  never  heard  anything  of  Judge  Douglas's 
instrumentality  in  this.)  He  held  this  office  a  considerable  time, 
and  when  we  were  at  Freeport  the  other  day,  there  were  handbills 
scattered  about  notifying  the  public  that  after  our  debate  was  over 
R.  S.  Molony  would  make  a  Democratic  speech  in  favor  of  Judge 
Douglas.  That  is  all  I  know  of  my  own  personal  knowledge.  It  is 
added  here  to  this  resolution  (and  truly,  I  believe)  that  "among 
those  who  participated  in  the  Joliet  convention,  and  who  supported 
its  nominee,  with  his  platform  as  laid  down  in  the  resolution  of  the 
convention,  and  in  his  reply  as  above  given,  we  call  at  random  the 
following  names,  all  of  which  are  recognized  at  this  day  as  leading 
Democrats :  Cook  County  —  E.  B.  Williams,  Charles  McDonell, 
Arno  Voss,  Thomas  Hoyne,  Isaac  Cook," — I  reckon  we  ought  to 
except  Cook,— "F.  C.  Sherman.  Will  — Joel  A.  Matteson,  S.  W. 
Bowen.  Kane  —  B.  F.  Hall,  G.  W.  Ren  wick,  A.  M.  Herrington, 
Elijah  Wilcox.  McHenry — W.  M.  Jackson,  Enos  W.  Smith,  Neil 
Donnelly.  La  Salle  —  John  Hise,  William  Reddick" — William  Red- 
dick —  another  one  of  Judge  Douglas's  friends  that  stood  on  the 
stand  with  him  at  Ottawa  at  the  time  the  judge  says  my  knees 
trembled  so  that  I  had  to  be  carried  away!  The  names  are  all 
here :  "  DuPage  —  Nathan  Allen.  DeKalb  —  Z.  B.  Mayo." 

Here  is  another  set  of  resolutions  which  I  think  are  apposite  to  the 
matter  in  hand. 

On  the  28th  of  February  of  the  same  year,  a  Democratic  district 
convention  was  held  at  Naperville,  to  nominate  a  candidate  for  cir 
cuit  judge.  Among  the  delegates  were  Bowen  and  Kelly,  of  Will; 
Captain  Naper,  H.  H.  Cody,  Nathan  Allen,  of  DuPage ;  W.  M.  Jack 
son,  J.  M.  Strode,  P.  W.  Platt,  and  Enos  W.  Smith,  of  McHenry; 
J.  Horsman  and  others,  of  Winnebago.  Colonel  Strode  presided 
over  the  convention.  The  following  resolutions  were  unanimously 
adopted — the  first  on  motion  of  P.  W.  Platt,  the  second  on  mo 
tion  of  William  M.  Jackson  : 

Resolved,  That  this  convention  is  in  favor  of  the  Wilmot  proviso,  both  in 
principle  and  practice,  and  that  we  know  of  no  good  reason  why  any  per 
son  should  oppose  the  largest  latitude  in  free  soil,  free  territory,  and  free 
speech. 

Resolved,  That  in  the  opinion  of  this  convention,  the  time  has  arrived 
when  all  men  should  be  free,  whites  as  well  as  others. 

Judge  Douglas:  What  is  the  date  of  those  resolutions? 

Mr.  Lincoln:  I  understand  it  was  in  1850,  but  I  do  not  know  it. 
I  do  not  state  a  thing  and  say  I  know  it  when  I  do  not.  But  I  have 
the  highest  belief  that  this  is  so.  I  know  of  no  way  to  arrive  at  the 
conclusion  that  there  is  an  error  in  it.  I  mean  to  put  a  case  no 


ADDRESSES   AND  LETTERS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN         355 

stronger  than  the  truth  will  allow.  But  what  I  was  going  to  com 
ment  upon  is  an  extract  from  a  newspaper  in  DeKalb  County,  and 
it  strikes  me  as  being  rather  singular,  I  confess,  under  the  circum 
stances.  There  is  a  Judge  Mayo  in  that  county,  who  is  a  candidate 
for  the  legislature,  for  the  purpose,  if  he  secures  his  election,  of 
helping  to  reelect  Judge  Douglas.  He  is  the  editor  of  a  newspaper 
[DeKalb  County  "  Sentinel "],  and  in  that  paper  I  find  the  extract  I 
am  going  to  read.  It  is  part  of  an  editorial  article  in  which  he  was 
electioneering  as  fiercely  as  he  could  for  Judge  Douglas  and  against 
me.  It  was  a  curious  thing,  I  think,  to  be  in  such  a  paper.  I  will 
agree  to  that,  and  the  judge  may  make  the  most  of  it : 

Our  education  has  been  such  that  we  have  ever  been  rather  in  favor  of 
the  equality  of  the  blacks  ;  that  is,  that  they  should  enjoy  all  the  privileges 
of  the  whites  where  they  reside.  We  are  aware  that  this  is  not  a  very  popu 
lar  doctrine.  We  have  had  many  a  confab  with  some  who  are  now  strong 
"  Republicans,"  we  taking  the  broad  ground  of  equality  and  they  the  oppo 
site  ground. 

We  were  brought  up  in  a  State  where  blacks  were  voters,  and  we  do  not 
know  of  any  inconvenience  resulting  from  it,  though  perhaps  it  would  not 
work  so  well  where  the  blacks  are  more  numerous.  We  have  no  doubt  of 
the  right  of  the  whites  to  guard  against  such  an  evil,  if  it  is  one.  Our 
opinion  is  that  it  would  be  best  for  all  concerned  to  have  the  colored  popu 
lation  in  a  State  by  themselves  [in  this  I  agree  with  him] ;  but  if  within 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States,  we  say  by  all  means  they  should  have 
the  right  to  have  their  senators  and  their  representatives  in  Congress,  and 
to  vote  for  President.  With  us  "worth  makes  the  man,  and  want  of  it  the 
fellow."  We  have  seen  many  a  "  nigger"  that  we  thought  more  of  than 
some  white  men. 

That  is  one  of  Judge  Douglas's  friends.  Now  I  do  not  want  to 
leave  myself  in  an  attitude  where  I  can  be  misrepresented,  so  I  will 
say  I  do  not  think  the  judge  is  responsible  for  this  article ;  but  he 
is  quite  as  responsible  for  it  as  I  would  be  if  one  of  my  friends  had 
said  it.  I  think  that  is  fair  enough. 

I  have  here  also  a  set  of  resolutions  passed  by  a  Democratic  State 
convention  in  Judge  Douglas's  own  good  old  State  of  Vermont,  and 
that,  I  think,  ought  to  be  good  for  him  too. 

Resolved,  That  liberty  is  a  right  inherent  and  inalienable  in  man,  and 
that  herein  all  men  are  equal. 

Eesolved,  That  we  claim  no  authority  in  the  Federal  Government  to 
abolish  slavery  in  the  several  States.  But  we  do  claim  for  it  constitutional 
power  perpetually  to  prohibit  the  introduction  of  slavery  into  territory 
now  free,  and  abolish  it  wherever,  under  the  jurisdiction  of  Congress,  it 
exists. 

Eesolved,  That  this  power  ought  immediately  to  be  exercised  in  prohib 
iting  the  introduction  and  existence  of  slavery  in  New  Mexico  and  Cali 
fornia,  in  abolishing  slavery  and  the  slave-trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
on  the  high  seas,  and  wherever  else,  under  the  Constitution,  it  can  be 
reached. 

Eesolved,  That  no  more  slave  States  should  be  admitted  into  the  Federal 
Union. 

Eesolved,  That  the  government  ought  to  return  to  its  ancient  policy,  not 
to  extend,  nationalize,  or  encourage,  but  to  limit,  localize,  and  discourage 
slavery. 

* 


356          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN 

At  Freeport  I  answered  several  interrogatories  that  had  been  pro 
pounded  to  me  by  Judge  Douglas  at  the  Ottawa  meeting.  The  judge 
has  yet  not  seen  fit  to  find  any  fault  with  the  position  that  I  took  in 
regard  to  those  seven  interrogatories,  which  were  certainly  broad 
enough,  in  all  conscience,  to  cover  the  entire  ground.  In  my  an 
swers,  which  have  been  printed,  and  all  have  had  the  opportunity 
of  seeing,  I  take  the  ground  that  those  who  elect  me  must  expect 
that  I  will  do  nothing  which  will  not  be  in  accordance  with  those 
answers.  I  have  some  right  to  assert  that  Judge  Douglas  has  no 
fault  to  find  with  them.  But  he  chooses  to  still  try  to  thrust  me 
upon  different  ground  without  paying  any  attention  to  my  answers, 
the  obtaining  of  which  from  me  cost  him  so  much  trouble  and  con 
cern.  At  the  same  time,  I  propounded  four  interrogatories  to  him, 
claiming  it  as  a  right  that  he  should  answer  as  many  interrogatories 
for  me  as  I  did  for  him,  and  I  would  reserve  myself  for  a  future  in 
stalment  when  I  got  them  ready.  The  judge,  in  answering  me  upon 
that  occasion,  put  in  what  I  suppose  he  intends  as  answers  to  all  four 
of  my  interrogatories.  The  first  one  of  these  interrogatories  I  have 
before  me,  and  it  is  in  these  words : 

Question  1.  If  the  people  of  Kansas  shall,  by  means  entirely  unobjection 
able  in  all  other  respects,  adopt  a  State  constitution,  and  ask  admission  into 
the  Union  under  it,  before  they  have  the  requisite  number  of  inhabitants 
according  to  the  English  bill, —  some  ninety-three  thousand, — will  you  vote 
to  admit  them  ? 

As  I  read  the  judge's  answer  in  the  newspaper,  and  as  I  remember 
it  as  pronounced  at  the  time,  he  does  not  give  any  answer  which  is 
equivalent  to  yes  or  no — I  will  or  I  won't.  He  answers  at  very  con 
siderable  length,  rather  quarreling  with  me  for  asking  the  question, 
and  insisting  that  Judge  Trumbull  had  done  something  that  I  ought 
to  say  something  about ;  and  finally  getting  out  such  statements  as 
induce  me  to  infer  that  he  means  to  be  understood  he  will,  in  that 
supposed  case,  vote  for  the  admission  of  Kansas.  I  only  bring  this 
forward  now  for  the  purpose  of  saying  that,  if  he  chooses  to  put  a 
different  construction  upon  his  answer,  he  may  do  it.  But  if  he  does 
not,  I  shall  from  this  time  forward  assume  that  he  will  vote  for  the 
admission  of  Kansas  in  disregard  of  the  English  bill.  He  has  the 
right  to  remove  any  misunderstanding  I  may  have.  I  only  mention 
it  now  that  I  may  hereafter  assume  this  to  be  the  true  construction 
of  his  answer,  if  he  does  not  now  choose  to  correct  me. 

The  second  interrogatory  that  I  propounded  to  him  was  this: 

Question  2.  Can  the  people  of  a  United  States  Territory,  in  any  lawful 
way,  against  the  wish  of  any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery 
from  its  limits  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  State  constitution1? 

To  this  Judge  Douglas  answered  that  they  can  lawfully  exclude 
slavery  from  the  Territory  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  constitution. 
He  goes  on  to  tell  us  how  it  can  be  done.  As  I  understand  him,  he 
holds  that  it  can  be  done  by  the  territorial  legislature  refusing  to 
make  any  enactments  for  the  protection  of  slavery  in  the  Territory, 
and  especially  by  adopting  unfriendly  legislation  to  it.  For  the  sake 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          357 

of  clearness,  I  state  it  again:  that  they  can  exclude  slavery  from  the 
Territory — first,  by  withholding  what  he  assumes  to  be  an  indispen 
sable  assistance  to  it  in  the  way  of  legislation;  and,  second,  by  un 
friendly  legislation.  If  I  rightly  understand  him,  I  wish  to  ask  your 
attention  for  a  while  to  his  position. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  has  de 
cided  that  any  congressional  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Territories 
is  unconstitutional — they  have  reached  this  proposition  as  a  con 
clusion  from  their  former  proposition,  that  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  expressly  recognizes  property  in  slaves;  and  from  that 
other  constitutional  provision,  that  no  person  shall  be  deprived  of 
property  without  due  process  of  law.  Hence  they  reach  the  conclu 
sion  that  as  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  expressly  recognizes 
property  in  slaves,  and  prohibits  any  person  from  being  deprived 
of  property  without  due  process  of  law,  to  pass  an  act  of  Congress 
by  which  a  man  who  owned  a  slave  on  one  side  of  a  line  would  be 
deprived  of  him  if  he  took  him  on  the  other  side  is  depriving  him  of 
that  property  without  due  process  of  law.  That  I  understand  to 
be  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court.  I  understand  also  that  Judge 
Douglas  adheres  most  firmly  to  that  decision ;  and  the  difficulty  is, 
how  is  it  possible  for  any  power  to  exclude  slavery  from  the  Territory 
unless  in  violation  of  that  decision  ?  That  is  the  difficulty. 

In  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  in  1856,  Judge  Trumbull,  in  a 
speech,  substantially,  if  not  directly,  put  the  same  interrogatory  to 
Judge  Douglas,  as  to  whether  the  people  of  a  Territory  had  the 
lawful  power  to  exclude  slavery  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  consti 
tution  J?  Judge  Douglas  then  answered  at  considerable  length,  and 
his  answer  will  be  found  in  the  "  Congressional  Globe,"  under  the 
date  of  June  9, 1856.  The  judge  said  that  whether  the  people  could 
exclude  slavery  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  constitution  or  not  was 
a  question  to  be  decided  by  the  Supreme  Court.  He  put  that  propo 
sition,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  "  Congressional  Globe,"  in  a  variety  of 
forms,  all  running  to  the  same  thing  in  substance  —  that  it  was  a 
question  for  the  Supreme  Court.  I  maintain  that  when  he  says, 
after  the  Supreme  Court  has  decided  the  question,  that  the  people 
may  yet  exclude  slavery  by  any  means  whatever,  he  does  virtually 
say  that  it  is  not  a  question  for  the  Supreme  Court.  He  shifts  his 
ground.  I  appeal  to  you  whether  he  did  not  say  it  was  a  question 
for  the  Supreme  Court?  Has  not  the  Supreme  Court  decided  that 
question  ?  When  he  now  says  that  the  people  may  exclude  slavery, 
does  he  not  make  it  a  question  for  the  people?  Does  he  not  virtu 
ally  shift  his  ground  and  say  that  it  is  not  a  question  for  the  court, 
but  for  the  people  ?  This  is  a  very  simple  proposition — a  very  plain 
and  naked  one.  It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  no  difficulty  in  decid 
ing  it.  In  a  variety  of  ways  he  said  that  it  was  a  question  for  the 
Supreme  Court.  He  did  not  stop  then  to  tell  us  that,  whatever 
the  Supreme  Court  decides,  the  people  can  by  withholding  necessary 
"  police  regulations  "  keep  slavery  out.  He*  did  not  make  any  such 
answer.  I  submit  to  you  now,  whether  the  new  state  of  the  case  has 
not  induced  the  judge  to  sheer  away  from  his  original  ground. 
Would  not  this  be  the  impression  of  every  fair-minded  man  ? 


358          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

I  hold  that  the  proposition  that  slavery  cannot  enter  a  new  country 
without  police  regulations  is  historically  false.  It  is  not  true  at  all. 
I  hold  that  the  history  of  this  country  shows  that  the  institution 
of  slavery  was  originally  planted  upon  this  continent  without  these 
" police  regulations"  which  the  judge  now  thinks  necessary  for 
the  actual  establishment  of  it.  Not  only  so,  but  is  there  not  another 
fact  —  how  came  this  Dred  Scott  decision  to  be  made  ?  It  was  made 
upon  the  case  of  a  negro  being  taken  and  actually  held  in  slavery  in 
Minnesota  Territory,  claiming  his  freedom  because  the  act  of  Con 
gress  prohibited  his  being  so  held  there.  Will  the  judge  pretend 
that  Dred  Scott  was  not  held  there  without  police  regulations  ?  There 
is  at  least  one  matter  of  record  as  to  his  having  been  held  in  slavery 
in  the  Territory,  not  only  without  police  regulations,  but  in  the  teeth 
of  congressional  legislation  supposed  to  be  valid  at  the  time.  This 
shows  that  there  is  vigor  enough  in  slavery  to  plant  itself  in  a  new 
country  even  against  unfriendly  legislation.  It  takes  not  only  law 
but  the  enforcement  of  law  to  keep  it  out.  That  is  the  history  of 
this  country  upon  the  subject. 

I  wish  to  ask  one  other  question.  It  being  understood  that  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  guarantees  property  in  slaves  in 
the  Territories,  if  there  is  any  infringement  of  the  right  of  that 
property,  would  not  the  United  States  courts,  organized  for  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  Territory,  apply  such  remedy  as  might  be  necessary 
in  that  case  ?  It  is  a  maxim  held  by  the  courts,  that  there  is  no 
wrong  without  its  remedy ;  and  the  courts  have  a  remedy  for  what 
ever  is  acknowledged  and  treated  as  a  wrong. 

Again  :  I  will  ask  you,  my  friends,  if  you  were  elected  members  of 
the  legislature,  what  would  be  the  first  thing  you  would  have  to  do 
before  entering  upon  your  duties  ?  Swear  to  support  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States.  Suppose  you  believe,  as  Judge  Douglas 
does,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  guarantees  to  your 
neighbor  the  right  to  hold  slaves  in  that  Territory, —  that  they  are 
his  property, —  how  can  you  clear  your  oaths  unless  you  give  him 
such  legislation  as  is  necessary  to  enable  him  to  enjoy  that  property-? 
What  do  you  understand  by  supporting  the  Constitution  of  a  State, 
or  of  the  United  States  ?  Is  it  not  to  give  such  constitutional  helps 
to  the  rights  established  by  that  Constitution  as  may  be  practically 
needed?  Can  you,  if  you  swear  to  support  the  Constitution,  and 
believe  that  the  Constitution  establishes  a  right,  clear  your  oath,  with 
out  giving  it  support  ?  Do  you  support  the  Constitution  if,  knowing 
or  believing  there  is  a  right  established  under  it  which  needs  specific 
legislation,  you  withhold  that  legislation  ?  Do  you  not  violate  and 
disregard  your  oath  ?  I  can  conceive  of  nothing  plainer  in  the  world. 
There  can  be  nothing  in  the  words  "  support  the  Constitution,"  if  you 
may  run  counter  to  it  by  refusing  support  to  any  right  established 
under  the  Constitution.  And  what  I  say  here  will  hold  with  still 
more  force  against  the  judge's  doctrine  of  "  unfriendly  legislation." 
How  could  you,  having  sworn  to  support  the  Constitution,  and  believ 
ing  that  it  guaranteed  the  right  to  hold  slaves  in  the  Territories,  assist 
in  legislation  intended  to  defeat  that  right?  That  would  be  violat 
ing  your  own  view  of  the  Constitution.  Not  only  so,  but  if  you  were 


ADDBESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          359 

to  do  so,  how  long  would  it  take  the  courts  to  hold  your  votes  un 
constitutional  and  void  ?  Not  a  moment. 

Lastly  I  would  ask — Is  not  Congress  itself  under  obligation  to 
give  legislative  support  to  any  right  that  is  established  under  the 
United  States  Constitution?  I  repeat  the  question — Is  not  Congress 
itself  bound  to  give  legislative  support  to  any  right  that  is  estab 
lished  in  the  United  States  Constitution  ?  A  member  of  Congress 
swears  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  if  he 
sees  a  right  established  by  that  Constitution  which  needs  specific 
legislative  protection,  can  he  clear  his  oath  without  giving  that  pro 
tection  ?  Let  me  ask  you  why  many  of  us  who  are  opposed  to  sla 
very  upon  principle  give  our  acquiescence  to  a  fugitive-slave  law  ? 
Why  do  we  hold  ourselves  under  obligations  to  pass  such  a  law,  and 
abide  by  it  when  it  is  passed  ?  Because  the  Constitution  makes  pro 
vision  that  the  owners  of  slaves  shall  have  the  right  to  reclaim  them. 
It  gives  the  right  to  reclaim  slaves,  and  that  right  is,  as  Judge  Doug 
las  says,  a  barren  right,  unless  there  is  legislation  that  will  enforce  it. 

The  mere  declaration,  "No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one 
State  under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall  in  conse 
quence  of  any  law  or  regulation  therein  be  discharged  from  such 
service  or  labor,  but  shall  be  delivered  up  on  claim  of  the  party  to 
whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be  due,"  is  powerless  without  spe 
cific  legislation  to  enforce  it.  Now,  on  what  ground  would  a  member 
of  Congress  who  is  opposed  to  slavery  in  the  abstract  vote  for  a  fu 
gitive  law,  as  I  would  deem  it  my  duty  to  do  ?  Because  there  is  a 
constitutional  right  which  needs  legislation  to  enforce  it.  And  al 
though  it  is  distasteful  to  me,  I  have  sworn  to  support  the  Constitu 
tion,  and  having  so  sworn,  I  cannot  conceive  that  I  do  support  it  if 
I  withhold  from  that  right  any  necessary  legislation  to  make  it 
practical.  And  if  that  is  true  in  regard  to  a  fugitive-slave  law,  is 
the  right  to  have  fugitive  slaves  reclaimed  any  better  fixed  in  the 
Constitution  than  the  right  to  hold  slaves  in  the  Territories  ?  For 
this  decision  is  a  just  exposition  of  the  Constitution,  as  Judge  Doug 
las  thinks.  Is  the  one  right  any  better  than  the  other  ?  Is  there 
any  man  who,  while  a  member  of  Congress,  would  give  support  to 
the  one  any  more  than  the  other?  If  I  wished  to  refuse  to  give 
legislative  support  to  slave  property  in  the  Territories,  if  a  member 
of  Congress,  I  could  not  do  it,  holding  the  view  that  the  Constitution 
establishes  that  right.  If  I  did  it  at  all,  it  would  be  because  I  deny 
that  this  decision  properly  construes  the  Constitution.  But  if  I  ac 
knowledge,  with  Judge  Douglas,  that  this  decision  properly  construes 
the  Constitution,  I  cannot  conceive  that  I  would  be  less  than  a  per 
jured  man  if  I  should  refuse  in  Congress  to  give  such  protection  to 
that  property  as  in  its  nature  it  needed. 

At  the  end  of  what  I  have  said  here  I  propose  to  give  the  judge 
my  fifth  interrogatory,  which  he  may  take  and  answer  at  his  leisure. 
My  fifth  interrogatory  is  this  : 

If  the  slaveholding  citizens  of  a  United  States  Territory  should  need 
and  demand  congressional  legislation  for  the  protection  of  their  slave 
property  in  such  Territory,  would  you,  as  a  member  of  Congress, 
vote  for  or  against  such  legislation  ? 


360          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Judge  Douglas:  Will  you  repeat  that?  I  want  to  answer  that 
question. 

Mr.  Lincoln:  If  the  slaveholding  citizens  of  a  United  States  Ter 
ritory  should  need  and  demand  congressional  legislation  for  the 
protection  of  their  slave  property  in  such  Territory,  would  you,  as 
a  member  of  Congress,  vote  for  or  against  such  legislation  ? 

I  am  aware  that  in  some  of  the  speeches  Judge  Douglas  has  made, 
he  has  spoken  as  if  he  did  not  know  or  think  that  the  Supreme  Court 
had  decided  that  a  territorial  legislature  cannot  exclude  slavery. 
Precisely  what  the  judge  would  say  upon  the  subject — whether  he 
would  say  definitely  that  he  does  not  understand  they  have  so  de 
cided,  or  whether  he  would  say  he  does  understand  that  the  court 
have  so  decided,  I  do  not  know ;  but  I  know  that  in  his  speech  at 
Springfield  he  spoke  of  it  as  a  thing  they  had  not  decided  yet ;  and 
in  his  answer  to  me  at  Freeport,  he  spoke  of  it  again,  so  far  as  I 
can  comprehend  it,  as  a  thing  that  had  not  yet  been  decided.  Now 
I  hold  that  if  the  judge  does  entertain  that  view,  I  think  that  he  is 
not  mistaken  in  so  far  as  it  can  be  said  that  the  court  has  not  decided 
anything  save  the  mere  question  of  jurisdiction.  I  know  the  legal 
arguments  that  can  be  made — that  after  a  court  has  decided  that  it 
cannot  take  jurisdiction  in  a  case,  it  then  has  decided  all  that  is  be 
fore  it,  and  that  is  the  end  of  it.  A  plausible  argument  can  be  made 
in  favor  of  that  proposition,  but  I  know  that  Judge  Douglas  has  said 
in  one  of  his  speeches  that  the  court  went  forward,  like  honest  men 
as  they  were,  and  decided  all  the  points  in  the  case.  If  any  points 
are  really  extra- judicially  decided  because  not  necessarily  before  them, 
then  this  one  as  to  the  power  of  the  territorial  legislature  to  exclude 
slavery  is  one  of  them,  as  also  the  one  that  the  Missouri  Compromise 
was  null  and  void.  They  are  both  extra-judicial,  or  neither  is,  ac 
cording  as  the  court  held  that  they  had  no  jurisdiction  in  the  case 
between  the  parties,  because  of  want  of  capacity  of  one  party  to 
maintain  a  suit  in  that  court.  I  want,  if  I  have  sufficient  time,  to 
show  that  the  court  did  pass  its  opinion,  but  that  is  the  only  thing 
actually  done  in  the  case.  If  they  did  not  decide,  they  showed  what 
they  were  ready  to  decide  whenever  the  matter  was  before  them. 
What  is  that  opinion?  After  having  argued  that  Congress  had  no 
power  to  pass  a  law  excluding  slavery  from  a  United  States  Terri 
tory,  they  then  used  language  to  this  effect :  That  inasmuch  as  Con 
gress  itself  could  not  exercise  such  a  power,  it  followed  as  a  matter 
of  course  that  it  could  not  authorize  a  territorial  government  to 
exercise  it,  for  the  territorial  legislature  can  do  no  more  than  Con 
gress  could  do.  Thus  it  expressed  its  opinion  emphatically  against 
the  power  of  a  territorial  legislature  to  exclude  slavery,  leaving  us 
in  just  as  little  doubt  on  that  point  as  upor  any  other  point  they 
really  decided. 

Now,  fellow-citizens,  my  time  is  nearly  out.  I  find  a  report  of  a 
speech  made  by  Judge  Douglas  at  Joliet,  since  we  last  met  at  Free- 
port, —  published,  I  believe,  in  the  Missouri  "  Republican,"—  on  the 
9th  of  this  month,  in  which  Judge  Douglas  says: 

You  know  at  Ottawa  I  read  this  platform,  and  asked  him  if  he  concurred 
in  each  and  all  of  the  principles  set  forth  in  it.  He  would  not  answer  these 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          361 

Questions.  At  last  I  said  frankly,  "  I  wish  you  to  answer  them,  because  when 
get  them  up  here  where  the  color  of  your  principles  is  a  little  darker 
than  in  Egypt,  I  intend  to  trot  you  down  to  Jonesboro."  The  very  notice  that 
I  was  going  to  take  him  down  to  Egypt  made  him  tremble  in  the  knees  so 
that  he  had  to  be  carried  from  the  platform.  He  laid  up  seven  days,  and 
in  the  mean  time  held  a  consultation  with  his  political  physicians;  they  had 
Love  joy  and  Farns  worth  and  all  the  leaders  of  the  Abolition  party.  They 
consulted  it  all  over,  and  at  last  Lincoln  came  to  the  conclusion  that  he 
would  answer  ;  so  he  came  to  Freeport  last  Friday. 

Now  that  statement  altogether  furnishes  a  subject  for  philosophical 
contemplation.  I  have  been  treating  it  in  that  way,  and  I  have  really 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  I  can  explain  it  in  no  other  way  than  by 
believing  the  judge  is  crazy.  If  he  was  in  his  right  mind,  I  cannot 
conceive  how  he  would  have  risked  disgusting  the  four  or  five  thou 
sand  of  his  own  friends  who  stood  there  and  knew,  as  to  my  having 
been  carried  from  the  platform,  that  there  was  not  a  word  of  truth 
in  it. 

Judge  Douglas:  Did  n't  they  carry  you  off? 

Mr.  Lincoln :  There ;  that  question  illustrates  the  character  of 
this  man  Douglas,  exactly.  He  smiles  now  and  says,  "  Did  n't  they 
carry  you  off  ?  n  But  he  said  then,  "  He  had  to  be  carried  off  "  5  and 
he  said  it  to  convince  the  country  that  he  had  so  completely  broken 
me  down  by  his  speech  that  I  had  to  be  carried  away.  Now  he 
seeks  to  dodge  it,  and  asks,  "  Did  n't  they  carry  you  off?"  Yes, 
they  did.  But,  Judge  Douglas,  why  did  n't  you  tell  the  truth?  I 
would  like  to  know  why  you  did  n't  tell  the  truth  about  it.  And 
then  again,  "  He  laid  up  seven  days."  He  puts  this  in  print  for  the 
people  of  the  country  to  read  as  a  serious  document.  I  think  if  he 
had  been  in  his  sober  senses  he  would  not  have  risked  that  bare- 
facedness  in  the  presence  of  thousands  of  his  own  friends,  who 
knew  that  I  made  speeches  within  six  of  the  seven  days  at  Henry, 
Marshall  County;  Augusta,  Hancock  County;  and  Macomb,  Mc- 
Donough  County,  including  all  the  necessary  travel  to  meet  him 
again  at  Freeport  at  the  end  of  the  six  days.  Now,  I  say,  there  is 
no  charitable  way  to  look  at  that  statement,  except  to  conclude  that 
he  is  actually  crazy.  There  is  another  thing  in  that  statement  that 
alarmed  me  very  greatly  as  he  states  it — that  he  was  going  to  "  trot 
me  down  to  Egypt."  Thereby  he  would  have  you  to  infer  that  I  would 
not  come  to  Egypt  unless  he  forced  me — that  I  could  not  be  got 
here,  unless  he,  giant-like,  had  hauled  me  down  here.  That  state 
ment  he  makes,  too,  in  the  teeth  of  the  knowledge  that  I  made  the 
stipulation  to  come  down  here,  and  that  he  himself  had  been  very 
reluctant  to  enter  into  the  stipulation.  More  than  all  this,  Judge 
Douglas,  when  he  made  that  statement,  must  have  been  crazy,  and 
wholly  out  of  his  sober  senses,  or  else  he  would  have  known  that, 
when  he  got  me  down  here,  that  promise — that  windy  promise  — 
of  his  powers  to  annihilate  me  would  n't  amount  to  anything.  Now, 
how  little  do  I  look  like  being  carried  away  trembling  ?  Let  the 
judge  go  on,  and  after  he  is  done  with  his  half  hour,  I  want  you  all, 
if  I  can't  go  home  myself,  to  let  me  stay  and  rot  here ;  and  if  any 
thing  happens  to  the  judge,  if  I  cannot  carry  him  to  the  hotel  and 


362         ADDRESSES  AND  LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

put  him  to  bed,  let  me  stay  here  and  rot.  I  say,  then,  there  is  some 
thing  extraordinary  in  this  statement.  I  ask  you  if  you  know  any 
other  living  man  who  would  make  such  a  statement  ?  I  will  ask  my 
friend  Casey,  over  there,  if  he  would  do  such  a  thing?  Would  he 
send  that  out  and  have  his  men  take  it  as  the  truth  ?  Did  the  judge 
talk  of  trotting  me  down  to  Egypt  to  scare  me  to  death  ?  Why,  I 
know  this  people  better  than  he  does.  I  was  raised  just  a  little  east 
of  here.  I  am  a  part  of  this  people.  But  the  judge  was  raised 
further  north,  and  perhaps  he  has  some  horrid  idea  of  what  this 
people  might  be  induced  to  do.  But  really  I  have  talked  about 
this  matter  perhaps  longer  than  I  ought,  for  it  is  no  great  thing, 
and  yet  the  smallest  are  often  the  most  difficult  things  to  deal  with. 
The  judge  has  set  about  seriously  trying  to  make  the  impression 
that  when  we  meet  at  different  places  I  am  literally  in  his  clutches  — 
that  I  am  a  poor,  helpless,  decrepit  mouse,  and  that  I  can  do  nothing 
at  all.  This  is  one  of  the  ways  he  has  taken  to  create  that  im 
pression.  I  don't  know  any  other  way  to  meet  it,  except  this.  I 
don't  want  to  quarrel  with  him, —  to  call  him  a  liar, —  but  when  I 
come  square  up  to  him  I  don't  know  what  else  to  call  him,  if  I  must 
tell  the  truth  out.  I  want  to  be  at  peace,  and  reserve  all  my  fight 
ing  powers  for  necessary  occasions.  My  time,  now,  is  very  nearly 
out,  and  I  give  up  the  trifle  that  is  left  to  the  judge  to  let  him  set 
my  knees  trembling  again — if  he  can. 

Mr.  Douglas's  Rejoinder  in  the  Jonesboro  Joint  Debate. 

My  friends,  while  I  am  very  grateful  to  you  for  the  enthusiasm 
which  you  show  for  me,  I  will  say  in  all  candor,  that  your  quietness 
will  be  much  more  agreeable  than  your  applause,  inasmuch  as  you 
deprive  me  of  some  part  of  my  time  whenever  you  cheer. 

I  will  commence  where  Mr.  Lincoln  left  off,  and  make  a  remark 
upon  this  serious  complaint  of  his  about  my  speech  at  Joliet.  I  did 
say  there  in  a  playful  manner  that  when  I  put  these  questions  to  Mr. 
Lincoln  at  Ottawa,  he  failed  to  answer,  and  that  he  trembled,  and  had 
to  be  carried  off  the  stand,  and  required  seven  days  to  get  up  his 
reply.  That  he  did  not  walk  off  from  that  stand  he  will  not  deny. 
That  when  the  crowd  went  away  from  the  stand  with  me,  a  few  per 
sons  carried  him  home  on  their  shoulders  and  laid  him  down,  he  will 
admit.  I  wish  to  say  to  you  that  whenever  I  degrade  my  friends  and 
myself  by  allowing  them  to  carry  me  on  their  backs  along  through 
the  public  streets,  when  I  am  able  to  walk,  I  am  willing  to  be  deemed 
crazy.  I  did  not  say  whether  I  beat  him  or  he  beat  me  in  the  argu 
ment.  It  is  true  I  put  these  questions  to  him,  and  I  put  them  not 
as  mere  idle  questions,  but  showed  that  I  based  them  upon  the  creed 
of  the  Black  Republican  party,  as  declared  by  their  conventions  in 
that  portion  of  the  State  which  he  depends  upon  to  elect  him,  and 
desired  to  know  whether  he  indorsed  that  creed.  He  would  not 
answer.  When  I  reminded  him  that  I  intended  bringing  him  into 
Egypt  and  renewing  my  questions  if  he  refused  to  answer,  he  then 
consulted,  and  did  get  up  his  answers  one  week  after — answers  which 
I  may  refer  to  in  a  few  minutes,  and  show  you  how  equivocal  they 


ADDKESSES  AND  LETTEKS  OF  AEBAHAM  LINCOLN         363 

are.  My  object  was  to  make  him  avow  whether  or  not  he  stood  by 
the  platform  of  his  party;  the  resolutions  I  then  read,  and  upon 
which  I  based  my  questions,  had  been  adopted  by  his  party  in  the 
Galena  congressional  district,  and  the  Chicago  and  Bloomington 
congressional  districts,  composing  a  large  majority  of  the  counties 
in  this  State  that  give  Republican  or  Abolition  majorities. 

Mr.  Lincoln  cannot  and  will  not  deny  that  the  doctrines  laid  down 
in  these  resolutions  were  in  substance  put  forth  in  Lovejoy's  resolu 
tions,  which  were  voted  for  by  a  majority  of  his  party,  some  of  them, 
if  not  all,  receiving  the  support  of  every  man  of  his  party.  Hence 
I  laid  a  foundation  for  my  questions  to  him  before  I  asked  him 
whether  that  was  or  was  not  the  platform  of  his  party.  He  says  that 
he  answered  my  questions.  One  of  them  was  whether  he  would  vote 
to  admit  any  more  slave  States  into  the  Union.  The  creed  of  the 
Republican  party,  as  set  forth  in  the  resolutions  of  their  various 
conventions,  was  that  they  would  under  no  circumstances  vote 
to  admit  another  slave  State.  It  was  put  forth  in  the  Lovejoy 
resolutions  in  the  legislature  ;  it  was  put  forth  and  passed  in  a  major 
ity  of  all  the  counties  of  this  State  which  give  Abolition  or  Repub 
lican  majorities,  or  elect  members  to  the  legislature  of  that  school  of 
politics.  I  had  a  right  to  know  whether  he  would  vote  for  or  against 
the  admission  of  another  slave  State  in  the  event  the  people  wanted 
it.  He  first  answered  that  he  was  not  pledged  on  the  subject,  and 
then  said: 

In  regard  to  the  other  question,  of  whether  I  am  pledged  to  the  admission 
of  any  more  slave  States  into  the  Union,  I  state  to  you  very  frankly  that  I 
would  be  exceedingly  sorry  ever  to  be  put  in  the  position  of  having  to  pass 
on  that  question.  I  should  be  exceedingly  glad  to  know  that  there  would 
never  be  another  slave  State  admitted  into  the  Union ;  but  I  must  add  that 
if  slavery  shall  be  kept  out  of  the  Territories  during  the  territorial  existence 
of  any  one  given  Territory,  and  then  the  people,  having  a  fair  chance  and 
clear  field  when  they  come  to  adopt  a  constitution,  do  such  an  extraordinary 
thing  as  adopt  a  slave  constitution,  uninfluenced  by  the  actual  presence  of 
the  institution  among  them,  I  see  no  alternative,  if  we  own  the  country,  but 
to  admit  them  into  the  Union. 

Now  analyze  that  answer.  In  the  first  place  he  says  he  would  be 
exceedingly  sorry  to  be  put  in  a  position  where  he  would  have  to  vote 
on  the  question  of  the  admission  of  a  slave  State.  Why  is  he  a  can 
didate  for  the  Senate  if  he  would  be  sorry  to  be  put  in  that  position  ? 
I  trust  the  people  of  Illinois  will  not  put  him  in  a  position  which  he 
would  be  so  sorry  to  occupy.  The  next  position  he  takes  is  that  he 
would  be  glad  to  know  that  there  would  never  be  another  slave  State, 
yet,  in  certain  contingencies,  he  might  have  to  vote  for  one.  What 
is  that  contingency?  "  If  Congress  keeps  slavery  out  by  law  while 
it  is  a  Territory,  and  then  the  people  should  have  a  fair  chance  and 
should  adopt  slavery,  uninfluenced  by  the  presence  of  the  institution," 
he  supposed  he  would  have  to  admit  the  State.  Suppose  Congress 
should  not  keep  slavery  out  during  their  territorial  existence,  then 
how  would  he  vote  when  the  people  applied  for  admission  into  the 
Union  with  a  slave  constitution?  That  he  does  not  answer,  and  that 
is  the  condition  of  every  Territory  we  have  now  got.  Slavery  is  not 


364          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF  ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

kept  out  of  Kansas  by  act  of  Congress,  and  when  I  put  the  question 
to  Mr.  Lincoln,  whether  he  will  vote  for  the  admission  with  or  without 
slavery,  as  her  people  may  desire,  he  will  not  answer,  and  you  have 
not  got  an  answer  from  him.  In  Nebraska  slavery  is  not  prohibited 
by  act  of  Congress,  but  the  people  are  allowed,  under  the  Nebraska 
bill,  to  do  as  they  please  on  the  subject;  and  when  I  ask  him  whether 
he  will  vote  to  admit  Nebraska  with  a  slave  constitution  if  her  peo 
ple  desire  it,  he  will  not  answer.  So  with  New  Mexico,  Washington 
Territory,  Arizona,  and  the  four  new  States  to  be  admitted  from 
Texas.  You  cannot  get  an  answer  from  him  to  these  questions.  His 
answer  only  applies  to  a  given  case,  to  a  condition  —  things  which  he 
knows  do  not  exist  in  any  one  Territory  in  the  Union.  He  tries  to 
give  you  to  understand  that  he  would  allow  the  people  to  do  as  they 
please,  and  yet  he  dodges  the  question  as  to  every  Territory  in  the 
Union.  I  now  ask  why  cannot  Mr.  Lincoln  answer  to  each  of  these 
Territories?  He  has  not  done  it,  and  he  will  not  do  it.  The  Aboli 
tionists  up  North  understand  that  this  answer  is  made  with  a  view 
of  not  committing  himself  on  any  one  Territory  now  in  existence. 
It  is  so  understood  there,  and  you  cannot  expect  an  answer  from  him 
on  a  case  that  applies  to  any  one  Territory,  or  applies  to  the  new 
States  which  by  compact  we  are  pledged  to  admit  out  of  Texas,  when 
they  have  the  requisite  population  and  desire  admission.  I  submit 
to  you  whether  he  has  made  a  frank  answer,  so  that  you  can  tell  how 
he  would  vote  in  any  one  of  these  cases.  "  He  would  be  sorry  to  be 
put  in  the  position."  Why  would  he  be  sorry  to  be  put  in  this  posi 
tion  if  his  duty  required  him  to  give  the  vote?  If  the  people  of  a 
Territory  ought  to  be  permitted  to  come  into  the  Union  as  a  State, 
with  slavery  or  without  it,  as  they  pleased,  why  not  give  the  vote  ad 
mitting  them  cheerfully?  If  in  his  opinion  they  ought  not  to  come 
in  with  slavery,  even  if  they  wanted  to,  why  not  say  that  he  would 
cheerfully  vote  against  their  admission  ?  His  intimation  is  that  con 
science  would  not  let  him  vote  "No,"  and  he  would  be  sorry  to  do 
that  which  his  conscience  would  compel  him  to  do  as  an  honest 
man. 

In  regard  to  the  contract  or  bargain  between  Trumbull,  the  Aboli 
tionists,  and  him,  which  he  denies,  I  wish  to  say  that  the  charge  can 
be  proved  by  notorious  historical  facts.  Trumbull,  Lovejoy,  Gid- 
dings,  Fred  Douglass,  Hale,  and  Banks  were  traveling  the  State  at 
that  time  making  speeches  on  the  same  side  and  in  the  same  cause 
with  him.  He  contents  himself  with  the  same  denial  that  no  such 
thing  occurred.  Does  he  deny  that  he,  and  Trumbull,  and  Breese, 
and  Giddings,  and  Chase,  and  Fred  Douglass,  and  Lovejoy,  and  all 
those  Abolitionists  and  deserters  from  the  Democratic  party,  did 
make  speeches  all  over  this  State  in  the  same  common  cause  ?  Does 
he  deny  that  Jim  Matheny  was  then,  and  is  now,  his  confidential 
friend,  and  does  he  deny  that  Matheny  made  the  charge  of  the  bar 
gain  and  fraud  in  his  own  language,  as  I  have  read  it  from  his  printed 
speech.  Matheny  spoke  of  his  own  personal  knowledge  of  that  bar 
gain  existing  between  Lincoln,  Trumbull,  and  the  Abolitionists. 
He  still  remains  Lincoln's  confidential  friend,  and  is  now  a  candidate 
for  Congress,  and  is  canvassing  the  Springfield  district  for  Lincoln. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          365 

I  assert  that  I  can  prove  the  charge  to  be  true  in  detail  if  I  can 
ever  get  it  where  I  can  summon  and  compel  the  attendance  of  wit 
nesses.  I  have  the  statement  of  another  man  to  the  same  effect 
as  that  made  by  Matheny,  which  I  am  not  permitted  to  use  yet,  but 
Jim  Matheny  is  a  good  witness  on  that  point,  and  the  history  of  the 
country  is  conclusive  upon  it.  That  Lincoln  up  to  that  time  had  been 
a  Whig,  and  then  undertook  to  Abolitionize  the  Whigs  and  bring 
them  into  the  Abolition  camp,  is  beyond  denial ;  that  Trumbull  up 
to  that  time  had  been  a  Democrat,  and  deserted,  and  undertook  to 
Abolitionize  the  Democracy,  and  take  them  into  the  Abolition  camp, 
is  beyond  denial;  that  they  are  both  now  active,  leading,  distin 
guished  members  of  this  Abolition  Republican  party,  in  full  com 
munion,  is  a  fact  that  cannot  be  questioned  or  denied. 

But  Lincoln  is  not  willing  to  be  responsible  for  the  creed  of  his 
party.  He  complains  because  I  hold  him  responsible,  and  in  order 
to  avoid  the  issue  he  attempts  to  show  that  individuals  in  the  Demo 
cratic  party,  many  years  ago,  expressed  Abolition  sentiments.  It  is 
true  that  Tom  Campbell,  when  a  candidate  for  Congress  in  1850,  pub 
lished  the  letter  which  Lincoln  read.  When  I  asked  Lincoln  for  the 
date  of  that  letter  he  could  not  give  it.  The  date  of  the  letter  has 
been  suppressed  by  other  speakers  who  have  used  it,  though  I  take 
it  for  granted  that  Lincoln  did  not  know  the  date.  If  he  will  take 
the  trouble  to  examine,  he  will  find  that  the  letter  was  published 
only  two  days  before  the  election,  and  was  never  seen  until  after  it, 
except  in  one  county.  Tom  Campbell  would  have  been  beat  to  death 
by  the  Democratic  party  if  that  letter  had  been  made  public  in  his 
district.  As  to  Molony,  it  is  true  that  he  uttered  sentiments  of  the 
kind  referred  to  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  the  best  Democrats  would  not 
vote  for  him  for  that  reason.  I  returned  from  Washington  after  the 
passage  of  the  compromise  measures  in  1850,  and  when  I  found  Mo 
lony  running  under  John  Wentworth's  tutelage,  and  on  his  plat 
form,  I  denounced  him,  and  declared  that  he  was  no  Democrat.  In 
my  speech  at  Chicago,  just  before  the  election  that  year,  I  went  be 
fore  the  infuriated  people  of  that  city  and  vindicated  the  compromise 
measures  of  1850.  Remember,  the  city  council  had  passed  resolu 
tions  nullifying  acts  of  Congress  and  instructing  the  police  to  with 
hold  their  assistance  from  the  execution  of  the  laws,  and  as  I  was  the 
only  man  in  the  city  of  Chicago  who  was  responsible  for  the  passage 
of  the  compromise  measures,  I  went  before  the  crowd,  justified  each 
and  every  one  of  those  measures,  and  let  it  be  said  to  the  eternal 
honor  of  the  people  of  Chicago,  that  when  they  were  convinced  by  my 
exposition  of  those  measures  that  they  were  right,  and  they  had  done 
wrong  in  opposing  them,  they  repealed  their  nullifying  resolutions, 
and  declared  that  they  would  acquiesce  in  and  support  the  laws  of 
the  land.  These  facts  are  well  known,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  can  only 
get  up  individual  instances,  dating  back  to  1849-50,  which  are  con 
tradicted  by  the  whole  tenor  of  the  Democratic  creed. 

But  Mr/ Lincoln  does  not  want  to  be  held  responsible  for  the 
Black  Republican  doctrine  of  no  more  slave  States.  Farnsworth 
is  the  candidate  of  his  party  to-day  in  the  Chicago  district,  and  he 
made  a  speech  in  the  last  Congress *in  which  he  called  upon  God  to 


366          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

palsy  his  right  arm  if  he  ever  voted  for  the  admission  of  another 
slave  State,  whether  the  people  wanted  it  or  not.  Love  joy  is 
making  speeches  all  over  the  State  for  Lincoln  now,  and  taking 
ground  against  any  more  slave  States.  Washburne,  the  Black  Re 
publican  candidate  for  Congress  in  the  Galena  district,  is  making 
speeches  in  favor  of  this  same  Abolition  platform  declaring  no  more 
slave  States.  Why  are  men  running  for  Congress  in  the  northern 
districts,  and  taking  that  Abolition  platform  for  their  guide,  when 
Mr.  Lincoln  does  not  want  to  be  held  to  it  down  here  in  Egypt  and 
in  the  center  of  the  State,  and  objects  to  it  so  as  to  get  votes  here. 
Let  me  tell  Mr.  Lincoln  that  his  party  in  the  northern  part  of  the 
State  hold  to  that  Abolition  platform,  and  that  if  they  do  not  in  the 
south  and  in  the  center,  they  present  the  extraordinary  spectacle  of 
a  "  house  divided  against  itself,"  and  hence  "  cannot  stand."  I  now 
bring  down  upon  him  the  vengeance  of  his  own  scripture  quotation, 
and  give  it  a  more  appropriate  application  than  he  did,  when  I  say 
to  him  that  his  party,  Abolition  in  one  end  of  the  State  and  opposed 
to  it  in  the  other,  is  a  house  divided  against  itself,  and  cannot  stand, 
and  ought  not  to  stand,  for  it  attempts  to  cheat;  the  American  peo 
ple  out  of  their  votes  by  disguising  its  sentiments. 

Mr.  Lincoln  attempts  to  cover  up  and  get  over  his  Abolitionism 
by  telling  you  that  he  was  raised  a  little  east  of  you,  beyond  the 
Wabash  in  Indiana,  and  he  thinks  that  makes  a  mighty  sound  and 
good  man  of  him  on  all  these  questions.  I  do  not  know  that  the 
place  where  a  man  is  born  or  raised  has  much  to  do  with  his  po 
litical  principles.  The  worst  Abolitionists  I  have  ever  known  in  Illi 
nois  have  been  men  who  have  sold  their  slaves  in  Alabama  and 
Kentucky,  and  have  come  here  and  turned  Abolitionists  while  spend 
ing  the  money  got  for  the  negroes  they  sold,  and  I  do  not  know 
that  an  Abolitionist  from  Indiana  or  Kentucky  ought  to  have  any 
more  credit  because  he  was  born  and  raised  among  slave-holders. 
I  do  not  know  that  a  native  of  Kentucky  is  more  excusable  because 
raised  among  slaves;  his  father  and  mother  having  owned  slaves, 
he  comes  to  Illinois,  turns  Abolitionist,  and  slanders  the  graves  of 
his  father  and  mother,  and  breathes  curses  upon  the  institutions 
under  which  he  was  born,  and  his  father  and  mother  bred.  True, 
I  was  not  born  out  West  here.  I  was  born  away  down  in  Yankee 
land;  I  was  born  in  a  valley  in  Vermont,  with  the  high  mountains 
around  me.  I  love  the  old  green  mountains  and  valleys  of  Ver 
mont,  where  I  was  born,  and  where  I  played  in  my  childhood.  I 
went  up  to  visit  them  some  seven  or  eight  years  ago,  for  the  first 
time  for  twenty  odd  years.  When  I  got  there  they  treated  me  very 
kindly.  They  invited  me  to  the  commencement  of  their  college, 
placed  me  on  the  seats  with  their  distinguished  guests,  and  con 
ferred  upon  me  the  degree  of  LL.  D.  in  Latin  (doctor  of  laws),  the 
same  as  they  did  Old  Hickory,  at  Cambridge,  many  years  ago,  and  I 

E've  you  my  word  and  honor  I  understood  just  as  much  of  the 
atin  as  he  did.     When  they  got  through  conferring  the  honorary 
degree,  they  called  upon  me  for  a  speech,  and  I  got  up  with  my 
heart  full  and  swelling  with  gratitude  for  their  kindness,  and  I  said 
to  them,  "  My  friends,  Vermont  is  the  most  glorious  spot  on  the 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          367 

face  of  this  globe  for  a  man  to  be  born  in,  provided  he  emigrates 
when  he  is  very  young." 

I  emigrated  when  I  was  very  young.  I  came  out  here  when  I  was 
a  boy,  and  found  my  mind  liberalized,  and  my  opinions  enlarged 
when  I  got  on  these  broad  prairies,  with  only  the  heavens  to  bound 
my  vision,  instead  of  having  them  circumscribed  by  the  little  narrow 
ridges  that  surrounded  the  valley  where  I  was  born.  But  I  discard 
all  flings  at  the  land  where  a  man  was  born.  I  wish  to  be  judged 
by  my  principles,  by  those  great  public  measures  and  constitutional 
principles  upon  which  the  peace,  the  happiness,  and  the  perpetuity 
of  this  republic  now  rest. 

Mr.  Lincoln  has  framed  another  question,  propounded  it  to  me, 
and  desired  my  answer.  As  I  have  said  before,  I  did  not  put  a  ques 
tion  to  him  that  I  did  not  first  lay  a  foundation  for  by  showing  that 
it  was  a  part  of  the  platform  of  the  party  whose  votes  he  is  now  seek 
ing,  adopted  in  a  majority  of  the  counties  where  he  now  hopes  to 
get  a  majority,  and  supported  by  the  candidates  of  his  party  now 
running  in  those  counties.  But  I  will  answer  his  question.  It  is  as 
follows :  "If  the  slaveholding  citizens  of  a  United  States  Territory 
should  need  and  demand  congressional  legislation  for  the  protection 
of  their  slave  property  in  such  Territory,  would  you,  as  a  member 
of  Congress,  vote  for  or  against  such  legislation?"  I  answer  him 
that  it  is  a  fundamental  article  in  the  Democratic  creed  that  there 
should  be  non-interference  and  non-intervention  by  Congress  with 
slavery  in  the  States  or  Territories.  Mr.  Lincoln  could  have  found  an 
answer  to  his  question  in  the  Cincinnati  platform,  if  he  had  desired 
it.  The  Democratic  party  have  always  stood  by  that  great  principle 
of  non-interference  and  non-intervention  by  Congress  with  slavery  in 
the  States  or  Territories  alike,  and  I  stand  on  that  platform  now. 

Now  I  desire  to  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  Lincoln  did  not 
define  his  own  position  in  his  own  question.  How  does  he  stand  011 
that  question  ?  He  put  the  question  to  me  at  Freeport  whether  or 
not  I  would  vote  to  admit  Kansas  into  the  Union  before  she  had 
93,420  inhabitants.  I  answered  him  at  once  that  it  having  been  de 
cided  that  Kansas  had  now  population  enough  for  a  slave  State,  she 
had  population  enough  for  a  free  State. 

I  answered  the  question  unequivocally,  and  then  I  asked  him 
whether  he  would  vote  for  or  against  the  admission  of  Kansas  before 
she  had  93,420  inhabitants,  and  he  would  not  answer  me.  To-day  he 
has  called  attention  to  the  fact  that,  in  his  opinion,  my  answer  on  that 
question  was  not  quite  plain  enough,  and  yet  he  has  not  answered  it 
himself.  He  now  puts  a  question  in  relation  to  congressional  inter 
ference  in  the  Territories  to  me.  I  answer  him  direct,  and  yet  he  has 
not  answered  the  question  himself.  I  ask  you  whether  a  man  has 
any  right,  in  common  decency,  to  put  questions,  in  these  public  dis 
cussions,  to  his  opponent,  which  he  will  not  answer  himself  when 
they  are  pressed  home  to  him.  I  have  asked  him  three  times,  whether 
he  would  vote  to  admit  Kansas  whenever  the  people  applied  with  a 
constitution  of  their  own  making  and  their  own  adoption,  under  cir 
cumstances  that  were  fair,  just,  and  unexceptionable,  but  I  cannot 
get  an  answer  from  him.  Nor  will  he  answer  the  question  which  he 


368          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

put  to  me,  and  which  I  have  just  answered,  in  relation  to  congres 
sional  interference  in  the  Territories,  by  making  a  slave  code  there. 
It  is  true  that  he  goes  on  to  answer  the  question  by  arguing  that 
under  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  it  is  the  dutv  of  a  man  to 
vote  for  a  slave  code  in  the  Territories.  He  says  that  it  is  his  duty, 
under  the  decision  that  the  court  has  made,  and  if  he  believes  in  that 
decision  he  would  be  a  perjured  man  if  he  did  not  give  the  vote.  I 
want  to  know  whether  he  is  not  bound  to  a  decision  which  is  con 
trary  to  his  opinions  just  as  much  as  to  one  in  accordance  with  his 
opinions.  If  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  tribunal  created 
by  the  Constitution  to  decide  the  question,  is  final  and  binding,  is  he 
not  bound  by  it  just  as  strongly  as  if  he  was  for  it  instead  of  against 
it  originally  ?  Is  every  man  in  this  land  allowed  to  resist  decisions 
he  does  not  like,  and  only  support  those  that  meet  his  approval  ? 
"What  are  important  courts  worth  unless  their  decisions  are  binding 
on  all  good  citizens?  It  is  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  judi 
ciary  that  its  decisions  are  final.  It  is  created  for  that  purpose,  so 
that  when  you  cannot  agree  among  yourselves  on  a  disputed  point 
you  appeal  to  the  judicial  tribunal,  which  steps  in  and  decides  for 
you,  and  that  decision  is  then  binding  on  every  good  citizen.  It  is 
the  law  of  the  land  just  as  much  with  Mr.  Lincoln  against  it  as  for 
it.  And  yet  he  says  if  that  decision  is  binding  he  is  a  perjured  man 
if  he  does  not  vote  for  a  slave  code  in  the  different  Territories  of  this 
Union.  Well,  if  you  [turning  to  Mr.  Lincoln]  are  not  going  to  re 
sist  the  decision,  if  you  obey  it,  and  do  not  intend  to  array  mob  law 
against  the  constituted  authorities,  then  according  to  your  own  state 
ment,  you  will  be  a  perjured  man  if  you  do  not  vote  to  establish  slavery 
in  these  Territories.  My  doctrine  is,  that  even  taking  Mr.  Lincoln's 
view  that  the  decision  recognizes  the  right  of  a  man  to  carry  his  slaves 
into  the  Territories  of  the  United  States,  if  he  pleases,  yet  after  he  gets 
there  he  needs  affirmative  law  to  make  that  right  of  any  value.  The 
same  doctrine  not  only  applies  to  slave  property,  but  all  other  kinds  of 
property.  Chief  Justice  Taney  places  it  upon  the  ground  that  slave 
property  is  on  an  equal  footing  with  other  property.  Suppose  one  of 
your  merchants  should  move  to  Kansas  and  open  a  liquor-store  ;  he 
has  a  right  to  take  groceries  and  liquors  there,  but  the  mode  of  selling 
them,  and  the  circumstances  under  which  they  shall  be  sold,  and  all 
the  remedies,  must  be  prescribed  by  local  legislation,  and  if  that  is 
unfriendly  it  will  drive  him  out  just  as  effectually  as  if  there  was  a 
constitutional  provision  against  the  sale  of  liquor.  So  the  absence 
of  local  legislation  to  encourage  and  support  slave  property  in  a 
Territory  excludes  it  practically  just  as  effectually  as  if  there  was 
a  positive  constitutional  provision  against  it.  Hence  I  assert  that 
under  the  Dred  Scott  decision  you  cannot  maintain  slavery  a  day  in 
a  Territory  where  there  is  an  unwilling  people  and  unfriendly  legis 
lation.  If  the  people  are  opposed  to  it,  our  right  is  a  barren,  worth 
less,  useless  right;  and  if  they  are  for  it,  they  will  support  and 
encourage  it.  We  come  right  back,  therefore,  to  the  practical  ques 
tion,  if  the  people  of  a  Territory  want  slavery  they  will  have  it,  and 
if  they  do  not  want  it  you  cannot  force  it  on  them.  And  this  is  the 
practical  question,  the"  great  principle,  upon  which  our  institutions 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          369 

rest.  I  am  willing  to  take  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  as  it 
was  pronounced  by  that  august  tribunal,  without  stopping  to  inquire 
whether  I  would  have  decided  that  way  or  not.  I  have  had  many 
a  decision  made  against  me  on  questions  of  law  which  I  did  not  like, 
but  I  was  bound  by  them  just  as  much  as  if  I  had  had  a  hand  in 
making  them,  and  approved  them.  Did  you  ever  see  a  lawyer  or 
a  client  lose  his  case  that  he  approved  the  decision  of  the  court  ? 
They  always  think  the  decision  unjust  when  it  is  given  against  them. 
In  a  government  of  laws  like  ours  we  must  sustain  the  Constitution 
as  our  fathers  made  it,  and  maintain  the  rights  of  the  States  as  they 
are  guaranteed  under  the  Constitution,  and  then  we  will  have  peace 
and  harmony  between  the  different  States  and  sections  of  this 
glorious  Union. 


[September  16?]  1858. —  FRAGMENT.    NOTES  FOR  SPEECHES. 

I  believe  the  declaration  that  "  all  men  are  created  equal "  is  the 
great  fundamental  principle  upon  which  our  free  institutions  rest. 
That  negro  slavery  is  violative  of  that  principle  j  but  that  by  our 
form  of  government  that  principle  has  not  been  made  one  of  legal 
obligation.  That  by  our  form  of  government  the  States  which  have 
slavery  are  to  retain  or  disuse  it,  at  their  own  pleasure  j  and  that  all 
others  —  individuals,  free  States,  and  National  Government  —  are 
constitutionally  bound  to  leave  them  alone  about  it.  That  our  gov 
ernment  was  thus  framed  because  of  the  necessity  springing  from 
the  actual  presence  of  slavery  when  it  was  formed. 


September  18,  1858.— FOURTH  JOINT  DEBATE  AT  CHARLESTON, 

ILLINOIS. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Opening  Speech. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen :  It  will  be  very  difficult  for  an  audience  so 
large  as  this  to  hear  distinctly  what  a  speaker  says,  and  consequently 
it  is  important  that  as  profound  silence  be  preserved  as  possible. 

While  I  was  at  the  hotel  to-day,  an  elderly  gentleman  called  upon 
me  to  know  whether  I  was  really  in  favor  of  producing  a  perfect 
equality  between  the  negroes  and  white  people.  While  I  had  not 
proposed  to  myself  on  this  occasion  to  say  much  on  that  subject,  yet 
as  the  question  was  asked  me  I  thought  I  would  occupy  perhaps  five 
minutes  in  saying  something  in  regard  to  it.  I  will  say  then  that  I 
am  not,  nor  ever  have  been,  in  favor  of  bringing  about  in  any  way 
the  social  and  political  equality  of  the  white  and  black  races  —  that 
I  am  not,  nor  ever  have  been,*  in  favor  of  making  voters  or  jurors 
of  negroes,  nor  of  qualifying  them  to  hold  office,  nor  to  intermarry 
with  white  people  ;  and  I  will  say  in  addition  to  this  that  there  is  a 
physical  difference  between  the  white  and  black  races  which  I  believe 
will  forever  forbid  the  two  races  living  together  on  terms  of  social 
and  political  equality.  And  inasmuch  as  they  cannot  so  live,  while 
they  do  remain  together  there  must  be  the  ^position  of  superior  and 
VOL.  I.— 24. 


370          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

inferior,  and  I  as  much  as  any  other  man  am  in  favor  of  having  the 
superior  position  assigned  to  the  white  race.  I  say  npon  this  occasion 
I  do  not  perceive  that  because  the  white  man  is  to  have  the  superior 
position  the  negro  should  be  denied  everything.  I  do  not  understand 
that  because  I  do  not  want  a  negro  woman  for  a  slave  I  must  neces 
sarily  want  her  for  a  wife.  My  understanding  is  that  I  can  just  let 
her  alone.  I  am  now  in  my  fiftieth  year,  and  I  certainly  never  have 
had  a  black  woman  for  either  a  slave  or  a  wife.  So  it  seems  to  me 
quite  possible  for  us  to  get  along  without  making  either  slaves  or 
wives  of  negroes.  I  will  add  to  this  that  I  have  never  seen,  to  my 
knowledge,  a  man,  woman,  or  child  who  was  in  favor  of  producing  a 
perfect  equality,  social  and  political,  between  negroes  and  whi^te  men, 
I  recollect  of  but  one  distinguished  instance  that  I  ever  heard  of  so 
frequently  as  to  be  entirely  satisfied  of  its  correctness,  and  that  is 
the  case  of  Judge  Douglas's  old  friend  Colonel  Richard  M.  Johnson. 
I  will  also  add  to  the  remarks  I  have  made  (for  I  am  not  going  to 
enter  at  large  upon  this  subject),  that  I  have  never  had  the  least 
apprehension  that  I  or  my  friends  would  marry  negroes  if  there  was 
110  law  to  keep  them  from  it ;  but  as  Judge  Douglas  and  his  friends 
seem  to  be  in  great  apprehension  that  they  might,  if  there  were  no 
law  to  keep  them  from  it,  I  give  him  the  most  solemn  pledge  that  I 
will  to  the  very  last  stand  by  the  law  of  this  State,  which  forbids  the 
marrying  of  white  people  with  negroes.  I  will  add  one  further  wordr 
which  is  this:  that  I  do  not  understand  that  there  is  any  place  where 
an  alteration  of  the  social  and  political  relations  of  the  negro  and  the 
white  man  can  be  made  except  in  the  State  legislature  —  not  in  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States;  and  as  I  do  not  really  apprehend 
the  approach  of  any  such  thing  myself,  and  as  Judge  Douglas  seems 
to  be  in  constant  horror  that  some  such  danger  is  rapidly  approach 
ing,  I  propose,  as  the  best  means  to  prevent  it,  that  the  judge  be  kept 
at  home  and  placed  in  the  State  legislature  to  fight  the  measure.  I 
do  not  propose  dwelling  longer  at  this  time  on  the  subject. 

When  Judge  Trumbull,  our  other  senator  in  Congress,  returned  to 
Illinois  in  the  month  of  August,  he  made  a  speech  at  Chicago,  in 
which  he  made  what  may  be  called  a  charge  against  Judge  Douglas, 
which  I  understand  proved  to  be  very  offensive  to  him.  The  judge 
was  at  that  time  out  upon  one  of  his  speaking  tours  through  the 
country,  and  when  the  news  of  it  reached  him,  as  I  am  informed, 
he  denounced  Judge  Trumbull  in  rather  harsh  terms  for  having  said 
what  he  did  in  regard  to  that  matter.  I  was  traveling  at  that  time, 
and  speaking  at  the  same  places  with  Judge  Douglas  on  subsequent 
days,  and  when  I  heard  of  what  Judge  Trumbull  had  said  of  Doug 
las,  and  what  Douglas  had  said  back  again,  I  felt  that  I  was  in  a  posi 
tion  where  I  could  not  remain  entirely  silent  in  regard  to  the  matter. 
Consequently,  upon  two  or  three  occasions  I  alluded  to  it,  and  al 
luded  to  it  in  no  other  wise  than  to  say  that  in  regard  to  the  charge 
brought  by  Trumbull  against  Douglas,  I  personally  knew  nothing, 
and  sought  to  say  nothing  about  it — that  I  did  personally  know 
Judge  Trumbull — that  I  believed  him  to  be  a  man  of  veracity  — 
that  I  believed  him  to  be  a  man  of  capacity  sufficient  to  know  very 
well  whether  an  assertion  he  was  making,  as  a  conclusion  drawn 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          371 

from  a  set  of  facts,  was  true  or  false;  and  as  a  conclusion  of  my  own 
from  that,  I  stated  it  as  my  belief,  if  Trumbull  should  ever  be  called 
upon,  he  would  prove  everything  he  had  said.  I  said  this  upon  two 
or  three  occasions.  Upon  a  subsequent  occasion,  Judge  Trumbull 
spoke  again  before  an  audience  at  Alton,  and  upon  that  occasion  not 
only  repeated  his  charge  against  Douglas,  but  arrayed  the  evidence 
he  relied  upon  to  substantiate  it.  This  speech  was  published  at 
length,  and  subsequently  at  Jacksonville  Judge  Douglas  alluded  to 
the  matter.  In  the  course  of  his  speech,  and  near  the  close  of  it,  he 
stated  in  regard  to  myself  what  I  will  now  read:  "  Judge  Douglas 
proceeded  to  remark  that  he  should  not  hereafter  occupy  his  time  in 
refuting  such  charges  made  by  Trumbull,  but  that  Lincoln  having 
indorsed  the  character  of  Trumbull  for  veracity,  he  should  hold  him 
(Lincoln)  responsible  for  the  slanders.77  I  have  done  simply  what  I 
have  told  you,  to  subject  me  to  this  invitation  to  notice  the  charge. 
I  now  wish  to  say  that  it  had  not  originally  been  my  purpose  to  dis 
cuss  that  matter  at  all.  But  inasmuch  as  it  seems  to  be  the  wish  of 
Judge  Douglas  to  hold  me  responsible  for  it,  then  for  once  in  my 
life  I  will  play  General  Jackson,  and  to  the  just  extent  I  take  the 
responsibility. 

I  wish  to  say  at  the  beginning  that  I  will  hand  to  the  reporters 
that  portion  of  Judge  Trumbull's  Alton  speech  which  was  devoted 
to  this  matter,  and  also  that  portion  of  Judge  Douglas's  speech 
made  at  Jacksonville  in  answer  to  it.  I  shall  thereby  furnish  the 
readers  of  this  debate  with  the  complete  discussion  between  Trum 
bull  and  Douglas.  I  cannot  now  read  them,  for  the  reason  that  it 
would  take  half  of  my  first  hour  to  do  so.  I  can  only  make  some 
comments  upon  them.  Trumbull's  charge  is  in  the  following  words : 
"  Now,  the  charge  is,  that  there  was  a  plot  entered  into  to  have  a 
constitution  formed  for  Kansas,  and  put  in  force,  without  giving 
the  people  an  opportunity  to  vote  upon  it,  and  that  Mr.  Douglas 
was  in  the  plot."  I  will  state,  without  quoting  further,  for  all  will 
have  an  opportunity  of  reading  it  hereafter,  that  Judge  Trumbull 
brings  forward  what  he  regards  as  sufficient  evidence  to  substan 
tiate  this  charge. 

It  will  be  perceived  Judge  Trumbull  shows  that  Senator  Bigler, 
upon  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  had  declared  there  had  been  a  confer- 
ence'among  the  senators,  in  which  conference  it  was  determined  to 
have  an  Enabling  Act  passed  for  the  people  of  Kansas  to  form  a 
constitution  under;  and  in  this  conference  it  was  agreed  among 
them  that  it  was  best  not  to  have  a  provision  for  submitting  the  con 
stitution  to  a  vote  of  the  people  after  it  should  be  formed.  He  then 
brings  forward  evidence  to  show,  and  showing,  as  he  deemed,  that 
Judge  Douglas  reported  the  bill  back  to  the  Senate  with  that 
clause  stricken  out.  He  then  shows  that  there  was  a  new  clause 
inserted  into  the  bill,  which  would  in  its  nature  prevent  a  reference 
of  the  constitution  back  for  a  vote  of  the  people — if,  indeed,  upon 
a  mere  silence  in  the  law,  it  could  be  assumed  that  they  had  the 
right  to  vote  upon  it.  These  are  the  general  statements  that  he 
has  made. 

I  propose  to  examine  the  points  in  Judge  Douglas's  speech,  in 


372          ADDRESSES  AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

which  he  attempts  to  answer  that  speech  of  Judge  Trumbull's. 
When  you  come  to  examine  Judge  Douglas's  speech,  you  will  find 
that  the  first  point  he  makes  is :  "  Suppose  it  were  true  that  there  was 
such  a  change  in  the  bill,  and  that  I  struck  it  out  —  is  that  a  proof  of 
a  plot  to  force  a  constitution  upon  them  against  their  will?"  His 
striking  out  such  a  provision,  if  there  was  such  a  one  in  the  bill,  he 
argues,  does  not  establish  the  proof  that  it  was  stricken  out  for  the 
purpose  of  robbing  the  people  of  that  right.  I  would  say,  in  the  first 
place,  that  that  would  be  a  most  manifest  reason  for  it.  It  is  true,  as 
Judge  Douglas  states,  that  many  territorial  bills  have  passed  with 
out  having  such  a  provision  in  them.  I  believe  it  is  true,  though  I 
am  not  certain,  that  in  some  instances  constitutions  framed  under 
such  bills  have  been  submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  people,  with  the  law 
silent  upon  the  subject 5  but  it  does  not  appear  that  they  once  had 
their  enabling  acts  framed  with  an  express  provision  for  submit 
ting  the  constitution  to  be  framed  to  a  vote  of  the  people,  and  then 
that  it  was  stricken  out  when  Congress  did  not  mean  to  alter  the 
effect  of  the  law.  That  there  have  been  bills  which  never  had  the 
provision  in,  I  do  not  question  ;  but  when  was  that  provision  taken 
out  of  one  that  it  was  in  ?  More  especially  does  this  evidence  tend 
to  prove  the  proposition  that  Trumbull  advanced,  when  we  remem 
ber  that  the  provision  was  stricken  out  of  the  bill  almost  simulta 
neously  with  the  time  that  Bigler  says  there  was  a  conference  among 
certain  senators,  and  in  which  it  was  agreed  that  a  bill  should  be 
passed  leaving  that  out.  Judge  Douglas,  in  answering  Trumbull, 
omits  to  attend  to  the  testimony  of  Bigler,  that  there  was  a  meeting 
in  which  it  was  agreed  they  should  so  frame  the  bill  that  there  should 
be  no  submission  of  the  constitution  to  a  vote  of  the  people.  The 
judge  does  not  notice  this  part  of  it.  If  you  take  this  as  one  piece 
of  evidence,  and  then  ascertain  that  simultaneously  Judge  Douglas 
struck  out  a  provision  that  did  require  it  to  be  submitted,  and  put 
the  two  together,  I  think  it  will  make  a  pretty  fair  show  of  proof 
that  Judge  Douglas  did,  as  Trumbull  says,  enter  into  a  plot  to  put  in 
force  a  constitution  for  Kansas  without  giving  the  people  any  op 
portunity  of  voting  upon  it. 

But  I  must  hurry  on.  The  next  proposition  that  Judge  Douglas 
puts  is  this:  "  But  upon  examination  it  turns  out  that  the  Toombs 
bill  never  did  contain  a  clause  requiring  the  constitution  to  be  sub 
mitted."  This  is  a  mere  question  of  fact,  and  can  be  determined  by 
evidence.  I  only  want  to  ask  this  question — why  did  not  Judge 
Douglas  say  that  these  words  were  not  stricken  out  of  the  Toombs 
bill,  or  this  bill  from  which  it  is  alleged  the  provision  was  stricken 
out — a  bill  which  goes  by  the  name  of  Toombs,  because  he  originally 
brought  it  forward  ?  I  ask  why,  if  the  judge  wanted  to  make  a  direct 
issue  with  Trumbull,  did  he  not  take  the  exact  proposition  Trumbull 
made  in  his  speech,  and  say  it  was  not  stricken  out?  Trumbull  has 
given  the  exact  words  that  he  says  were  in  the  Toombs  bill,  and  he 
alleges  that  when  the  bill  came  back,  they  were  stricken  out.  Judge 
Douglas  does  not  say  that  the  words  which  Trumbull  says  were 
stricken  out,  were  not'stricken  out,  but  he  says  there  was  no  provision 
in  the  Toombs  bill  to  submit  the  constitution  to  a  vote  of  the  people. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          373 

We  see  at  once  that  he  is  merely  making  an  issue  upon  the  meaning 
of  the  words.  He  has  not  undertaken  to  say  that  Trumbull  tells  a 
lie  about  these  words  being  stricken  out;  but  he  is  really,  when 
pushed  up  to  it,  only  taking  an  issue  upon  the  meaning  of  the  words. 
Now,  then,  if  there  be  any  issue  upon  the  meaning  of  the  words,  or 
if  there  be  upon  the  question  of  fact  as  to  whether  these  words  were 
stricken  out,  I  have  before  me  what  I  suppose  to  be  a  genuine  copy 
of  the  Toombs  bill,  in  which  it  can  be  shown  that  the  words  Trumbull 
says  were  in  it,  were,  in  fact,  originally  there.  If  there  be  any  dis 
pute  upon  the  fact,  I  have  got  the  documents  here  to  show  they  were 
there.  If  there  be  any  controversy  upon  the  sense  of  the  words  — 
whether  these  words  which  were  stricken  out  really  constituted  a  pro 
vision  for  submitting  the  matter  to  a  vote  of  the  people,  as  that  is  a 
matter  of  argument,  I  think  I  may  as  well  use  Trumbull's  own  argu 
ment.  He  says  that  the  proposition  is  in  these  words: 

That  the  following  propositions  be,  and  the  same  are  hereby,  offered  to  the 
said  convention  of  the  people  of  Kansas,  when  formed,  for  their  free  ac 
ceptance  or  rejection;  which,  if  accepted  by  the  convention  and  ratified  by 
the  people  at  the  election  for  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,  shall  be 
obligatory  upon  the  United  States  and  the  said  State  of  Kansas. 

Now,  Trumbull  alleges  that  these  last  words  were  stricken  out  of 
the  bill  when  it  came  back,  and  he  said  this  was  a  provision  for 
submitting  the  constitution  to  a  vote  of  the  people,  and  his  argu 
ment  is  this:  "Would  it  have  been  possible  to  ratify  the  land 
propositions  at  the  election  for  the  adoption  of  the  constitution, 
unless  such  an  election  was  to  be  held  ? "  That  is  TrumbulPs  argu 
ment.  Now,  Judge  Douglas  does  not  meet  the  charge  at  all,  but 
stands  up  and  says  there  was  no  such  proposition  in  that  bill  for 
submitting  the  constitution  to  be  framed  to  a  vote  of  the  people. 
Trumbull  admits  that  the  language  is  not  a  direct  provision  for  sub 
mitting  it,  but  it  is  a  provision  necessarily  implied  from  another 
provision.  He  asks  you  how  it  is  possible  to  ratify  the  land  propo 
sition  at  the  election  for  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,  if  there  was 
no  election  to  be  held  for  the  adoption  of  the  constitution.  And  he 
goes  on  to  show  that  it  is  not  any  less  a  law  because  the  provision 
is  put  in  that  indirect  shape  than  it  would  be  if  it  was  put  directly. 
But  I  presume  I  have  said  enough  to  draw  attention  to  this  point, 
and  I  pass  it  by  also. 

Another  one  of  the  points  that  Judge  Douglas  makes  upon 
Trumbull,  and  at  very  great  length,  is  that  Trumbull,  while  the 
bill  was  pending,  said  in  a  speech  in  the  Senate  that  he  supposed 
the  constitution  to  be  made  would  have  to  be  submitted  to  the  peo 
ple.  He  asks,  if  Trumbull  thought  so  then,  what  ground  is  there  for 
anybody  thinking  otherwise  now  ?  Fellow-citizens,  this  much  may  be 
said  in  reply :  That  bill  had  been  in  the  hands  of  a  party  to  which 
Trumbull  did  not  belong.  It  had  been  in  the  hands  of  the  com 
mittee  at  the  head  of  which  Judge  Douglas  stood.  Trumbull  per 
haps  had  a  printed  copy  of  the  original  Toombs  bill.  I  have  not 
the  evidence  on  that  point,  except  a  sort  of  inference  I  draw  from 
the  general  course  of  business  there.  What  alterations,  or  what 


374          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

provisions  in  the  way  of  altering,  were  going  on  in  committee, 
Trumbull  had  no  means  of  knowing,  until  the  altered  bill  was  re 
ported  back.  Soon  afterward,  when  it  was  reported  back,  there 
was  a  discussion  over  it,  and  perhaps  Trumbull  in  reading  it  hastily 
in  the  altered  form  did  not  perceive  all  the  bearings  of  the  altera 
tions.  He  was  hastily  borne  into  the  debate,  and  it  does  not  follow 
that  because  there  was  something  in  it  Trumbull  did  not  perceive, 
that  something  did  not  exist.  More  than  this,  is  it  true  that  what 
Trumbull  did  can  have  any  effect  on  what  Douglas  did  ?  Suppose 
Trumbull  had  been  in  the  plot  with  these  other  men,  would  that  let 
Douglas  out  of  it?  Would  it  exonerate  Douglas  that  Trumbull 
did  n't  then  perceive  he  was  in  the  plot  ?  He  also  asks  the  question  : 
Why  did  n't  Trumbull  propose  to  amend  the  bill  if  he  thought  it 
needed  any  amendment  1  Why,  I  believe  that  everything  Judge 
Trumbull  had  proposed,  particularly  in  connection  with  this  ques 
tion  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  since  he  had  been  on  the  floor  of  the 
Senate,  had  been  promptly  voted  down  by  Judge  Douglas  and  his 
friends.  He  had  no  promise  that  an  amendment  offered  by  him  to 
anything  on  this  subject  would  receive  the  slightest  consideration. 
Judge  Trumbull  did  bring  the  notice  of  the  Senate  at  that  time  to 
the  fact  that  there  was  no  provision  for  submitting  the  constitution 
about  to  be  made  for  the  people  of  Kansas,  to  a  vote  of  the  people. 
I  believe  I  may  venture  to  say  that  Judge  Douglas  made  some  re 
ply  to  this  speech  of  Judge  TrumbulFs,  but  he  never  noticed  that 
part  of  it  at  all.  And  so  the  thing  passed  by.  I  think,  then,  the 
fact  that  Judge  Trumbull  offered  no  amendment,  does  not  throw 
much  blame  upon  him ;  and  if  it  did,  it  does  not  reach  the  question 
of  fact  as  to  what  Judge  Douglas  was  doing.  I  repeat  that  if 
Trumbull  had  himself  been  in  the  plot,  it  would  not  at  all  relieve 
the  others  who  were  in  it  from  blame.  If  I  should  be  indicted  for 
murder,  and  upon  the  trial  it  should  be  discovered  that  I  had  been 
implicated  in  that  murder,  but  that  the  prosecuting  witness  was 
guilty  too,  that  would  not  at  all  touch  the  question  of  my  crime.  It 
would  be  no  relief  to  my  neck  that  they  discovered  this  other  man 
who  charged  the  crime  upon  me  to  be  guilty  too. 

Another  one  of  the  points  Judge  Douglas  makes  upon  Judge 
Trumbull  is  that  when  he  spoke  in  Chicago  he  made  his  charge 
to  rest  upon  the  fact  that  the  bill  had  the  provision  in  it  for  submit 
ting  the  constitution  to  a  vote  of  the  people,  when  it  went  into  his 
(Judge  Douglas's)  hands,  that  it  was  missing  when  he  reported  it  to 
the  Senate,  and  that  in  a  public  speech  he  had  subsequently  said  the 
alteration  in  the  bill  was  made  while  it  was  in  committee,  and  that 
they  were  made  in  consultation  between  him  (Judge  Douglas)  and 
Toombs.  And  Judge  Douglas  goes  on  to  comment  upon  the  fact  of 
TrumbulPs  adducing  in  his  Alton  speech  the  proposition  that  the  bill 
not  only  came  back  with  that  proposition  stricken  out,  but  with 
another  clause  and  another  provision  in  it  saying  that  "  until  the 
complete  execution  of  this  act  there  shall  be  no  election  in  said  Ter 
ritory,"  which  Trumbull  argued  was  not  only  taking  the  provision 
for  submitting  to  a  vote  of  the  people  out  of  the  bill,  but  was  adding 
an  affirmative  one,  in  that  it  prevented  the  people  from  exercising 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          375 

the  right  under  a  bill  that  was  merely  silent  on  the  question.  Now 
in  regard  to  what  he  says,  that  Trumbull  shifts  the  issue — that  he 
shifts  his  ground — and  I  believe  he  uses  the  term  that  "it  being 
proven  false,  he  has  changed  ground/' — I  call  upon  all  of  you  when 
you  come  to  examine  that  portion  of  TrumbulPs  speech  (for  it  will 
make  a  part  of  mine),  to  examine  whether  Trumbull  has  shifted  his 

f round  or  not.  I  say  he  did  not  shift  his  ground,  but  that  he 
rought  forward  his  original  charge,  and  the  evidence  to  sustain  it 
yet  more  fully,  but  precisely  as  he  originally  made  it.  Then,  in  addi 
tion  thereto,  he  brought  in  a  new  piece  of  evidence.  He  shifted 
no  ground.  He  brought  no  new  piece  of  evidence  inconsistent  with 
Ms  former  testimony,  but  he  brought  a  new  piece  tending,  as  he 
thought,  and  as  I  think,  to  prove  his  proposition.  To  illustrate :  A 
man  brings  an  accusation  against  another,  and  on  trial  the  man 
making  the  charge  introduces  A  and  B  to  prove  the  accusation.  At 
So  second  trial  he  introduces  the  same  witnesses,  who  tell  the  same 
story  as  before,  and  a  third  witness  who  tells  the  same  thing,  and 
in  addition  gives  further  testimony  corroborative  of  the  charge.  So 
with  Trumbull.  There  was  no  shifting  of  ground,  nor  inconsistency 
of  testimony  between  the  new  piece  of  evidence  and  what  he  origi 
nally  introduced. 

But  Judge  Douglas  says  that  he  himself  moved  to  strike  out  that 
last  provision  of  the  bill,  and  that  on  his  motion  it  was  stricken  out 
and  a  substitute  inserted.  That  I  presume  is  the  truth.  I  presume 
it  is  true  that  that  last  proposition  was  stricken  out  by  Judge  Doug 
las.  Trumbull  has  not  said  it  was  not.  Trumbull  has  himself  said 
that  it  was  so  stricken  out.  He  says :  "  I  am  speaking  of  the  bill  as 
Judge  Douglas  reported  it  back.  It  was  amended  somewhat  in  the 
Senate  before  it  passed,  but  I  am  speaking  of  it  as  he  brought  it 
back."  Now,  when  Judge  Douglas  parades  the  fact  that  the  provision 
was  stricken  out  of  the  bill  when  it  came  back,  he  asserts  nothing 
contrary  to  what  Trumbull  alleges.  Trumbull  has  only  said  that  he 
originally  put  it  in — not  that  he  did  not  strike  it  out.  Trumbull 
says  it  was  not  in  the  bill  when  it  went  to  the  committee.  When  it 
came  back  it  was  in,  and  Judge  Douglas  said  the  alterations  were 
made  by  him  in  consultation  with  Toombs.  Trumbull  alleges  there 
fore,  as  his  conclusion,  that  Judge  Douglas  put  it  in.  Then  if  Doug 
las  wants  to  contradict  Trumbull  and  call  him  a  liar,  let  him  say  he 
did  not  put  it  in,  and  not  that  he  did  n't  take  it  out  again.  It  is  said 
that  a  bear  is  sometimes  hard  enough  pushed  to  drop  a  cub,  and  so 
I  presume  it  was  in  this  case.  I  presume  the  truth  is  that  Douglas 
put  it  in  and  afterward  took  it  out.  That,  I  take  it,  is  the  truth  about 
it.  Judge  Trumbull  says  one  thing  j  Douglas  says  another  thing, 
and  the  two  don't  contradict  one  another  at  all.  The  question  is, 
what  did  he  put  it  in  for ?  In  the  first  place,  what  did  he  take  the 
other  provision  out  of  the  bill  for? — the  provision  which  Trumbull 
argued  was  necessary  for  submitting  the  constitution  to  a  vote  of 
the  people?  What  did  he  take  that  out  for?  and  having  taken  it 
out,  what  did  he  put  this  in  for  ?  I  say  that,  in  the  run  of  things,  it  is 
not  unlikely  forces  conspired  to  render  it  vastly  expedient  for  Judge 
Douglas  to  take  that  latter  clause  out  again.  The  question  that 


376          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Trumbull  has  made  is  that  Judge  Douglas  put  it  in,  and  he  don't 
meet  Trumbull  at  all  unless  he  denies  that. 

In  the  clause  of  Judge  Douglas's  speech  upon  this  subject  he  uses 
this  language  toward  Judge  Trumbull.  He  says :  "  He  forges  his 
evidence  from  beginning  to  end,  and  by  falsifying  the  record  he  en 
deavors  to  bolster  up  his  false  charge.7'  Well,  that  is  a  pretty  serious 
statement.  Trumbull  forges  his  evidence  from  beginning  to  end. 
Now  upon  my  own  authority  I  say  that  it  is  not  true.  What  is  a 
forgery?  Consider  the  evidence  that  Trumbull  has  brought  for 
ward.  When  you  come  to  read  the  speech,  as  you  will  be  able  tor 
examine  whether  the  evidence  is  a  forgery  from  beginning  to  end. 
He  had  the  bill  or  document  in  his  hand  like  that  [holding  up  a  pa 
per].  He  says  that  is  a  copy  of  the  Toombs  bill  —  the  amendment 
offered  by  Toombs.  He  says  that  is  a  copy  of  the  bill  as  it  was 
introduced  and  went  into  Judge  Douglas's  hands.  Now,  does  Judge 
Douglas  say  that  is  a  forgery  ?  That  is  one  thing  Trumbull  brought 
forward.  Judge  Douglas  says  he  forged  it  from  beginning  to  end  1 
That  is  the  "  beginning,"  we  will  say.  Does  Douglas  say  that  is  a 
forgery?  Let  him  say  it  to-day,  and  we  will  have  a  subsequent  ex 
amination  upon  this  subject.  Trumbull  then  holds  up  another  docu 
ment  like  this,  and  says  that  is  an  exact  copy  of  the  bill  as  it  came 
back  in  the  amended  form  out  of  Judge  Douglas's  hands.  Does 
Judge  Douglas  say  that  is  a  forgery?  Does  he  say  it  in  his  sweeping 
charge  ?  Does  he  say  so  now  ?  If  he  does  not,  then  take  this  Toombs 
bill  and  the  bill  in  the  amended  form,  and  it  only  needs  to  compare 
them  to  see  that  the  provision  is  in  the  one  and  not  in  the  other ; 
it  leaves  the  inference  inevitable  that  it  was  taken  out. 

But  while  I  am  dealing  with  this  question,  let  us  see  what  Trum- 
bull's  other  evidence  is.  One  other  piece  of  evidence  I  will  read. 
Trumbull  says  there  are  in  this  original  Toombs  bill  these  words : 
"  That  the  following  propositions  be,  and  the  same  are  hereby,  offered 
to  the  said  convention  of  the  people  of  Kansas,  when  formed,  for 
their  free  acceptance  or  rejection ;  which,  if  accepted  by  the  conven 
tion  and  ratified  by  the  people  at  the  election  for  the  adoption  of  the 
constitution,  shall  be  obligatory  upon  the  United  States  and  the  said 
State  of  Kansas."  Now,  if  it  is  said  that  this  is  a  forgery,  we  will 
open  the  paper  here  and  see  whether  it  is  or  not.  Again,  Trumbull 
says,  as  he  goes  along,  that  Mr.  Bigler  made  the  following  statement 
in  his  place  in  the  Senate,  December  9,  1857 : 

I  was  present  when  that  subject  was  discussed  by  senators  before  the 
bill  was  introduced,  and  the  question  was  raised  and  discussed,  whether 
the  constitution,  when  formed,  should  be  submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  people. 
It  was  held  by  those  most  intelligent  on  the  subject,  that  in  view  of  all  the 
difficulties  surrounding  that  Territory,  [and]  the  danger  of  any  experiment  at 
that  time  of  a  popular  vote,  it  would  be  better  there  should  be  no  such  pro 
vision  in  the  Toombs  bill;  and  it  was  my  understanding,  in  all  the  inter 
course  I  had,  that  the  convention  would  make  ;•  constitution,  and  send  it 
here  without  submitting  it  to  the  popular  vote. 

Then  Trumbull  follows  on : 

In  speaking  of  this  meeting  again  on  the  21st  December,  1857  [" Con 
gressional  Globe,"  same  volume,  page  113] ,  Senator  Bigler  said : l  'Nothing  was 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          377 

further  from  my  mind  than  to  allude  to  any  social  or  confidential  interview. 
The  meeting  was  not  of  that  character.  Indeed,  it  was  semi-official  and 
called  to  promote  the  public  good.  My  recollection  was  clear  that  I  left  the 
conference  under  the  impression  that  it  had  been  deemed  best  to  adopt 
measures  to  admit  Kansas  as  a  State  through  the  agency  of  one  popular 
election,  and  that  for  delegates  to  this  convention.  This  impression  was 
stronger  because  I  thought  the  spirit  of  the  bill  infringed  upon  the  doctrine 
of  non-intervention,  to  which  I  had  great  aversion ;  but  with  the  hope  of 
accomplishing  a  great  good,  and  as  no  movement  had  been  made  in  that 
direction  in  the  Territory,  I  waived  this  objection,  and  concluded  to  support 
the  measure.  I  have  a  few  items  of  testimony  as  to  the  correctness  of  these 
impressions,  and  with  their  submission  I  shall  be  content.  I  have  before 
me  the  bill  reported  by  the  senator  from  Illinois  on  the  7th  of  March,  1856, 
providing  for  the  admission  of  Kansas  as  a  State,  the  third  section  of 
which  reads  as  follows : 

"  *  That  the  following  propositions  be,  and  the  same  are  hereby,  offered  to 
the  said  convention  of  the  people  of  Kansas,  when  formed,  for  their  free 
acceptance  or  rejection  ;  which,  if  accepted  by  the  convention  and  ratified 
by  the  people  at  the  election  for  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,  shall  be 
obligatory  upon  the  United  States  and  the  said  State  of  Kansas.' 

"  The  bill  read  in  his  place  by  the  senator  from  Georgia,  on  the  25th  of 
June,  and  referred  to  the  committee  on  Territories,  contained  the  same  sec 
tion  word  for  word.  Both  these  bills  were  under  consideration  at  the 
conference  referred  to  ;  but,  sir,  when  the  senator  from  Illinois  reported  the 
Toombs  bill  to  the  Senate  with  amendments  the  next  morning,  it  did  not 
contain  that  portion  of  the  third  section  which  indicated  to  the  convention 
that  the  constitution  should  be  approved  by  the  people.  The  words,  '  and 
ratified  by  the  people  at  the  election  for  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,7 
had  been  stricken  out." 

Now  these  things  Trumbull  says  were  stated  by  Bigler  upon  the 
floor  of  the  Senate  on  certain  days,  and  that  they  are  recorded  in  the 
"  Congressional  Globe"  on  certain  pages.  Does  Judge  Douglas  say 
this  is  a  forgery  ?  Does  he  say  there  is  no  such  thing  in  the  "  Con 
gressional  Globe  "  ?  What  does  he  mean  when  he  says  Judge  Trum 
bull  forges  his  evidence  from  beginning  to  end  ?  So  again  he  says, 
in  another  place,  that  Judge  Douglas,  in  his  speech  December  9, 1857 
["  Congressional  Globe,"  Part  I,  page  15],  stated : 

That  during  the  last  session  of  Congress,  I  [Mr.  Douglas]  reported  a  bill 
from  the  committee  on  Territories,  to  authorize  the  people  of  Kansas  to  assem 
ble  and  form  a  constitution  for  themselves.  Subsequently  the  senator  from 
Georgia  [Mr.  Toombs]  brought  forward  a  substitute  for  my  bill,  which,  after 
being  modified  by  him  and  myself  in  consultation,  was  passed  by  the  Senate. 

Now  Trumbull  says  this  is  a  quotation  from  a  speech  of  Douglas, 
and  is  recorded  in  the  "  Congressional  Globe."  Is  it  a  forgery  ?  Is 
it  there  or  not  ?  It  may  not  be  there,  but  I  want  the  judge  to  take 
these  pieces  of  evidence,  and  distinctly  say  they  are  forgeries  if  he 
dare  do  it.  [A  voice:  "He  will."]  Well,  sir,  you  had  better  not 
commit  him.  He  gives  other  quotations  —  another  from  Judge 
Douglas.  He  says : 

I  will  ask  the  senator  to  show  me  an  intimation,  from  any  one  member  of 
the  Senate,  in  the  whole  debate  on  the  Toombs  bill,  and  in  the  Union,  from 
any  quarter,  that  the  constitution  was  not  to  be  submitted  to  the  public.  I 


378          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

will  venture  to  say  that  on  all  sides  of  the  chamber  it  was  so  understood  at 
the  time.  If  the  opponents  of  the  bill  had  understood  it  was  not,  they 
would  have  made  the  point  on  it  j  and  if  they  had  made  it,  we  should  cer 
tainly  have  yielded  to  it,  and  put  in  the  clause.  That  is  a  discovery  made 
since  the  President  found  out  that  it  was  not  safe  to  take  it  for  granted  that 
that  would  be  done  which  ought  in  fairness  to  have  been  done. 

Judge  Trumbull  says  Douglas  made  that  speech,  and  it  is  recorded. 
Does  Judge  Douglas  say  it  is  a  forgery,  and  was  not  true?  Trum 
bull  says  somewhere,  and  I  propose  to  skip  it,  but  it  will  be  found  by 
any  one  who  will  read  this  debate,  that  he  did  distinctly  bring  it  to 
the  notice  of  those  who  were  engineering  the  bill,  that  it  lacked  that 
provision,  and  then  he  goes  on  to  give  another  quotation  from  Judge 
Douglas,  where  Judge  Trumbull  uses  this  language: 

Judge  Douglas,  however,  on  the  same  day  and  in  the  same  debate,  prob 
ably  recollecting  or  being  reminded  of  the  fact  that  I  had  objected  to  the 
Toombs  bill,  when  pending,  that  it  did  not  provide  for  a  submission  of  the 
constitution  to  the  people,  made  another  statement,  which  is  to  be  found  in 
the  same  volume  of  the  "  Globe,"  page  22,  in  which  he  says : 

"  That  the  bill  was  silent  on  this  subject  was  true,  and  my  attention  was 
called  to  that  about  the  time  it  was  passed ;  and  I  took  the  fair  construction 
to  be,  that  powers  not  delegated  were  reserved,  and  that  of  course  the  con 
stitution  would  be  submitted  to  the  people." 

Whether  this  statement  is  consistent  with  the  statement  just  before  made, 
that  had  the  point  been  made  it  would  have  been  yielded  to,  or  that  it  was 
a  new  discovery,  you  will  determine. 

So  I  say.  I  do  not  know  whether  Judge  Douglas  will  dispute  this, 
and  yet  maintain  his  position  that  TrumbulTs  evidence  "  was  forged 
from  beginning  to  end."  I  will  remark  that  I  have  not  got  these 
"  Congressional  Globes"  with  me.  They  are  large  books  and  difficult 
to  carry  about,  and  if  Judge  Douglas  shall  say  that  on  these  points 
where  Trumbull  has  quoted  from  them,  there  are  no  such  passages 
there,  I  shall  not  be  able  to  prove  they  are  there  upon  this  occasion, 
but  I  will  have  another  chance.  Whenever  he  points  out  the  forgery 
and  says,  "  I  declare  that  this  particular  thing  which  Trumbull  has 
uttered  is  not  to  be  found  where  he  says  it  is,"  then  my  attention  will 
be  drawn  to  that,  and  I  will  arm  myself  for  the  contest — stating 
now  that  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  on  earth  that  I  will  find  every 
quotation  just  where  Trumbull  says  it  is.  Then  the  question  is,  how 
can  Douglas  call  that  a  forgery  ?  How  can  he  make  out  that  it  is  a 
forgery  ?  What  is  a  forgery  ?  It  is  the  bringing  forward  something 
in  writing  or  in  print  purporting  to  be  of  certain  effect  when  it  is 
altogether  untrue.  If  you  come  forward  with  my  note  for  one 
hundred  dollars  when  I  have  never  given  such  a  note,  there  is  a 
forgery.  If  you  come  forward  with  a  letter  purporting  to  be  written 
by  me  which  I  never  wrote,  there  is  another  forgery.  If  you  pro 
duce  anything  in  writing  or  in  print  saying  it  is  so  and  so,  the  doc 
ument  not  being  genuine,  a  forgery  has  been  committed.  How  do 
you  make  this  a  forgery  when  every  piece  of  the  evidence  is  genuine? 
If  Judge  Douglas  does*  say  these  documents  and  quotations  are  false 
and  forged,  he  has  a  full  right  to  do  so,  but  until  he  does  it  specifi- 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          379 

cally,  we  don't  know  how  to  get  at  him.  If  he  does  say  they  are  false 
and  forged,  I  will  then  look  further  into  it,  and  I  presume  I  can 
procure  the  certificates  of  the  proper  officers  that  they  are  genuine 
copies.  I  have  no  doubt  each  of  these  extracts  will  be  found  exactly 
where  Trumbull  says  it  is.  Then  I  leave  it  to  you  if  Judge  Douglas, 
in  making  his  sweeping  charge  that  Judge  TrumbulPs  evidence  is 
forged  from  beginning  to  end,  at  all  meets  the  case  —  if  that  is  the 
way  to  get  at  the  facts.  I  repeat  again,  if  he  will  point  out  which 
one  is  a  forgery,  I  will  carefully  examine  it,  and  if  it  proves  that  any 
one  of  them  is  really  a  forgery,  it  will  not  be  me  who  will  hold  to 
it  any  longer.  I  have  always  wanted  to  deal  with  every  one  I  meet 
candidly  and  honestly.  If  1  have  made  any  assertion  not  warranted 
by  facts,  and  it  is  pointed  out  to  me,  I  will  withdraw  it  cheerfully. 
But  I  do  not  choose  to  see  Judge  Trumbull  calumniated,  and  the 
evidence  he  has  brought  forward  branded  in  general  terms  "  a 
forgery  from  beginning  to  end."  This  is  not  the  legal  way  of  meet 
ing  a  charge,  and  I  submit  to  all  intelligent  persons,  both  friends  of 
Judge  Douglas  and  of  myself,  whether  it  is. 

The  point  upon  Judge  Douglas  is  this.  The  bill  that  went  into  his 
hands  had  the  provision  in  it  for  a  submission  of  the  constitution  to 
the  people;  and  I  say  its  language  amounts  to  an  express  provision 
for  a  submission,  and  that  he  took  the  provision  out.  He  says  it  was 
known  that  the  bill  was  silent  in  this  particular;  but  I  say,  Judge 
Douglas,  it  was  not  silent  when  you  got  it.  It  was  vocal  with  the 
declaration  when  you  got  it,  for  a  submission  of  the  constitution  to 
the  people.  And  now,  my  direct  question  to  Judge  Douglas  is  to 
answer  why,  if  he  deemed  the  bill  silent  on  this  point,  he  found  it 
necessary  to  strike  out  those  particular  harmless  words.  If  he  had 
found  the  bill  silent  and  without  this  provision,  he  might  say  what  he 
does  now.  If  he  supposes  it  was  implied  that  the  constitution  would 
be  submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  people,  how  could  these  two  lines  so  en 
cumber  the  statute  as  to  make  it  necessary  to  strike  them  out!  How 
could  he  infer  that  a  submission  was  still  implied,  after  its  express 
provision  had  been  stricken  from  the  bill  ?  I  find  the  bill  vocal  with 
the  provision,  while  he  silenced  it.  He  took  it  out,  and  although  he 
took  out  the  other  provision  preventing  a  submission  to  a  vote  of  the 
people,  I  ask,  why  did  you  first  put  it  in  ?  I  ask  him  whether  he  took 
the  original  provision  out,  which  Trumbull  alleges  was  in  the  bill  ? 
If  he  admits  that  he  did  take  it,  I  ask  him  what  he  did  it  for  ?  It 
looks  to  us  as  if  he  had  altered  the  bill.  If  it  looks  differently  to 
him  — if  he  has  a  different  reason  for  his  action  from  the  one  we  as 
sign  him — he  can  tell  it.  I  insist  upon  knowing  why  he  made  the  bill  si 
lent  upon  that  point  when  it  was  vocal  before  he  put  his  hands  upon  it. 

I  was  told,  before  my  last  paragraph,  that  my  time  was  within  three 
minutes  of  being  out.  I  presume  it  is  expired  now.  I  therefore  close. 


Extract  from  Mr.  TrumbulVs  Speech  made  at  Alton,  referred  to  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  in  his  opening  at  Charleston. 

I  come  now  to  another  extract  from  a  speech  of  Mr.  Douglas,  made  at 
Beardstown,  and  reported  in  the  "  Missouri  Republican."    This  extract  has 


380          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

reference  to  a  statement  made  by  me  at  Chicago,  wherein  I  charged  that  an 
agreement  had  been  entered  into  by  the  very  persons  now  claiming  credit 
for  opposing  a  constitution  not  submitted  to  the  people,  to  have  a  constitu 
tion  formed  and  put  in  force  without  giving  the  people  of  Kansas  an  oppor 
tunity  to  pass  upon  it.  Without  meeting  this  charge,  which  I  substantiated 
by  a  reference  to  the  record,  my  colleague  is  reported  to  have  said : 

"  For  when  this  charge  was  once  made  in  a  much  milder  form  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  I  did  brand  it  as  a  lie  in  the  presence  of  Mr. 
Trumbull,  and  Mr.  Trumbull  sat  and  heard  it  thus  branded,  without  daring 
to  say  it  was  true.  I  tell  you  he  knew  it  to  be  false  when  he  uttered  it  at 
Chicago ;  and  yet  he  says  he  is  *  going  to  cram  the  lie  down  his  throat  until 
he  should  cry  enough.'  The  miserable,  craven-hearted  wretch !  he  would 
rather  have  both  ears  cut  off  than  to  use  that  language  in  my  presence, 
where  I  could  call  him  to  account.  I  see  the  object  is  to  draw  me  into  a  per 
sonal  controversy,  with  the  hope  thereby  of  concealing  from  the  public  the 
enormity  of  the  principles  to  which  they  are  committed.  I  shall  not  allow 
much  of  my  time  in  this  canvass  to  be  occupied  by  these  personal  as 
saults.  I  have  none  to  make  on  Mr.  Lincoln  j  I  have  none  to  make  on  Mr. 
Trumbull  j  I  have  none  to  make  on  any  other  political  opponent.  If  I  can 
not  stand  on  my  own  public  record,  on  my  own  private  and  public  character 
as  history  will  record  it,  I  will  not  attempt  to  rise  by  traducing  the  characters 
of  other  men.  I  will  not  make  a  blackguard  of  myself  by  imitating  the 
course  they  have  pursued  against  me.  I  have  no  charges  to  make  against 
them." 

This  is  a  singular  statement,  taken  altogether.  After  indulging  in  lan 
guage  which  would  disgrace  a  loafer  in  the  filthiest  purlieus  of  a  fish- 
market,  he  winds  up  by  saying  that  he  will  not  make  a  blackguard  of 
himself,  that  he  has  no  charges  to  make  against  me.  So  I  suppose  he  con 
siders  that  to  say  of  another  that  he  knew  a  thing  to  be  false  when  he 
uttered  it,  that  he  was  a  "miserable  craven -hearted  wretch,"  does  not 
amount  to  a  personal  assault,  and  does  not  make  a  man  a  blackguard.  A 
discriminating  public  will  judge  of  that  for  themselves  ;  but  as  he.says  he 
has  "no  charges  to  make  on  Mr.  Trumbull,"  I  suppose  politeness  requires 
I  should  believe  him.  At  the  risk  of  again  offending  this  mighty  man  of 
war,  and  losing  something  more  than  my  ears,  I  shall  have  the  audacity 
to  again  read  the  record  upon  him,  and  prove  and  pin  upon  him,  so  that  he 
cannot  escape  it,  the  truth  of  every  word  I  uttered  at  Chicago.  You,  fel 
low-citizens,  are  the  judges  to  determine  whether  I  do  this.  My  colleague 
says  he  is  willing  to  stand  on  his  public  record.  By  that  he  shall  be  tried, 
and  if  he  had  been  able  to  discriminate  between  the  exposure  of  a  public 
act  by  the  record,  and  a  personal  attack  upon  the  individual,  he  would  have 
discovered  that  there  was  nothing  personal  in  my  Chicago  remarks,  unless 
the  condemnation  of  himself  by  his  own  public  record  is  personal,  and  then 
you  must  judge  who  is  most  to  blame  for  the  torture  his  public  record  in 
flicts  upon  him,  he  for  making,  or  I  for  reading  it  after  it  was  made.  As 
an  individual  I  care  very  little  about  Judge  Douglas  one  way  or  the  other. 
It  is  his  public  acts  with  which  I  have  to  do,  and  if  they  condemn,  disgrace, 
and  consign  him  to  oblivion,  he  has  only  himself,  not  me,  to  blame. 

Now,  the  charge  is  that  there  was  a  plot  entered  into  to  have  a  constitu 
tion  formed  for  Kansas,  and  put  in  force,  without  giving  the  people  an 
opportunity  to  pass  upon  it,  and  that  Mr.  Douglas  was  in  the  plot.  This 
is  as  susceptible  of  proof  by  the  record  as  is  the  fact  that  the  State  of  Min 
nesota  was  admitted  into  the  Union  at  the  last  session  of  Congress. 

On  the  25th  of  June,  1856,  a  bill  was  pending  in  the  United  States  Senate 
to  authorize  the  people  of  Kansas  to  form  a  constitution  and  come  into  the 
Union.  On  that  day  Mr.  Toombs  offered  an  amendment  which  he  intended 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          381 

to  propose  to  the  bill,  which  was  ordered  to  be  printed,  and,  with  the  original 
bill  and  other  amendments,  recommended  to  the  Committee  on  Territories, 
of  which  Mr.  Douglas  was  chairman.  This  amendment  of  Mr.  Toombs, 
printed  by  order  of  the  Senate,  and  a  copy  of  which  I  have  here  present, 
provided  for  the  appointment  of  commissioners,  who  were  to  take  a  census 
of  Kansas,  divide  the  Territory  into  election  districts,  and  superintend  the 
election  of  delegates  to  form  a  constitution,  and  contains  a  clause  in  the 
18th  section  which  I  will  read  to  you,  requiring  the  constitution  which 
should  be  formed  to  be  submitted  to  the  people  for  adoption.  It  reads  as 
follows : 

"  That  the  following  propositions  be,  and  the  same  are  hereby,  offered  to 
the  said  convention  of  the  people  of  Kansas,  when  formed,  for  their  free 
acceptance  or  rejection;  which,  if  accepted  by  the  convention  and  ratified 
by  the  people  at  the  election  for  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,  shall  be 
obligatory  upon  the  United  States,  and  upon  the  said  State  of  Kansas,"  etc. 

It  has  been  contended  by  some  of  the  newspaper  press  that  this  section 
did  not  require  the  constitution  which  should  be  formed  to  be  submitted 
to  the  people  for  approval,  and  that  it  was  only  the  land  propositions  which 
were  to  be  submitted.  You  will  observe  the  language  is  that  the  proposi 
tions  are  to  be  "ratified  by  the  people  at  the  election  for  the  adoption  of 
the  constitution."  Would  it  have  been  possible  to  ratify  the  land  propo 
sitions  "  at  the  election  for  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,"  unless  such 
an  election  was  to  be  held  ? 

When  one  thing  is  required  by  a  contract  or  law  to  be  done,  the  doing 
of  which  is  made  dependent  upon,  and  cannot  be  performed  without,  the 
doing  of  some  other  thing,  is  not  that  other  thing  just  as  much  required  by 
the  contract  or  law  as  the  first  ?  It  matters  not  in  what  part  of  the  act, 
nor  in  what  phraseology,  the  intention  of  the  legislature  is  expressed,  so 
you  can  clearly  ascertain  what  it  is;  and  whenever  that  intention  is  ascer 
tained  from  an  examination  of  the  language  used,  such  intention  is  part  of 
and  a  requirement  of  the  law.  Can  any  candid,  fair-minded  man  read  the 
section  I  have  quoted,  and  say  that  the  intention  to  have  the  constitution 
which  should  be  formed  submitted  to  the  people  for  their  adoption  is  not 
clearly  expressed  ?  In  my  judgment  there  can  be  no  controversy  among 
honest  men  upon  a  proposition  so  plain  as  this.  Mr.  Douglas  has  never 
pretended  to  deny,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  that  the  Toombs  amendment,  as 
originally  introduced,  did  require  a  submission  of  the  constitution  to  the 
people.  This  amendment  of  Mr.  Toombs  was  referred  to  the  committee  of 
which  Mr.  Douglas  was  chairman,  and  reported  back  by  him  on  the  30th 
of  June,  with  the  words  "and  ratified  by  the  people  at  the  election  for 
the  adoption  of  the  constitution"  stricken  out.  I  have  here  a  copy  of  the 
bill  as  reported  back  by  Mr.  Douglas  to  substantiate  the  statement  I  make. 
Various  other  alterations  were  also  made  in  the  bill  to  which  I  shall  pres 
ently  have  occasion  to  call  attention.  There  was  no  other  clause  in  the 
original  Toombs  bill  requiring  a  submission  of  the  constitution  to  the  peo 
ple  than  the  one  I  have  read,  and  there  was  no  clause  whatever,  after  that 
was  struck  out,  in  the  bill,  as  reported  back  by  Judge  Douglas,  requiring 
a  submission.  I  will  now  introduce  a  witness  whose  testimony  cannot  be 
impeached,  he  acknowledging  himself  to  have  been  one  of  the  conspirators, 
and  privy  to  the  fact  about  which  he  testifies. 

Senator  Bigler,  alluding  to  the  Toombs  bill,  as  it  was  called,  and  which, 
after  sundry  amendments,  passed  the  Senate,  and  to  the  propriety  of  sub 
mitting  the  constitution  which  should  be  formed  to  a  vote  of  the  people, 
made  the  following  statement  in  his  place  in  the  Senate,  December  9, 
1857.  I  read  from  Part  I,  "Congressional  Globe"  of  last  session,  para 
graph  21 : 


382          ADDRESSES  AND  LETTERS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

"I  was  present  when  that  subject  was  discussed  by  senators,  before  the 
bill  was  introduced,  and  the  question  was  raised  and  discussed  whether  the 
constitution,  when  formed,  should  be  submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  people.  It 
was  held  by  the  most  intelligent  on  the  subject  that  in  view  of  all  the  diffi 
culties  surrounding1  that  Territory,  [and]  the  danger  of  any  experiment  at 
that  time  of  a  popular  vote,  it  would  be  better  that  there  should  be  no  such 
provision  in  the  Toombs  bill ;  and  it  is  my  understanding,  in  all  the  inter 
course  I  had,  that  the  convention  would  make  a  constitution  and  send  it  here 
without  submitting  it  to  the  popular  vote." 

In  speaking  of  this  meeting  again  on  the  21st  of  December,  1857  ("  Con 
gressional  Globe,"  same  volume,  page  113),  Senator  Bigler  said : 

"  Nothing  was  farther  from  my  mind  than  to  allude  to  any  social  or  con 
fidential  interview.  The  meeting  was  not  of  that  character.  Indeed,  it  was 
semi-official,  and  called  to  promote  the  public  good.  My  recollection  was 
clear  that  I  left  the  conference  under  the  impression  that  it  had  been  deemed 
best  to  adopt  measures  to  admit  Kansas  as  a  State  through  the  agency  of 
one  popular  election,  and  that  for  delegates  to  the  convention.  This  im 
pression  was  the  stronger  because  I  thought  the  spirit  of  the  bill  infringed 
upon  the  doctrine  of  non-intervention,  to  which  I  had  great  aversion  5  but 
with  the  hope  of  accomplishing  great  good,  and  as  no  movement  had  been 
made  in  that  direction  in  the  Territory,  I  waived  this  objection,  and  con 
cluded  to  support  the  measure.  I  have  a  few  items  of  testimony  as  to  the 
correctness  of  these  impressions,  and  with  their  submission  I  shall  be  content. 
I  have  before  me  the  bill  reported  by  the  senator  from  Illinois  on  the  7th 
of  March,  1856,  providing  for  the  admission  of  Kansas  as  a  State,  the  third 
section  of  which  reads  as  follows  : 

" l  That  the  following  propositions  be,  and  the  same  are  hereby,  offered  to 
the  said  convention  of  the  people  of  Kansas,  when  formed,  for  their  free 
acceptance  or  rejection  j  which,  if  accepted  by  the  convention  and  ratified 
by  the  people  at  the  election  for  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,  shall  be 
obligatory  upon  the  United  States,  and  upon  the  said  State  of  Kansas.' 

"  The  bill  read  in  place  by  the  senator  from  Georgia,  on  the  25th  of  Juney 
and  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Territories,  contained  the  same  section, 
word  for  word.  Both  these  bills  were  under  consideration  at  the  confer 
ence  referred  to;  but,  sir,  when  the  senator  from  Illinois  reported  the 
Toombs  bill  to  the  Senate,  with  amendments,  the  next  morning,  it  did  not 
contain  that  portion  of  the  third  section  which  indicated  to  the  convention 
that  the  constitution  should  be  approved  by  the  people.  The  words  l  and 
ratified  by  the  people  at  the  election  for  the  adoption  of  the  constitution  * 
had  been  stricken  out." 

I  am  not  now  seeking  to  prove  that  Douglas  was  in  the  plot  to  force  a 
constitution  upon  Kansas  without  allowing  the  people  to  vote  directly  upon 
it.  I  shall  attend  to  that  branch  of  the  subject  by  and  by.  My  object  now 
is  to  prove  the  existence  of  the  plot,  what  the  design  was,  and  I  ask  if  I  have 
not  already  done  so.  Here  are  the  facts : 

The  introduction  of  a  bill  on  the  7th  of  March,  1856,  providing  for  the 
calling  of  a  convention  in  Kansas  to  form  a  State  constitution,  and  pro 
viding  that  the  constitution  should  be  submitted  to  the  people  for  adoption; 
an  amendment  to  this  bill,  proposed  by  Mr.  Toombs,  containing  the  same 
requirement ;  a  reference  of  these  various  bills  to  the  Committee  on  Terri 
tories  ;  a  consultation  of  senators  to  determine  whether  it  was  advisable  to 
have  the  constitution  submitted  for  ratification ;  the  determination  that  it 
was  not  advisable ;  and  a  report  of  the  bill  back  to  the  Senate  next  morning, 
with  the  clause  providing  for  the  submission  stricken  out —  could  evidence 
be  more  complete  to  establish  the  first  part  of  the  charge  I  have  made  of  a 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          383 

plot  having  been  entered  into  by  somebody  to  have  a  constitution  adopted 
without  submitting  it  to  the  people  ? 

Now,  for  the  other  part  of  the  charge.  That  Judge  Douglas  was  in  this  plot, 
whether  knowingly  or  ignorantly,  is  not  material  to  my  purpose.  The 
charge  is  that  he  was  an  instrument  cooperating  in  the  project  to  have  a 
constitution  formed  and  put  into  operation  without  affording  the  people  an 
opportunity  to  pass  upon  it.  The  first  evidence  to  sustain  the  charge  is  the 
fact  that  he  reported  back  the  Toombs  amendment  with  the  clause  provid 
ing  for  the  submission  stricken  out:  this,  in  connection  with  his  speech  in 
the  Senate  on  the  9th  of  December,  1857  ("  Congressional  Globe,"  Part  I, 
page  14),  wherein  he  stated: 

"That  during  the  last  Congress,  I  [Mr.  Douglas]  reported  a  bill  from  the 
Committee  on  Territories,  to  authorize  the  people  of  Kansas  to  assemble 
and  form  a  constitution  for  themselves.  Subsequently  the  senator  from 
Georgia  [Mr.  Toombs]  brought  forward  a  substitute  for  my  bill,  which,  after 
having  been  modified  by  him  and  myself  in  consultation,  was  passed  by  the 
Senate." 

This  of  itself  ought  to  be  sufficient  to  show  that  my  colleague  was  an  in 
strument  in  the  plot  to  have  a  constitution  put  in  force  without  submitting 
it  to  the  people,  and  to  forever  close  his  mouth  from  attempting  to  deny. 
No  man  can  reconcile  his  acts  and  former  declarations  with  his  present  de 
nial,  and  the  only  charitable  conclusion  would  be  that  he  was  being  used  by 
others  without  knowing  it.  Whether  he  is  entitled  to  the  benefit  of  even 
this  excuse,  you  must  judge  on  a  candid  hearing  of  the  facts  I  shall  present. 
When  the  charge  was  first  made  in  the  United  States  Senate,  by  Mr.  Bigler, 
that  my  colleague  had  voted  for  an  Enabling  Act  which  put  a  government 
in  operation  without  submitting  the  constitution  to  the  people,  my  colleague 
("Congressional  Globe," last  session,  Parti,  page 24)  stated: 

11 I  will  ask  the  senator  to  show  me  an  intimation  from  any  one  member  of 
the  Senate,  in  the  whole  debate  on  the  Toombs  bill,  and  in  the  Union  from 
any  quarter,  that  the  constitution  was  not  to  be  submitted  to  the  people.  I 
will  venture  to  say  that  on  all  sides  of  the  chamber  it  was  so  understood  at 
the  time.  If  the  opponents  of  the  bill  had  understood  it  was  not,  they  would 
have  made  the  point  on  it ;  and  if  they  had  made  it  we  should  certainly  have 
yielded  to  it,  and  put  in  the  clause.  That  is  a  discovery  made  since  the 
President  found  out  that  it  was  not  safe  to  take  it  for  granted  that  that  would 
be  done  which  ought  in  fairness  to  have  been  done." 

I  knew,  at  the  time  this  statement  was  made,  that  I  had  urged  the  very 
objection  to  the  Toombs  bill  two  years  before,  that  it  did  not  provide  for 
the  submission  of  the  constitution.  You  will  find  my  remarks,  made  on  the 
2d  of  July,  1856,  in  the  appendix  to  the  "  Congressional  Globe"  of  that  year, 
page  179,  urging  this  very  objection.  Do  you  ask  why  I  did  not  expose  him 
at  the  time  ?  I  will  tell  you.  Mr.  Douglas  was  then  doing  good  service 
against  the  Lecompton  iniquity.  The  Republicans  were  then  engaged  in  a 
hand-to-hand  fight  with  the  National  Democracy,  to  prevent  the  bringing 
of  Kansas  into  the  Union  as  a  slave  State  against  the  wishes  of  its  inhabi 
tants,  and  of  course  I  was  unwilling  to  turn  our  guns  from  the  common 
enemy  to  strike  down  an  ally.  Judge  Douglas,  however,  on  the  same  day, 
and  in  the  same  debate,  probably  recollecting,  or  being  reminded  of  the 
fact,  that  I  had  objected  to  the  Toombs  bill,  when  pending,  that  it  did  not 
provide  for  the  submission  of  the  constitution  to  the  people,  made  another 
statement,  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  same  volume  of  the  "  Congressional 
Globe,"  page  22,  in  which  he  says  : 

"  That  the  bill  was  silent  on  the  subject  is  true,  and  my  attention  was 
called  to  that  about  the  time  it  was  passed  j  and  I  took  the  fair  construction 


384          ADDBESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

to  be,  that  powers  not  delegated  were  reserved,  and  that  of  course  the  con 
stitution  would  be  submitted  to  the  people." 

Whether  this  statement  is  consistent  with  the  statement  just  before  made, 
that  had  the  point  been  made  it  would  have  been  yielded  to,  or  that  it 
was  a  new  discovery,  you  will  determine  ;  for  if  the  public  records  do  not 
convict  and  condemn  him,  he  may  go  uncondemned,  so  far  as  I  am  con 
cerned.  I  make  no  use  here  of  the  testimony  of  Senator  Bigler  to  show 
that  Judge  Douglas  must  have  been  privy  to  the  consultation  held  at  his 
house,  when  it  was  determined  not  to  submit  the  constitution  to  the  people, 
because  Judge  Douglas  denies  it,  and  I  wish  to  use  his  own  acts  and  decla 
rations,  which  are  abundantly  sufficient  for  my  purpose. 

I  come  to  a  piece  of  testimony  which  disposes  of  all  these  various  pre 
tenses  which  have  been  set  up  for  striking  out  of  the  original  Toombs  proposi 
tion  the  clause  requiring  a  submission  of  the  constitution  to  the  people,  and 
shows  that  it  was  not  done  either  by  accident,  by  inadvertence,  or  because 
it  was  believed  that  the  bill,  being  silent  on  the  subject,  the  constitution 
would  necessarily  be  submitted  to  the  people  for  approval.  What  will  you 
think,  after  listening  to  the  facts  already  presented  to  show  that  there  was 
a  design  with  those  who  concocted  the  Toombs  bill,  as  amended,  not  to  sub 
mit  the  constitution  to  the  people,  if  I  now  bring  before  you  the  amended 
bill  as  Judge  Douglas  reported  it  back,  and  show  the  clause  of  the  original 
bill  requiring  submission  was  not  only  struck  out,  but  that  other  clauses 
were  inserted  in  the  bill  putting  it  absolutely  out  of  the  power  of  the  con 
vention  to  submit  the  constitution  to  the  people  for  approval,  had  they 
desired  to  do  so  ?  If  I  can  produce  such  evidence  as  that,  will  you  not  all 
agree  that  it  clinches  and  establishes  forever  all  I  charged  at  Chicago,  and 
more  too  ? 

I  propose  now  to  furnish  that  evidence.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Mr. 
Toombs's  bill  provided  for  holding  an  election  for  delegates  to  form  a  con 
stitution  under  the  supervision  of  commissioners  to  be  appointed  by  the 
President,  and  in  the  bill,  as  reported  back  by  Judge  Douglas,  these  words, 
not  to  be  found  in  the  original  bill,  are  inserted  at  the  close  of  the  llth  sec 
tion,  viz. : 

"Aiid  until  the  complete  execution  of  this  act  no  other  election  shall  be 
held  in  said  Territory." 

This  clause  put  it  out  of  the  power  of  the  convention  to  refer  to  the  people 
for  adoption ;  it  absolutely  prohibited  the  holding  of  any  other  election  than 
that  for  the  election  of  delegates,  till  that  act  was  completely  executed, 
which  would  not  have  been  until  Kansas  was  admitted  as  a  State,  or,  at  all 
events,  till  her  constitution  was  fully  prepared  and  ready  for  submission  to 
Congress  for  admission.  Other  amendments  reported  by  Judge  Douglas 
to  the  original  Toombs  bill  clearly  show  that  the  intention  was  to  enable 
Kansas  to  become  a  State  without  any  further  action  than  simply  a  resolu 
tion  of  admission.  The  amendment  reported  by  Mr.  Douglas,  that  "  until 
the  next  congressional  apportionment  the  said  State  shall  have  one  repre 
sentative,"  clearly  shows  this,  no  such  provision  being  contained  in  the 
original  Toombs  bill.  For  what  other  earthly  purpose  could  the  clause  to 
prevent  any  other  election  in  Kansas,  except  that  of  delegates,  till  it  was 
admitted  as  a  State,  have  been  inserted  except  to  prevent  a  submission  of 
the  constitution,  when  formed,  to  the  people  ? 

The  Toombs  bill  did  not  pass  in  the  exact  shape  in  which  Judge  Douglas 
reported  it.  Several  amendments  were  made  to  it  in  the  Senate.  I  am  now 
dealing  with  the  action  of  Judge  Douglas  as  connected  with  that  bill,  and 
speak  of  the  bill  as  he  recommended  it.  The  facts  I  have  stated  in  regard 
to  this  matter  appear  upon  the  records,  which  I  have  here  present  to  show 
to  any  man  who  wishes  to  look  at  them.  They  establish,  beyond  the  power 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN          385 

of  controversy,  all  the  charges  I  have  made,  and  show  that  Judge  Douglas 
was  made  use  of  as  an  instrument  by  others,  or  else  knowingly  was  a  party 
to  the  scheme  to  have  a  government  put  in  force  over  the  people  of  Kansas, 
without  giving  them  an  opportunity  to  pass  upon  it.  That  others  high  in 
position  in  the  so-called  Democratic  party  were  parties  to  such  a  scheme  is 
confessed  by  Governor  Bigler  j  and  the  only  reason  why  the  scheme  was 
not  carried,  and  Kansas  long  ago  forced  into  the  Union  as  a  slave  State,  is 
the  fact  that  the  Republicans  were  sufficiently  strong  in  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives  to  defeat  the  measure. 


Extract  from  Mr.  Douglas's  Speech  made  at  Jacksonville,  and  referred  to 
by  Mr.  Lincoln  in  his  opening  at  Charleston. 

I  have  been  reminded  by  a  friend  behind  me  that  there  is  another  topic 
upon  which  there  has  been  a  desire  expressed  that  I  should  speak.  I  am 
told  that  Mr.  Lyman  Trumbull,  who  has  the  good  fortune  to  hold  a  seat  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  in  violation  of  the  bargain  between  him  and 
Lincoln,  was  here  the  other  day  and  occupied  his  time  in  making  certain 
charges  against  me,  involving,  if  they  be  true,  moral  turpitude.  I  am  also 
informed  that  the  charges  he  made  here  were  substantially  the  same  as 
those  made  by  him  in  the  city  of  Chicago,  which  were  printed  in  the  news 
papers  of  that  city.  I  now  propose  to  answer  those  charges  and  to  anni 
hilate  every  pretext  that  an  honest  man  has  ever  had  for  repeating  them. 

In  order  that  I  may  meet  these  charges  fairly,  I  will  read  them,  as  made 
by  Mr.  Trumbull  in  his  Chicago  speech,  in  his  own  language.  He  says : 

"Now,  fellow- citizens,  I  make  the  distinct  charge  that  there  was  a  pre 
concerted  arrangement  and  plot  entered  into  by  the  very  men  who  now 
claim  credit  for  opposing  a  constitution  not  submitted  to  the  people,  to 
have  a  constitution  formed  and  put  in  force  without  giving  the  people  an 
opportunity  to  pass  upon  it.  This,  my  friends,  is  a  serious  charge,  but  I 
charge  it  to-night,  that  the  very  men  who  traverse  the  country  under  ban 
ners,  proclaiming  popular  sovereignty,  by  design  concocted  a  bill  on  pur 
pose  to  force  a  constitution  upon  that  people." 

Again,  speaking  to  some  one  in  the  crowd,  he  says : 

"And  you  want  to  satisfy  yourself  that  he  was  in  the  plot  to  force  a  con 
stitution  upon  that  people1?  I  will  satisfy  you.  I  will  cram  the  truth 
down  any  honest  man's  throat,  until  he  cannot  deny  it,  and  to  the  man 
who  does  deny  it,  I  will  cram  the  lie  down  his  throat  till  he  shall  cry 
enough!  It  is  preposterous  —  it  is  the  most  damnable  effrontery  that  man 
ever  put  on  to  conceal  a  scheme  to  defraud  and  cheat  the  people  out  of  their 
rights,  and  then  claim  credit  for  it." 

That  is  polite  and  decent  language  for  a  senator  of  the  United  States. 
Remember  that  that  language  was  used  without  any  provocation  whatever 
from  me.  I  had  not  alluded  to  him  in  any  manner  in  any  speech  that  I 
had  made ;  hence  it  was  without  provocation.  As  soon  as  he  sets  his  foot 
within  the  State,  he  makes  the  direct  charge  that  I  wras  a  party  to  a  plot 
to  force  a  constitution  upon  the  people  of  Kansas  against  their  will,  and 
knowing  that  it  would  be  denied,  he  talks  about  cramming  the  lie  down 
the  throat  of  any  man  who  shall  deny  it,  until  he  cries  enough. 

Why  did  he  take  it  for  granted  that  it  would  be  denied,  unless  he  knew 
it  to  be  false  ?  Why  did  he  deem  it  necessary  to  make  a  threat  in  advance 
that  he  would  "  cram  the  lie"  down  the  throat  of  any  man  that  should  deny 


VOL.  L— 25. 


386          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

by  calling  him  a  liar,  they  are  shocked  at  the  indecency  of  the  language; 
hence,  to-day,  instead  of  calling  him  a  liar,  I  intend  to  prove  that  he  is  one. 

I  wish,  in  the  first  place,  to  refer  to  the  evidence  adduced  by  Trumbull, 
at  Chicago,  to  sustain  his  charge.  He  there  declared  that  Mr.  Toombs,  of 
Georgia,  introduced  a  bill  into  Congress  authorizing  the  people  of  Kansas 
to  form  a  constitution  and  come  into  the  Union,  that,  when  introduced,  it 
contained  a  clause  requiring  the  constitution  to  be  submitted  to  the  people, 
and  that  I  struck  out  the  words  of  that  clause. 

Suppose  it  were  true  that  there  was  such  a  clause  in  the  bill,  and  that 
I  struck  it  out,  is  that  proof  of  a  plot  to  force  a  constitution  upon  a  people 
against  their  will?  Bear  in  mind  that,  from  the  days  of  George  Washington 
to  the  administration  of  Franklin  Pierce,  there  has  never  been  passed  by 
Congress  a  bill  requiring  the  submission  of  a  constitution  to  the  people.  If 
Trumbull's  charge,  that  I  struck  out  that  clause,  were  true,  it  would  only 
prove  that  I  had  reported  the  bill  in  the  exact  shape  of  every  bill  of  like 
character  that  passed  under  Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe,  Jack 
son,  or  any  other  president,  to  the  time  of  the  then  present  administration. 
I  ask  you  would  that  be  evidence  of  a  design  to  force  a  constitution  on  a 
people  against  their  will  ?  If  it  were  so,  it  would  be  evidence  against  Wash 
ington,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Jackson,  Van  Buren,  and  every  other  president. 

But  upon  examination,  it  turns  out  that  the  Toombs  bill  never  did  con 
tain  a  clause  requiring  the  constitution  to  be  submitted.  Hence  no  such 
clause  was  ever  stricken  out  by  me  or  anybody  else.  It  is  true,  however, 
that  the  Toombs  bill  and  its  authors  all  took  it  for  granted  that  the  consti 
tution  would  be  submitted.  There  had  never  been  in  the  history  of  this 
government  any  attempt  made  to  force  a  constitution  upon  an  unwilling 
people,  and  nobody  dreamed  that  any  such  attempt  would  be  made,  or 
deemed  it  necessary  to  provide  for  such  a  contingency.  If  such  a  clause 
was  necessary  in  Mr.  Trumbull's  opinion,  why  did  he  not  offer  an  amend 
ment  to  that  effect  ? 

In  order  to  give  more  pertinency  to  that  question,  I  will  read  an  extract 
from  Trumbull's  speech  in  the  Senate,  on  the  Toombs  bill,  made  on  the  2d 
day  of  July,  1856.  He  said : 

"We  are  asked  to  amend  this  bill,  and  make  it  perfect,  and  a  liberal 
spirit  seems  to  be  manifested  on  the  part  of  some  senators  to  have  a  fair 
bill.  It  is  difficult,  I  admit,  to  frame  a  bill  that  will  give  satisfaction  to  all ; 
but  to  approach  it,  or  come  near  it,  I  think  two  things  must  be  done." 

The  first,  then,  he  goes  on  to  say,  was  the  application  of  the  Wilmot  pro 
viso  to  the  Territories,  and  the  second  the  repeal  of  all  the  laws  passed  by 
the  territorial  legislature.  He  did  not  then  say  that  it  was  necessary  to 
put  in  a  clause  requiring  the  submission  of  the  constitution.  Why,  if  he 
thought  such  a  provision  necessary,  did  he  not  introduce  it  ?  He  says  in  his 
speech  that  he  was  invited  to  offer  amendments.  Why  did  he  not  do  so  ? 
He  cannot  pretend  that  he  had  no  chance  to  do  this,  for  he  did  offer  some 
amendments,  but  none  requiring  submission. 

I  now  proceed  to  show  that  Mr.  Trumbull  knew  at  the  time  that  the  bill 
was  silent  as  to  the  subject  of  submission,  and  also  that  he,  and  everybody 
else,  took  it  for  granted  that  the  constitution  would  be  submitted.  Now  for 
the  evidence.  In  his  second  speech  he  says:  "  The  bill  in  many  of  its  fea 
tures  meets  my  approbation."  So  he  did  not  think  it  so  very  bad. 

Further  on  he  says : 

"  In  regard  to  the  measure  introduced  by  the  senator  from  Georgia  [Mr. 
Toombs] ,  and  recommended  by  the  committee,  I  regard  it,  in  many  respects, 
as  a  most  excellent  bill  j  but  we  must  look  at  it  in  the  light  of  surrounding 
circumstances.  In  the  condition  of  things  now  existing  in  the  country,  I 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          387 

do  not  consider  it  as  a  safe  measure,  nor  one  which  will  give  peace,  and  I 
will  give  my  reasons.  First,  it  affords  no  immediate  relief.  It  provides  for 
taking  a  census  of  the  voters  in  the  Territory,  for  an  election  in  November, 
and  the  assembling  of  a  convention  in  December,  to  form,  if  it  thinks  proper, 
a  constitution  for  Kansas,  preparatory  to  its  admission  into  the  Union  as  a 
State.  It  is  not  until  December  that  the  convention  is  to  meet.  It  would 
take  some  time  to  form  a  constitution.  I  suppose  that  constitution  would 
have  to  be  ratified  by  the  people  before  it  becomes  valid." 

He  there  expressly  declared  that  he  supposed,  under  the  bill,  the  constitu 
tion  would  have  to  be  submitted  to  the  people  before  it  became  valid.  He 
went  on  to  say : 

"  No  provision  is  made  in  this  bill  for  such  a  ratification.  This  is  objec 
tionable  to  my  mind.  I  do  not  think  the  people  should  be  bound  by  a 
constitution,  without  passing  upon  it  directly,  themselves." 

Why  did  he  not  offer  an  amendment  providing  for  such  a  submission,  if 
he  thought  it  necessary  ?  Notwithstanding  the  absence  of  such  a  clause,  he 
took  it  for  granted  that  the  constitution  would  have  to  be  ratified  by  the 
people,  under  the  bill. 

In  another  part  of  the  same  speech,  he  says  : 

"  There  is  nothing  said  in  this  bill,  so  far  as  I  have  discovered,  about  sub 
mitting  the  constitution  which  is  to  be  framed  to  the  people,  for  their 
sanction  or  rejection.  Perhaps  the  convention  would  have  the  right  to 
submit  it,  if  it  should  think  proper  j  but  it  is  certainly  not  compelled  to  do 
so,  according  to  the  provisions  of  the  bill.  If  it  is  to  be  submitted  to  the 
people,  it  will  take  time,  and  it  will  not  be  until  some  time  next  year  that 
this  new  constitution,  affirmed  and  ratified  by  the  people,  would  be  submit 
ted  here  to  Congress  for  its  acceptance,  and  what  is  to  be  the  condition  of 
that  people  in  the  mean  time  ?  " 

You  see  that  his  argument  then  was  that  the  Toombs  bill  would  not  get 
Kansas  into  the  Union  quick  enough,  and  was  objectionable  on  that  account. 
He  had  no  fears  about  this  submission,  or  why  did  he  not  introduce  an 
amendment  to  meet  the  case  ?  [A  voice :  "  Why  did  n't  you"?  You  were 
chairman  of  the  committee."]  I  will  answer  that  question  for  you. 

In  the  first  place,  no  such  provision  had  ever  before  been  put  in  any  simi 
lar  act  passed  by  Congress.  I  did  not  suppose  that  there  was  an  honest  man 
who  would  pretend  that  the  omission  of  such  a  clause  furnished  evidence  of 
a  conspiracy  or  attempt  to  impose  on  the  people.  It  could  not  be  expected 
that  such  of  us  as  did  not  think  that  omission  was  evidence  of  such  a  scheme 
would  offer  such  an  amendment  j  but  if  Trumbull  then  believed  what  he 
now  says,  why  did  he  not  offer  the  amendment,  and  try  to  prevent  it,  when 
he  was,  as  he  says,  invited  to  do  so  ? 

In  this  connection  I  will  tell  you  what  the  main  point  of  discussion  was. 
There  was  a  bill  pending  to  admit  Kansas  wrhenever  she  should  have  a  popu 
lation  of  93,420,  that  being  the  ratio  required  for  a  member  of  Congress. 
Under  that  bill  Kansas  could  not  have  become  a  State  for  some  years,  be 
cause  she  could  not  have  had  the  requisite  population.  Mr.  Toombs  took 
it  into  his  head  to  bring  in  a  bill  to  admit  Kansas  then,  with  only  twenty-five 
or  thirty  thousand  people,  and  the  question  was  whether  we  would  allow 
Kansas  to  come  in  under  this  bill,  or  keep  her  out  under  mine  until  she  had 
93,420  people.  The  committee  considered  that  question,  and  overruled  me 
by  deciding  in  favor  of  the  immediate  admission  of  Kansas,  and  I  reported 
accordingly.  I  hold  in  my  hand  a  copy  of  the  report  which  I  made  at  that 
time.  I  will  read  from  it : 

"  The  point  upon  which  your  committee  have  entertained  the  most  serious 
and  grave  doubts  in  regard  to  the  propriety  of  indorsing  the  proposition 


388          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

relates  to  the  fact  that,  in  the  absence  of  any  census  of  the  inhabitants,  there 
is  reason  to  apprehend  that  the  Territory  does  not  contain  sufficient  popu 
lation  to  entitle  them  to  demand  admission  under  the  treaty  with  France,  if 
we  take  the  ratio  of  representation  for  a  member  of  Congress  as  the  rule." 

Thus  you  see  that  in  the  written  report  accompanying  the  bill,  I  said  that 
the  great  difficulty  with  the  committee  was  the  question  of  population.  In 
the  same  report  I  happened  to  refer  to  the  question  of  submission.  Now, 
listen  to  what  I  said  about  that: 

"In  the  opinion  of  your  committee,  whenever  a  constitution  shall  be 
formed  in  any  Territory,  preparatory  to  its  admission  into  the  Union  as  a 
State,  justice,  the  genius  of  our  institutions,  the  whole  theory  of  our  repub 
lican  system,  imperatively  demand  that  the  voice  of  the  people  shall  be 
fairly  expressed,  and  their  will  embodied  in  that  fundamental  law  without 
fraud  or  violence,  or  intimidation,  or  any  other  improper  or  unlawful  influ 
ence,  and  subject  to  no  other  restrictions  than  those  imposed  by  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States." 

I  read  this  from  the  report  I  made  at  the  time  on  the  Toombs  bill.  I  will 
read  yet  another  passage  from  the  same  report.  After  setting  out  the 
features  of  the  Toombs  bill,  I  contrast  it  with  the  proposition  of  Senator 
Seward,  saying: 

"  The  revised  proposition  of  the  senator  from  Georgia  refers  all  matters 
in  dispute  to  the  decision  of  the  present  population,  with  guarantees  of  fair 
ness  and  safeguards  against  frauds  and  violence,  to  which  no  reasonable 
man  can  find  just  grounds  of  exception,  while  the  senator  from  New  York, 
if  his  proposition  is  designed  to  recognize  and  impart  vitality  to  the  Topeka 
constitution,  proposes  to  disfranchise  not  only  all  the  emigrants  who  have 
arrived  in  the  Territory  this  year,  but  all  the  law-abiding  men  who  refused 
to  join  in  the  act  of  open  rebellion  against  the  constituted  authorities  of  the 
Territory  last  year  by  making  the  unauthorized  and  unlawful  action  of  a 
political  party  the  fundamental  law  of  the  whole  people." 

Then,  again,  I  repeat  that  under  that  bill  the  question  is  to  be  referred  to 
the  present  population  to  decide  for  or  against  coming  into  the  Union  under 
the  constitution  they  may  adopt. 

Mr.  Trumbull,  when  at  Chicago,  rested  his  charge  upon  the  allegation 
that  the  clause  requiring  submission  was  originally  in  the  bill,  and  was 
stricken  out  by  me.  When  that  falsehood  was  exposed  by  a  publication  of 
the  record,  he  went  to  Alton  and  made  another  speech,  repeating  the  charge, 
and  referring  to  other  and  different  evidence  to  sustain  it.  He  saw  that  he 
was  caught  in  his  first  falsehood,  so  he  changed  the  issue,  and  instead  of 
resting  upon  the  allegation  of  striking  out,  he  made  it  rest  upon  the  declara 
tion  that  I  had  introduced  a  clause  into  the  bill  prohibiting  the  people  from 
voting  upon  the  constitution.  I  am  told  that  he  made  the  same  charge 
here  that  he  made  at  Alton,  that  I  had  actually  introduced  and  incorpo 
rated  into  the  bill  a  clause  which  prohibited  the  people  from  voting  upon 
their  constitution.  I  hold  his  Alton  speech  in  my  hand,  and  will  read  the 
amendment  which  he  alleges  that  I  offered.  It  is  in  these  words : 

"  And  until  the  complete  execution  of  this  act  no  other  election  shall  be 
held  in  said  Territory." 

Trumbull  says  the  object  of  that  amendment  was  to  prevent  the  conven 
tion  from  submitting  the  constitution  to  a  vote  of  the  people.  I  will  read 
what  he  said  at  Alton  on  that  subject : 

"  This  clause  put  it  out  of  the  power  of  the  convention,  had  it  been  so 
disposed,  to  submit  the  constitution  to  the  people  for  adoption  j  for  it  ab 
solutely  prohibited  the  holding  of  any  other  election,  than  that  for  the 


ADDRESSES  AND  LETTEKS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN    389 

election  of  delegates,  till  that  act  was  completely  executed,  which  would 
not  have  been  till  Kansas  was  admitted  as  a  State,  or,  at  all  events,  till  her 
constitution  was  fully  prepared  and  ready  for  submission  to  Congress  for 
admission." 

Now,  do  you  suppose  that  Mr.  Trumbull  supposed  that  that  clause  pro 
hibited  the  convention  from  submitting  the  constitution  to  the  people, 
when,  in  his  speech  in  the  Senate,  he  declared  that  the  convention  had  a 
right  to  submit  it J?  In  his  Alton  speech,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  extract 
which  I  have  read,  he  declared  that  the  clause  put  it  out  of  the  power  of  the 
convention  to  submit  the  constitution,  and  in  his  speech  in  the  Senate  he 
said: 

"  There  is  nothing  said  in  this  bill,  so  far  as  I  have  discovered,  about 
submitting  the  constitution  which  is  to  be  formed  to  the  people,  for  their 
sanction  or  rejection.  Perhaps  the  convention  could  have  the  right  to  sub 
mit  it,  if  it  should  think  proper,  but  it  is  certainly  not  compelled  to  do  so 
according  to  the  provisions  of  the  bill." 

Thus  you  see  that,  in  Congress,  he  declared  the  bill  to  be  silent  on  the 
subject,  and  a  few  days  since,  at  Alton,  he  made  a  speech,  and  said  that 
there  was  a  provision  in  the  bill  prohibiting  submission. 

I  have  two  answers  to  make  to  that.  In  the  first  place,  the  amendment 
which  he  quotes  as  depriving  the  people  of  an  opportunity  to  vote  upon  the 
constitution  was  stricken  out  on  my  motion  —  absolutely  stricken  out  and  not 
voted  on  at  all !  In  the  second  place,  in  lieu  of  it,  a  provision  was  voted  in 
authorizing  the  convention  to  order  an  election  whenever  it  pleased..  I  will 
read.  After  Trumbull  had  made  his  speech  in  the  Senate,  declaring  that 
the  constitution  would  probably  be  submitted  to  the  people,  although  the 
bill  was  silent  upon  that  subject,  I  made  a  few  remarks,  and  offered  two 
amendments,  which  you  may  find  in  the  appendix  to  the  "  Congressional 
Globe,"  volume  XXXIII,  first  session  of  the  thirty -fourth  Congress,  page  795. 

I  quote : 

"Mr.  Douglas:  I  have  an  amendment  to  offer  from  the  Committee  on 
Territories.  On  page  8,  section  11,  strike  out  the  words  l  until  the  complete 
execution  of  this  act  no  other  election  shall  be  held  in  said  Territory/  and 
insert  the  amendment  which  I  hold  in  my  hand." 

The  amendment  was  as  follows : 

"That  all  persons  who  shall  possess  the  other  qualifications  prescribed 
for  voters  under  this  act,  and  who  shall  have  been  bona  fide  inhabitants  of 
said  Territory  since  its  organization,  and  who  shall  have  absented  themselves 
therefrom  in  consequence  of  the  disturbances  therein,  and  who  shall  return 
before  the  first  day  of  October  next,  and  become  bona  fide  inhabitants  of  the 
Territory,  with  the  intent  of  making  it  their  permanent  home,  and  shall 
present  satisfactory  evidence  of  these  facts  to  the  Board  of  Commissioners, 
shall  be  entitled  to  vote  at  said  election,  and  shall  have  their  names  placed 
on  said  corrected  list  of  voters  for  that  purpose." 

That  amendment  was  adopted  unanimously.  After  its  adoption,  the 
record  shows  the  following : 

"  Mr.  Douglas  :  I  have  another  amendment  to  offer  from  the  committee, 
to  follow  the  amendment  which  has  been  adopted.  The  bill  reads  now: 
'  And  until  the  complete  execution  of  this  act,  no  other  election  shall  be  held 
in  said  Territory.'  It  has  been  suggested  that  it  should  be  modified  in  this 
way :  ;  And  to  avoid  all  conflict  in  the  complete  execution  of  this  act,  all  other 
elections  in  said  Territory  are  hereby  postponed  until  such  time  as  said  con 
vention  shall  appoint ' ;  so  that  they  can  appoint  the  day  in  the  event  that 
there  should  be  a  failure  to  come  into  the  Union." 


390          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

This  amendment  was  also  agreed  to  without  dissent. 

Thus  you  see  that  the  amendment  quoted  by  Trumbull  at  Alton  as  evi 
dence  against  me,  instead  of  being  put  into  the  bill  by  me,  was  stricken  out 
on  my  motion,  and  never  became  a  part  thereof  at  all.  You  also  see  that 
the  substituted  clause  expressly  authorized  the  convention  to  appoint  such 
day  of  election  as  it  should  deem  proper. 

Mr.  Trumbull,  when  he  made  that  speech,  knew  these  facts.  He  forged 
his  evidence  from  beginning  to  end,  and  by  falsifying  the  record  he  en 
deavors  to  bolster  up  his  false  charge.  I  ask  you  what  you  think  of  Trum 
bull  thus  going  around  the  country,  falsifying  and  garbling  the  public 
records  ?  I  ask  you  whether  you  will  sustain  a  man  who  will  descend  to  the 
infamy  of  such  conduct? 

Mr.  Douglas  proceeded  to  remark  that  he  should  not  hereafter  occupy  his 
time  in  refuting  such  charges  made  by  Trumbull,  but  that  Lincoln  having 
indorsed  the  character  of  Trumbull  for  veracity,  he  should  hold  him  [Lin 
coln]  responsible  for  the  slanders. 


Senator  Douglas's  Reply  in  the  Charleston  Joint  Debate. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen :  I  had  supposed  that  we  assembled  here 
to-day  for  the  purpose  of  a  joint  discussion  between  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  myself,  upon  the  political  questions  which  now  agitate  the 
whole  country.  The  rule  of  such  discussions  is,  that  the  opening 
speaker  shall  touch  upon  all  the  points  he  intends  to  discuss, 
in  order  that  his  opponent,  in  reply,  shall  have  the  opportunity  of 
answering  them.  Let  me  ask  you  what  questions  of  public  policy, 
relating  to  the  welfare  of  this  State  or  the  Union,  has  Mr.  Lincoln 
discussed  before  you  ?  Mr.  Lincoln  simply  contented  himself  at  the 
outset  by  saying,  that  he  was  not  in  favor  of  social  and  political 
equality  between  the  white  man  and  the  negro,  and  did  not  desire 
the  law  so  changed  as  to  make  the  latter  voters  or  eligible  to  office. 
I  am  glad  that  I  have  at  last  succeeded  in  getting  an  answer  out  of 
him  upon  this  subject  of  negro-citizenship  and  eligibility  to  office, 
for  I  have  been  trying  to  bring  him  to  the  point  on  it  ever  since  this 
canvass  commenced. 

I  will  now  call  your  attention  to  the  question  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
has  occupied  his  entire  time  in  discussing.  He  spent  his  whole  hour 
in  retailing  a  charge  made  by  Senator  Trumbull  against  me.  The 
circumstances  out  of  which  that  charge  was  manufactured,  occurred 
prior  to  the  last  presidential  election,  over  two  years  ago.  If  the 
charge  was  true,  why  did  not  Trumbull  make  it  in  1856,  when  I  was 
discussing  the  questions  of  that  day  all  over  this  State  with  Lincoln 
and  him,  and  when  it  was  pertinent  to  the  then  issue  ?  He  was  then 
as  silent  as  the  grave  on  the  subject.  If  the  charge  was  true,  the 
time  to  have  brought  it  forward  was  the  canvass  of  1856,  the  year 
wh  en  the  Toombs  bill  passed  the  Senate.  When  the  facts  were  fresh  in 
the  public  mind,  when  the  Kansas  question  was  the  paramount  ques 
tion  of  the  day,  and  when  such  a  charge  would  have  had  a  material 
bearing-  on  the  election,  why  did  he  and  Lincoln  remain  silent  then, 
knowing  that  such  a  charge  could  be  made  and  proved  if  true? 
Were  they  not  false  to  you  and  false  to  the  country  in  going  through 
that  entire  campaign,  concealing  their  knowledge  of  this  enormous 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          391 

conspiracy  which,  Mr.  Trumbull  says,  he  then  knew  and  would  not 
tell  ?  Mr.  Lincoln  intimates,  in  his  speech,  a  good  reason  why  Mr. 
Trumbull  would  not  tell ;  for  he  says  that  it  might  be  true,  as  I 
proved  that  it  was  at  Jacksonville,  that  Trumbull  was  also  in  the 
plot,  yet  that  the  fact  of  TrumbulFs  being  in  the  plot  would  not  in 
any  way  relieve  me.  He  illustrates  this  argument  by  supposing 
himself  on  trial  for  murder,  and  says  that  it  would  be  no  extenuating 
circumstance  if,  on  his  trial,  another  man  was  found  to  be  a  party 
to  his  crime.  Well,  if  Trumbull  was  in  the  plot,  and  concealed  it 
in  order  to  escape  the  odium  which  would  have  fallen  upon  himself, 
I  ask  you  whether  you  can  believe  him  now  when  he  turns  State's 
evidence,  and  avows  his  own  infamy  in  order  to  implicate  me. 
I  am  amazed  that  Mr.  Lincoln  should  now  come  forward  and  indorse 
that  charge,  occupying  his  whole  hour  in  reading  Mr.  Trumbull's 
speech  in  support  of  it.  Why,  I  ask,  does  not  Mr.  Lincoln  make 
a  speech  of  his  own  instead  of  taking  up  his  time  reading  Trumbull's 
speech  at  Alton  ?  I  supposed  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  capable  of  making 
a  public  speech  on  his  own  account,  or  I  should  not  have  accepted  the 
banter  from  him  for  a  joint  discussion.  ["  How  about  the  charges! "] 
Do  not  trouble  yourselves ;  I  am  going  to  make  my  speech  in  my 
own  way,  and  I  trust,  as  the  Democrats  listened  patiently  and  respect 
fully  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  his  friends  will  not  interrupt  me  when  I 
am  answering  him.  When  Mr.  Trumbull  returned  from  the  East, 
the  first  thing  he  did  when  he  landed  at  Chicago  was  to  make  a 
speech  wholly  devoted  to  assaults  upon  my  public  character  and 
public  action.  Up  to  that  time  I  had  never  alluded  to  his  course  in 
Congress,  or  to  him  directly  or  indirectly ;  and  hence  his  assaults 
upon  me  were  entirely  without  provocation  and  without  excuse. 
Since  then  he  has  been  traveling  from  one  end  of  the  State  to  the 
other  repeating  his  vile  charge.  I  propose  now  to  read  it  in  his  own 
language : 

Now,  fellow-citizens,  I  make  the  distinct  charge  that  there  was  a  precon 
certed  arrangement  and  plot  entered  into  by  the  very  men  who  now  claim 
credit  for  opposing  a  constitution  formed  and  put  in  force  without  giving 
the  people  any  opportunity  to  pass  upon  it.  This,  my  friends,  is  a  serious 
charge,  but  I  charge  it  to-night  that  the  very  men  who  traverse  the  country 
under  banners  proclaiming  popular  sovereignty,  by  design  concocted  a  bill 
on  purpose  to  force  a  constitution  upon  that  people. 

In  answer  to  some  one  in  the  crowd,  who  asked  him  a  question, 
Trumbull  said : 

And  you  want  to  satisfy  yourself  that  he  was  in  the  plot  to  force  a  con 
stitution  upon  that  people  1?  I  will  satisfy  you.  I  will  cram  the  truth  down 
any  honest  man's  throat  until  he  cannot  deny  it.  And  to  the  man  who  does 
deny  it,  I  will  cram  the  lie  down  his  throat  till  he  shall  cry  enough. 

It  is  preposterous  —  it  is  the  most  damnable  effrontery  that  man  ever  put 
on  —  to  conceal  a  scheme  to  defraud  and  cheat  the  people  out  of  their  rights, 
and  then  claim  credit  for  it. 

That  is  the  polite  language  Senator  Trumbull  applied  to  me,  his 
colleague,  when  I  was  two  hundred  miles  off.  Why  did  he  not  speak 
out  as  boldly  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  cram  the  lie 


392          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

down  my  throat  when  I  denied  the  charge,  first  made  by  Bigler,  and 
made  him  take  it  back  ?  You  all  recollect  how  Bigler  assaulted  me 
when  I  was  engaged  in  a  hand-to-hand  fight,  resisting  a  scheme  to 
force  a  constitution  on  the  people  of  Kansas  against  their  will.  He 
then  attacked  me  with  this  charge ;  but  I  proved  its  utter  falsity, 
nailed  the  slander  to  the  counter,  and  made  him  take  the  back  track. 
There  is  not  an  honest  man  in  America  who  read  that  debate  who 
will  pretend  that  the  charge  is  true.  Trumbull  was  then  present  in 
the  Senate,  face  to  face  with  me,  and  why  did  he  not  then  rise  and 
repeat  the  charge,  and  say  he  would  cram  the  lie  down  my  throat?  I 
tell  you  that  Trumbull  then  knew  it  was  a  lie.  He  knew  that  Toombs 
denied  that  there  ever  was  a  clause  in  the  bill  he  brought  forward, 
calling  for  and  requiring  a  submission  of  the  Kansas  constitution 
to  the  people.  I  will  tell  you  what  the  facts  of  the  case  were.  I  in 
troduced  a  bill  to  authorize  the  people  of  Kansas  to  form  a  constitu 
tion  and  come  into  the  Union  as  a  State  whenever  they  should  have 
the  requisite  population  for  a  member  of  Congress,  and  Mr.  Toombs 
proposed  a  substitute,  authorizing  the  people  of  Kansas,  with  their 
then  population  of  only  25,000,  to  form  a  constitution,  and  come  in 
at  once.  The  question  at  issue  was,  whether  we  would  admit  Kansas 
with  a  population  of  25,000,  or  make  her  wait  until  she  had  the  ratio 
entitling  her  to  a  representative  in  Congress,  which  was  93,420.  That 
was  the  point  of  dispute  in  the  Committee  on  Territories,  to  which 
both  my  bill  and  Mr.  Toombs's  substitute  had  been  referred.  I  was 
overruled  by  a  majority  of  the  committee,  my  proposition  rejected, 
and  Mr.  Toombs's  proposition  to  admit  Kansas  then,  with  her  popu 
lation  of  25,000,  adopted.  Accordingly  a  bill  to  carry  out  his  idea  of 
immediate  admission  was  reported  as  a  substitute  for  mine — the 
only  points  at  issue  being,  as  I  have  already  said,  the  question  of 
population,  and  the  adoption  of  safeguards  against  frauds  at  the 
election.  Trumbull  knew  this, — the  whole  Senate  knew  it, —  and 
hence  he  was  silent  at  that  time.  He  waited  until  I  became  engaged 
in  this  canvass,  and  finding  that  I  was  showing  up  Lincoln's  Aboli 
tionism  and  negro-equality  doctrines,  that  I  was  driving  Lincoln  to 
the  wall,  and  white  men  would  not  support  his  rank  Abolitionism,  he 
came  back  from  the  East  and  trumped  up  a  system  of  charges  against 
me,  hoping  that  I  would  be  compelled  to  occupy  my  entire  time  in 
defending  myself,  so  that  I  would  not  be  able  to  show  up  the  enor 
mity  of  the  principles  of  the  Abolitionists.  Now  the  only  reason, 
and  the  true  reason,  why  Mr.  Lincoln  has  occupied  the  whole  of  his 
first  hour  in  this  issue  between  Trumbull  and  myself,  is  to  conceal 
from  this  vast  audience  the  real  questions  which  divide  the  two 
great  parties. 

I  am  not  going  to  allow  them  to  waste  much  of  my  time  with 
these  personal  matters.  I  have  lived  in  this  State  twenty-five  years, 
most  of  that  time  have  been  in  public  life,  and  my  record  is  open  to 
you  all.  If  that  record  is  not  enough  to  vindicate  me  from  these 
petty,  malicious  assaults,  I  despise  ever  to  be  elected  to  office  by  slan 
dering  my  opponents  and  traducing  other  men.  Mr.  Lincoln  asks 
you  to  elect  him  to  the  United  States  Senate  to-day  solely  because  he 
and  Trumbull  can  slander  me.  Has  he  given  any  other  reason? 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          393 

Has  he  avowed  what  he  wa,s  desirous  to  do  in  Congress  on  any  one 
question  ?  He  desires  to  ride  into  office,  not  upon  his  own  merits, 
not  upon  the  merits  and  soundness  of  his  principles,  but  upon  his 
success  in  fastening  a  stale  old  slander  upon  me. 

I  wish  you  to  bear  in  mind  that  up  to  the  time  of  the  introduction 
of  the  Toombs  bill,  and  after  its  introduction,  there  had  never  been 
an  act  of  Congress  for  the  admission  of  a  new  State  which  contained 
a  clause  requiring  its  constitution  to  be  submitted  to  the  people. 
The  general  rule  made  the  law  silent  on  the  subject,  taking  it  for 
granted  that  the  people  would  demand  and  compel  a  popular  vote 
on  the  ratification  of  their  constitution.  Such  was  the  general  rule 
under  Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Jackson,  and  Polk,  under  the 
Whig  presidents  and  the  Democratic  presidents  from  the  begin 
ning  of  the  government  down,  and  nobody  dreamed  that  an  effort 
would  ever  be  made  to  abuse  the  power  thus  confided  to  the  people 
of  a  Territory.  For  this  reason  our  attention  was  not  called  to  the 
fact  of  whether  there  was  or  was  not  a  clause  in  the  Toombs  bill 
compelling  submission,  but  it  was  taken  for  granted  that  the  consti 
tution  would  be  submitted  to  the  people  whether  the  law  compelled 
it  or  not. 

Now  I  will  read  from  the  report  by  me  as  chairman  of  the  Com 
mittee  on  Territories  at  the  time  I  reported  back  the  Toombs  sub 
stitute  to  the  Senate.  It  contained  several  things  which  I  had  voted 
against  in  committee,  but  had  been  overruled  by  a  majority  of  the 
members,  and  it  was  my  duty  as  chairman  of  the  committee  to  re 
port  the  bill  back  as  it  was  agreed  upon  by  them.  The  main  point 
upon  which  I  had  been  overruled  was  the  question  of  population. 
In  my  report  accompanying  the  Toombs  bill,  I  said : 

In  the  opinion  of  your  committee,  whenever  a  constitution  shall  be  formed 
in  any  Territory,  preparatory  to  its  admission  into  the  Union  as  a  State, 
justice,  the  genius  of  our  institutions,  the  whole  theory  of  our  republican 
system,  imperatively  demand  that  the  voice  of  the  people  shall  be  fairly 
expressed,  and  their  will  embodied  in  that  fundamental  law,  without  fraud, 
or  violence,  or  intimidation,  or  any  other  improper  or  unlawful  influence, 
and  subject  to  no  other  restrictions  than  those  imposed  by  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States. 

There  you  find  that  we  took  it  for  granted  that  the  constitution 
was  to  be  submitted  to  the  people,  whether  the  bill  was  silent  on  the 
subject  or  not.  Suppose  I  had  reported  it  so,  following  the  example 
of  Washington,  Adams,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe,  Adams,  Jack 
son,  Van  Buren,  Harrison,  Tyler,  Polk,  Taylor,  Fillmore,  and  Pierce, 
would  that  fact  have  been  evidence  of  conspiracy  to  force  a  constitu 
tion  upon  the  people  of  Kansas  against  their  will?  If  the  charge 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  makes  be  true  against  me,  it  is  true  against 
Zachary  Taylor,  Millard  Fillmore,  and  every  Whig  president,  as  well 
as  every  Democratic  president,  and  against  Henry  Clay,  who,  in  the 
Senate  or  House,  for  forty  years  advocated  bills*similar  to  the  one 
I  reported,  no  one  of  them  containing  a  clause  compelling  the  sub 
mission  of  the  constitution  to  the  people.  Are  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr. 
Trumbull  prepared  to  charge  upon  all  those  eminent  men  from  the 


394          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

beginning  of  the  government  down  to  the  present  day,  that  the  ab 
sence  of  a  provision  compelling  submission,  in  the  various  bills 
passed  by  them,  authorizing  the  people  of  Territories  to  form  State 
constitutions,  is  evidence  of  a  corrupt  design  on  their  part  to  force  a 
constitution  upon  an  unwilling  people ! 

I  ask  you  to  reflect  on  these  things,  for  I  tell  you  that  there  is 
a  conspiracy  to  carry  this  election  for  the  Black"  Republicans  by 
slander,  and  not  by  fair  means.  Mr.  Lincoln's  speech  this  day  is 
conclusive  evidence  of  the  fact.  He  has  devoted  his  entire  time  to 
an  issue  between  Mr.  Trumbull  and  myself,  and  has  not  uttered  a 
word  about  the  politics  of  the  day.  Are  you  going  to  elect  Mr. 
TrumbulPs  colleague  upon  an  issue  between  Mr.  Trumbull  and  me? 
I  thought  I  was  running  against  Abraham  Lincoln,  that  he  claimed 
to  be  my  opponent,  had  challenged  me  to  a  discussion  of  the  public 
questions  of  the  day  with  him,  and  was  discussing  these  questions 
with  me;  but  it  turns  out  that  his  only  hope  is  to  ride  into  office  on 
Trumbull's  back,  who  will  carry  him  by  falsehood. 

Permit  me  to  pursue  this  subject  a  little  further.  An  examination 
of  the  record  proves  that  Trumbull's  charge  —  that  the  Toombs  bill 
originally  contained  a  clause  requiring  the  constitution  to  be  sub 
mitted  to  the  people  —  is  false.  The  printed  copy  of  the  bill  which 
Mr.  Lincoln  held  up  before  you,  and  which  he  pretends  contains  such 
a  clause,  merely  contains  a  clause  requiring  a  submission  of  the  land 
grant,  and  there  is  no  clause  in  it  requiring  a  submission  of  the 
constitution.  Mr.  Lincoln  cannot  find  such  a  clause  in  it.  My  report 
shows  that  we  took  it  for  granted  that  the  people  would  require  a 
submission  of  the  constitution,  and  secure  it  for  themselves.  There 
never  was  a  clause  in  the  Toombs  bill  requiring  the  constitution  to 
be  submitted ;  Trumbull  knew  it  at  the  time,  and  his  speech  made 
on  the  night  of  its  passage  discloses  the  fact  that  he  knew  it  was 
silent  on  the  subject ;  Lincoln  pretends,  and  tells  you  that  Trumbull 
has  not  changed  his  evidence  in  support  of  his  charge  since  he  made 
his  speech  in  Chicago.  Let  us  see.  The  Chicago  "  Times  "  took  up 
Trumbull's  Chicago  speech,  compared  it  with  the  official  records  of 
Congress,  and  proved  that  speech  to  be  false  in  its  charge  that  the 
original  Toombs  bill  required  a  submission  of  the  constitution  to  the 
people.  Trumbull  then  saw  that  he  was  caught,  and  his  falsehood 
exposed,  and  he  went  to  Alton,  and,  under  the  very  walls  of  the 
penitentiary,  made  a  new  speech,  in  which  he  predicated  his  assault 
upon  me  in  the  allegation  that  I  had  caused  to  be  voted  into  the 
Toombs  bill  a  clause  which  prohibited  the  convention  from  submit 
ting  the  constitution  to  the  people,  and  quoted  what  he  pretended 
was  the  clause.  Now,  has  not  Mr.  Trumbull  entirely  changed  the 
evidence  on  which  he  bases  his  charge  ?  The  clause  which  he  quoted 
in  his  Alton  speech  (which  he  has  published  and  circulated  broadcast 
over  the  State)  as  having  been  put  into  the  Toombs  bill  by  me,  is  in 
the  following  words :  "  And  until  the  complete  execution  of  this  act, 
no  other  election  shall  be  held  in  said  Territory." 

Trumbull  says  that  the  object  of  that  amendment  was  to  prevent 
the  convention  from  submitting  the  constitution  to  a  vote  of  the 
people. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          395 

Now  I  will  show  you  that  when  Trumbull  made  that  statement  at 
Alton  he  knew  it  to  be  untrue.  I  read  from  TrumbulFs  speech  in 
the  Senate  on  the  Toombs  bill  on  the  night  of  its  passage.  He 
then  said : 

There  is  nothing  said  in  this  bill,  so  far  as  I  have  discovered,  about  sub 
mitting  the  constitution,  which  is  to  be  formed,  to  the  people  for  their 
sanction  or  rejection.  Perhaps  the  convention  will  have  the  right  to  submit 
it,  if  it  should  think  proper ;  but  it  is  certainly  not  compelled  to  do  so  accord 
ing  to  the  provisions  of  the  bill. 

Thus  you  see  that  Trumbull,  when  the  bill  was  on  its  passage  in 
the  Senate,  said  that  it  was  silent  on  the  subject  of  submission,  and 
that  there  was  nothing  in  the  bill  one  way  or  the  other  on  it.  In  his 
Alton  speech  he  says  there  was  a  clause  in  the  bill  preventing  its 
submission  to  the  people,  and  that  I  had  it  voted  in  as  an  amend 
ment.  Thus  I  convict  him  of  falsehood  and  slander  by  quoting  from 
him  on  the  passage  of  the  Toombs  bill  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  his  own  speech,  made  on  the  night  of  July  2,  1856,  and 
reported  in  the  "  Congressional  Globe  "  for  the  first  session  of  the 
Thirty-fourth  Congress,  Vol.  XXXIII.  What  will  you  think  of  a  man 
who  makes  a  false  charge  and  falsifies  the  records  to  prove  it  ?  I  will 
now  show  you  that  the  clause  which  Trumbull  says  was  put  in  the 
bill  on  my  motion,  was  never  put  in  at  all  by  me,  but  was  stricken 
out  on  my  motion  and  another  substituted  in  its  place.  I  call  your 
attention  to  the  same  volume  of  the  "  Congressional  Globe  "  to  which 
I  have  already  referred,  page  795,  where  you  will  find  the  following 
report  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Senate : 

Mr.  Douglas :  I  have  an  amendment  to  offer  from  the  Committee  on  Ter 
ritories.  On  page  8,  section  11,  strike  out  the  words  "until  the  complete  exe 
cution  of  this  act,  no  other  election  shall  be  held  in  said  Territory,"  and 
insert  the  amendment  which  I  hold  in  my  hand. 

You  see  from  this  that  I  moved  to  strike  out  the  very  words  that 
Trumbull  says  I  put  in.  The  Committee  on  Territories  overruled  me 
in  committee,  and  put  the  clause  in ;  but  as  soon  as  I  got  the  bill  back 
into  the  Senate,  I  moved  to  strike  it  out,  and  put  another  clause  in 
its  place.  On  the  same  page  you  will  find  that  my  amendment  was 
agreed  to  unanimously.  I  then  offered  another  amendment,  recog 
nizing  the  right  of  the  people  of  Kansas,  under  the  Toombs  bill,  to 
order  just  such  elections  as  they  saw  proper.  You  can  find  it  on  page 
796  of  the  same  volume.  I  will  read  it : 

Mr.  Douglas:  I  have  another  amendment  to  offer  from  the  committee, 
to  follow  the  amendment  which  has  been  adopted.  The  bill  reads  now : 
"  And  until  the  complete  execution  of  this  act,  no  other  election  shall  be 
held  in  said  Territory."  It  has  been  suggested  that  it  should  be  modified  in 
this  way:  " And  to  avoid  conflict  hi  the  complete  execution  of  this  act,  all 
other  elections  in  said  Territory  are  hereby  postponed  until  such  time  as 
said  convention  shall  appoint";  so  that  they  can  appoint  the  day  in  the 
event  that  there  should  be  a  failure  to  come  into  the  Union. 

The  amendment  was  unanimously  agreed  to — clearly  and  dis 
tinctly  recognizing  the  right  of  the  convention  to  order  just  as  many 


396          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

elections' as  they  saw  proper  in  the  execution  of  the  act.  Trumbull 
concealed  in  his  Altnn  speech  the  fact  that  the  clause  he  quoted  had 
been  stricken  out  on  my  motion,  and  the  other  fact  that  this  other 
clause  was  put  in  the  bill  on  my  motion,  and  made  the  false  charge 
that  I  incorporated  into  the  bill  a  clause  preventing  submission,  in 
the  face  of  the  fact  that,  on  my  motion,  the  bill  was  so  amended  be 
fore  it  passed  as  to  recognize  in  express  words  the  right  and  duty  of 
submission. 

On  this  record  that  I  have  produced  before  you,  I  repeat  my  charge 
that  Trumbull  did  falsify  the  public  records  of  the  country,  in  order 
to  make  his  charge  against  me,  and  I  tell  Mr.  Abraham  Lincoln  that 
if  he  will  examine  these  records,  he  will  then  know  what  I  state  is 
true.  Mr.  Lincoln  has  this  day  indorsed  Mr.  TrumbulPs  veracity 
after  he  had  my  word  for  it  that  that  veracity  was  proved  to  be 
violated  and  forfeited  by  the  public  records.  It  will  not  do  for  Mr. 
Lincoln,  in  parading  his  calumnies  against  rne,  to  put  Mr.  Trum 
bull  between  him  and  the  odium  and  responsibility  which  justly 
attach  to  such  calumnies.  I  tell  him  that  I  am  as  ready  to  prose 
cute  the  indorser  as  the  maker  of  a  forged  note.  I  regret  the  neces 
sity  of  occupying  my  time  with  these  petty  personal  matters.  It  is 
unbecoming  the  dignity  of  a  canvass  for  an  office  of  the  character 
for  which  we  are  candidates.  When  I  commenced  the  canvass  at 
Chicago,  I  spoke  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  terms  of  kindness,  as  an  old  friend ; 
I  said  that  he  was  a  good  citizen,  of  unblemished  character,  against 
whom  I  had  nothing  to  say.  I  repeated  these  complimentary  re 
marks  about  him  in  my  successive  speeches,  until  he  became  the 
indorser  for  these  and  other  slanders  against  me.  If  there  is  any 
thing  personally  disagreeable,  uncourteous,  or  disreputable  in  these 
personalities,  the  sole  responsibility  rests  on  Mr.  Lincoln,  Mr.  Trum 
bull,  and  their  backers. 

I  will  show  you  another  charge  made  by  Mr.  Lincoln  against  mer 
as  an  offset  to  his  determination  of  willingness  to  take  back  anything 
that  is  incorrect,  and  to  correct  any  false  statement  he  may  have 
made.  He  has  several  times  charged  that  the  Supreme  Court,, 
President  Pierce,  President  Buchanan,  and  myself,  at  the  time  I 
introduced  the  Nebraska  bill,  in  January,  1854,  at  Washington,, 
entered  into  a  conspiracy  to  establish  slavery  all  over  this  country.  I 
branded  this  charge  as  a  falsehood,  and  then  he  repeated  it,  asked  me 
to  analyze  its  truth,  and  answer  it.  I  told  him,  "Mr.  Lincoln,  I  know 
what  you  are  after ;  you  want  to  occupy  my  time  in  personal  matters, 
to  prevent  me  from  showing  up  the  revolutionary  principles  which 
the  Abolition  party  —  whose  candidate  you  are  —  have  proclaimed  to 
the  world."  But  he  asked  me  to  analyze  his  proof,  and  I  did  so.  I 
called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  at  the  time  the  Nebraska  bill  was 
introduced,  there  was  no  such  case  as  the  Dred  Scott  case  pending  in 
the  Supreme  Court,  nor  was  it  brought  there  for  years  afterward,  and 
hence  that  it  was  impossible  there  could  have  been  any  such  con 
spiracy  between  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  and  the  other 
parties  involved.  I  proved  by  the  record  that  the  charge  was  false, 
and  what  did  he  answer?  Did  he  take  it  back  like  an  honest  man 
and  say  he  had  been  mistaken?  No;  he  repeated  the  charge,  and 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          397 

said,  that  although  there  was  no  such  case  pending  that  year,  there 
was  an  understanding  between  the  Democratic  owners  of  Dred  Scott 
and  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  and  other  parties  involved,  that 
the  case  should  be  brought  up.  I  then  demanded  to  know  who  those 
Democratic  owners  of  Dred  Scott  were.  He  could  not  or  would  not 
tell;  he  did  not  know.  In  truth,  there  were  no  Democratic  owners 
of  Dred  Scott  on  the  face  of  the  land.  Dred  Scott  was  owned  at  that 
time  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Chaffee,  an  Abolition  member  of  Congress 
from  Springfield,  Massachusetts,  and  his  wife ;  and  Mr.  Lincoln  ought 
to  have  known  that  Dred  Scott  was  so  owned,  for  the  reason  that  as 
soon  as  the  decision  was  announced  by  the  court,  Dr.  Chaffee  and 
his  wife  executed  a  deed  emancipating  him,  and  put  that  deed  on 
record. 

It  was  a  matter  of  public  record,  therefore,  that  at  the  time  the 
case  was  taken  to  the  Supreme  Court,  Dred  Scott  was  owned  by  an 
Abolition  member  of  Congress,  a  friend  of  Lincoln's,  and  a  leading 
man  of  his  party,  while  the  defense  was  conducted  by  Abolition 
lawyers ;  and  thus  the  Abolitionists  managed  both  sides  of  the  case. 
I  have  exposed  these  facts  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  yet  he  will  not  with 
draw  his  charge  of  conspiracy.  I  now  submit  to  you  whether  you 
can  place  any  confidence  in  a  man  who  continues  to  make  a  charge 
when  its  utter  falsity  is  proven  by  the  public  records.  I  will  state 
another  fact  to  show  how  utterly  reckless  and  unscrupulous  this 
charge  against  the  Supreme  Court,  President  Pierce,  President 
Buchanan,  and  myself  is.  Lincoln  says  that  President  Buchanan 
was  in  the  conspiracy  at  Washington  in  the  winter  of  1854,  when  the 
Nebraska  bill  was  introduced.  The  history  of  this  country  shows  that 
James  Buchanan  was  at  that  time  representing  this  country  at  the 
Court  of  St.  James,  Great  Britain,  with  distinguished  ability  and 
usefulness,  that  he  had  not  been  in  the  United  States  for  nearly  a 
year  previous,  and  that  he  did  not  return  until  about  three  years 
after.  Yet  Mr.  Lincoln  keeps  repeating  this  charge  of  conspiracy 
against  Mr.  Buchanan  when  the  public  records  prove  it  to  be  untrue. 
Having  proved  it  to  be  false  as  far  as  the  Supreme  Court  and  Presi 
dent  Buchanan  are  concerned,  I  drop  it,  leaving  the  public  to  say 
whether  I,  by  myself,  without  their  concurrence,  could  have  gone  into 
a  conspiracy  with  them.  My  friends,  you  see  that  the  object  clearly 
is  to  conduct  the  canvass  on  personal  matters,  and  hunt  me  down 
with  charge?  that  are  proven  to  be  false  by  the  public  records  of  the 
country.  I  im  willing  to  throw  open  my  whole  public  and  private 
life  to  the  inspection  of  any  man,  or  all  men  who  desire  to  investigate 
it.  Having  resided  among  you  twenty-five  years,  during  nearly  the 
whole  of  which  time  a  public  man,  exposed  to  more  assaults,  perhaps 
more  abuse,  than  any  man  living  of  my  age,  or  who  ever  did  live,  and 
having  survived  it  all  and  still  commanded  your  confidence,  I  am 
willing  to  trust  to  your  knowledge  of  me  and  my  public  conduct 
without  making  any  more  defense  against  these  assaults. 

Fellow-citizens,  I  came  here  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  the 
leading  political  topics  which  now  agitate  the  country.  I  have  no 
charges  to  make  against  Mr.  Lincoln,  none  against  Mr.  Trumbull, 
and  none  against  any  man  who  is  a  candidate,  except  in  repelling 


398          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

their  assaults  upon  me.  If  Mr.  Lincoln  is  a  man  of  bad  character,  I 
leave  you  to  find  it  out ;  if  his  votes  in  the  past  are  not  satisfactory, 
I  leave  others  to  ascertain  the  fact ;  if  his  course  on  the  Mexican  war 
was  not  in  accordance  with  your  notions  of  patriotism  and  fidelity  to 
our  own  country  as  against  a  public  enemy,  I  leave  you  to  ascertain 
the  fact.  I  have  no  assaults  to  make  upon  him,  except  to  trace  his 
course  on  the  questions  that  now  divide  the  country  and  engross  so 
much  of  the  people's  attention. 

You  know  that  prior  to  1854  this  country  was  divided  into  two 
great  political  parties,  one  the  Whig,  the  other  the  Democratic.  I, 
as  a  Democrat  for  twenty  years  prior  to  that  time,  had  been  in 
public  discussions  in  this  State  as  an  advocate  of  Democratic  prin 
ciples,  and  I  can  appeal  with  confidence  to  every  old-line  Whig  within 
the  hearing  of  my  voice  to  bear  testimony  that  during  all  that  period 
I  fought  you  Whigs  like  a  man  on  every  question  that  separated  the 
two  parties.  I  had  the  highest  respect  for  Henry  Clay  as  a  gallant 
party-leader,  as  an  eminent  statesman,  and  as  one  of  the  bright  orna 
ments  of  this  country  j  but  I  conscientiously  believed  that  the  Demo 
cratic  party  was  right  on  the  questions  which  separated  the  Democrats 
from  the  Whigs.  The  man  does  not  live  who  can  say  that  I  ever 
personally  assailed  Henry  Clay  or  Daniel  Webster,  or  any  one  of  the 
leaders  of  that  great  party,  whilst  I  combated  with  all  my  energy  the 
measures  they  advocated.  What  did  we  differ  about  in  those  days? 
Did  Whigs  and  Democrats  differ  about  this  slavery  question?  On 
the  contrary,  did  we  not,  in  1850,  unite  to  a  man  in  favor  of  that 
system  of  compromise  measures  which  Mr.  Clay  introduced,  Web 
ster  defended,  Cass  supported,  and  Fillmore  approved  and  made  the 
law  of  the  land  by  his  signature.  While  we  agreed  on  these  com 
promise  measures,  we  differed  about  a  bank,  the  tariff,  distribution, 
the  specie  circular,  the  subtreasury,  and  other  questions  of  that 
description.  Now,  let  me  ask  you,  which  one  of  those  questions  on 
which  Whigs  and  Democrats  then  differed  now  remains  to  divide 
the  two  great  parties?  Every  one  of  those  questions  which  divided 
Whigs  and  Democrats  has  passed  away;  the  country  has  outgrown 
them  5  they  have  passed  into  history.  Hence  it  is  immaterial  whether 
you  were  right  or  I  was  right  on  the  bank,  the  subtreasury,  and 
other  questions,  because  they  no  longer  continue  living  issues. 
What,  then,  has  taken  the  place  of  those  questions  about  which  we 
once  differed?  The  slavery  question  has  now  become  the  leading 
and  controlling  issue;  that  question  on  which  you  and  I  agreed,  on 
which  the  Whigs  and  Democrats  united,  has  now  become  the  lead 
ing  issue  between  the  National  Democracy  on  the  one  side,  and  the 
Republican  or  Abolition  party  on  the  other. 

Just  recollect  for  a  moment  the  memorable  contest  of  1850,  when 
this  country  was  agitated  from  its  center  to  its  circumference  by  the 
slavery  agitation.  All  eyes  in  this  nation  were  then  turned  to  the 
three  great  lights  that  survived  the  days  of  the  Revolution.  They 
looked  to  Clay,  then  in  retirement  at  Ashland,  and  to  Webster  and 
Cass  in  the  United  States  Senate.  Clay  had  retired  to  Ashland, 
having,  as  he  supposed,  performed  his  mission  on  earth,  and  was  pre 
paring  himself  for  a  better  sphere  of  existence  in  another  world.  In 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          399 

that  retirement  he  heard  the  discordant,  harsh,  and  grating  sounds 
of  sectional  strife  and  disunion;  and  he  aroused  and  came  forth  and 
resumed  his  seat  in  the  Senate,  that  great  theater  of  his  great  deeds. 
From  the  moment  that  Clay  arrived  among  us  he  became  the  leader 
of  all  the  Union  men,  whether  Whigs  or  Democrats.  For  nine  months 
we  each  assembled,  each  day,  in  the  council-chamber,  Clay  in  the 
chair,  with  Cass  upon  his  right  hand  and  Webster  upon  his  left,  and 
the  Democrats  and  Whigs  gathered  around,  forgetting  differences, 
and  only  animated  by  one  common  patriotic  sentiment,  to  devise 
means  and  measures  by  which  we  could  defeat  the  mad  and  revolu 
tionary  scheme  of  the  Northern  Abolitionists  and  Southern  disunion- 
ists.  We  did  devise  those  means.  Clay  brought  them  forward,  Cass 
advocated  them,  the  Union  Democrats  and  Union  Whigs  voted  for 
them,  Fillmore  signed  them,  and  they  gave  peace  and  quiet  to  the 
country.  Those  compromise  measures  of  1850  were  founded  upon 
the  great  fundamental  principle  that  the  people  of  each  State  and 
each  Territory  ought  to  be  left  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  own 
domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Federal 
Constitution. 

I  will  ask  every  old-line  Democrat  and  every  old-line  Whig  within 
the  hearing  of  my  voice,  if  I  have  not  truly  stated  the  issues  as  they 
then  presented  themselves  to  the  country.  You  recollect  that  the 
Abolitionists  raised  a  howl  of  indignation,  and  cried  for  vengeance 
and  the  destruction  of  Democrats  and  Whigs  both  who  supported 
those  compromise  measures  of  1850.  When  I  returned  home  to 
Chicago,  I  found  the  citizens  inflamed  and  infuriated  against  the 
authors  of  those  great  measures.  Being  the  only  man  in  that  city 
who  was  held  responsible  for  affirmative  votes  on  all  those  measures, 
I  came  forward  and  addressed  the  assembled  inhabitants,  defended 
each  and  every  one  of  Clay's  compromise  measures  as  they  passed 
the  Senate  and  the  House  and  were  approved  by  President  Fillmore. 
Previous  to  that  time,  the  city  council  had  passed  resolutions  nullify 
ing  the  act  of  Congress,  and  instructing  the  police  to  withhold  all 
assistance  from  its  execution  j  but  the  people  of  Chicago  listened  to 
my  defense,  and  like  candid,  frank,  conscientious  men,  when  they 
became  convinced  that  they  had  done  an  injustice  to  Clay,  Webster, 
Cass,  and  all  of  us  who  had  supported  those  measures,  they  repealed 
their  nullifying  resolutions  and  declared  that  the  laws  should  be 
executed  and  the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution  maintained.  Let  it 
always  be  recorded  in  history,  to  the  immortal  honor  of  the  people 
of  Chicago,  that  they  returned  to  their  duty  when  they  found  that 
they  were  wrong,  and  did  justice  to  those  whom  they  had  blamed 
and  abused  unjustly.  When  the  legislature  of  this  State  assembled 
that  year,  they  proceeded  to  pass  resolutions  approving  the  com 
promise  measures  of  1850.  When  the  Whig  party  assembled  in 
1852  at  Baltimore  in  national  convention  for  the  last  time,  to  nom 
inate  Scott  for  the  presidency,  they  adopted  as  a  part  of  their  plat 
form  the  compromise  measures  of  1850  as  the  cardinal  plank  upon 
which  every  Whig  would  stand  and  by  which  he  would  regulate  his 
future  conduct.  When  the  Democratic  party  assembled  at  the  same 
place,  one  month  after,  to  nominate  General  Pierce,  we  adopted  the 


400          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

same  platform  so  far  as  those  compromise  measures  were  concerned, 
agreeing  that  we  would  stand  by  those  glorious  measures  as  a  car 
dinal  article  in  the  Democratic  faith.  Thus  you  see  that  in  1852  all 
the  Old  Whigs  and  all  the  old  Democrats  stood  on  a  common  plank 
so  far  as  this  slavery  question  was  concerned,  diifering  on  other 
questions. 

Now,  let  me  ask,  how  is  it  that  since  that  time  so  many  of  you 
Whigs  have  wandered  from  the  true  path  marked  out  by  Clay  and 
carried  out  broad  and  wide  by  the  great  Webster  ?  How  is  it  that 
so  many  old-line  Democrats  have  abandoned  the  old  faith  of  their 
party,  and  joined  with  Abolitionism  and  Free-soilism  to  overturn  the 
platform  of  the  old  Democrats,  and  the  platform  of  the  Old  Whigs? 
You  cannot  deny  that  since  1854  there  has  been  a  great  revolution 
on  this  one  question.  How  has  it  been  brought  about?  I  answer 
that  no  sooner  was  the  sod  grown  green  over  the  grave  of  the  im 
mortal  Clay,  no  sooner  was  the  rose  planted  on  the  tomb  of  the  god 
like  Webster,  than  many  of  the  leaders  of  the  Whig  party,  such  as 
Seward,  of  New  York,  and  his  followers,  led  off  and  attempted  to 
Abolitionize  the  Whig  party,  and  transfer  all  vour  Old  Whigs,  bound 
hand  and  foot,  into  the  Abolition  camp.  Seizing  hold  of  the  tem 
porary  excitement  produced  in  this  country  by  the  introduction  of 
the  Nebraska  bill,  the  disappointed  politicians  in  the  Democratic 
party  united  with  the  disappointed  politicians  in  the  Whig  party, 
and  endeavored  to  form  a  new  party  composed  of  all  the  Aboli 
tionists,  of  Abolitionized  Democrats  and  Abolitionized  Whigs, 
banded  together  in  an  Abolition  platform. 

And  who  led  that  crusade  against  national  principles  in  this  State? 
I  answer,  Abraham  Lincoln  on  behalf  of  the  Whigs,  and  Lyman 
Trumbull  on  behalf  of  the  Democrats,  formed  a  scheme  by  which 
they  would  Abolitionize  the  two  great  parties  in  this  State  on  condi 
tion  that  Lincoln  should  be  sent  to  the  United  States  Senate  in  place 
of  General  Shields,  and  that  Trumbull  should  go  to  Congress  from 
the  Belleville  district,  until  I  would  be  accommodating  enough  either 
to  die  or  resign  for  his  benefit,  and  then  he  was  to  go  to  the  Senate 
in  my  place.  You  all  remember  that  during  the  year  1854  these  two 
worthy  gentlemen,  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Trumbull,  one  an  old-line 
Whig  and  the  other  an  old-line  Democrat,  were  hunting  in  partner 
ship  to  elect  a  legislature  against  the  Democratic  party.  I  can 
vassed  the  State  that  year  from  the  time  I  returned  home  until  the 
election  came  off,  and  spoke  in  every  county  that  I  could  reach  during 
that  period.  In  the  northern  part  of  the  State  I  found  Lincoln's  ally, 
in  the  person  of  Fred  Douglass,  the  negro,  preaching  Abolition  doc 
trines,  while  Lincoln  was  discussing  the  same  principles  down  here, 
and  Trumbull,  a  little  further  down,  was  advocating  the  election  of 
members  to  the  legislature  who  would  act  in  concert  with  Lincoln's 
and  Fred  Douglass's  friends.  I  witnessed  an  effort  made  at  Chicago 
by  Lincoln's  then  associates,  and  now  supporters,  to  put  Fred 
Douglass,  the  negro,  on  the  stand  at  a  Democratic  meeting,  to  reply 
to  the  illustrious  General  Cass  when  he  was  addressing  the  people 
there.  They  had  the  same  negro  hunting  me  down,  and  they  now 
have  a  negro  traversing  the  northern  counties  of  the  State,  and 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          401 

speaking  in  behalf  of  Lincoln.  Lincoln  knows  that  when  we  were 
at  Freeport  in  joint  discussion,  there  was  a  distinguished  colored 
friend  of  his  there  then  who  was  on  the  stump  for  him,  and  who 
made  a  speech  there  the  night  before  we  spoke,  and  another  the 
night  after,  a  short  distance  from  Freeport,  in  favor  of  Lincoln ;  and 
in  order  to  show  how  much  interest  the  colored  brethren  felt  in  the 
success  of  their  brother  Abe,  I  have  with  me  here,  and  would  read 
it  if  it  would  not  occupy  too  much  of  my  time,  a  speech  made  by 
Fred  Douglass  in  Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y.,  a  short  time  since,  to  a  large 
convention,  in  which  he  conjures  all  the  friends  of  negro  equality 
and  negro  citizenship  to  rally  as  one  man  around  Abraham  Lincoln, 
the  perfect  embodiment  of  their  principles,  and  by  all  means  to  defeat 
Stephen  A.  Douglas.  Thus  you  find  that  this  Republican  party  in  the 
northern  part  of  the  State  had  colored  gentlemen  for  their  advocates 
in  1854,  in  company  with  Lincoln  and  Trumbull,  as  they  have  now. 
When,  in  October,  1854,  I  went  down  to  Springfield  to  attend  the 
State  fair,  I  found  the  leaders  of  this  party  all  assembled  together 
under  the  title  of  an  anti-Nebraska  meeting.  It  was  Black  Republi 
can  up  north,  and  anti-Nebraska  at  Springfield.  I  found  Love- 
joy,  a  high  priest  of  Abolitionism,  and  Lincoln,  one  of  the  leaders 
who  was  towing  the  old-line  Whigs  into  the  Abolition  camp,  and 
Trumbull,  Sidney  Breese,  and  Governor  Reynolds,  all  making 
speeches  against  the  Democratic  party  and  myself,  at  the  same 
place  and  in  the  same  cause. 

The  same  men  who  are  now  fighting  the  Democratic  party  and  the 
regular  Democratic  nominees  in  this  State  were  fighting  us  then. 
They  did  not  then  acknowledge  that  they  had  become  Abolitionists, 
and  many  of  them  deny  it  now.  Breese,  Dougherty,  and  Reynolds 
were  then  fighting  the  Democracy  under  the  title  of  anti-Nebraska 
men,  and  now  they  are  fighting  the  Democracy  under  the  pretense 
that  they  are  simon-pure  Democrats,  saying  that  they  are  authorized 
to  have  every  office-holder  in  Illinois  beheaded  who  prefers  the  elec 
tion  of  Douglas  to  that  of  Lincoln,  or  the  success  of  the  Democratic 
ticket  in  preference  to  the  Abolition  ticket  for  members  of  Congress, 
State  officers,  members  of  the  legislature,  or  any  office  in  the  State. 
They  canvassed  the  State  against  us  in  1854,  as  they  are  doing  now, 
owning  different  names  and  different  principles  in  different  locali 
ties,  but  having  a  common  object  in  view,  viz. :  the  defeat  of  all  men 
holding  national  principles  in  opposition  to  this  sectional  Abolition 
party.  They  carried  the  legislature  in  1854,  and  when  it  assembled 
in  Springfield  they  proceeded  to  elect  a  United  States  senator,  all 
voting  for  Lincoln  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  which  exceptions 
prevented  them  from  quite  electing  him.  And  why  should  they  not 
elect  him?  Had  not  Trumbull  agreed  that  Lincoln  should  have 
Shields's  place  ?  Had  not  the  Abolitionists  agreed  to  it  ?  Was  it 
not  the  solemn  compact,  the  condition  on  which  Lincoln  agreed  to 
Abolitionize  the  Old  Whigs,  that  he  should  be  senator  ?  Still,  Trum 
bull,  having  control  of  a  few  Abolitionized  Democrats,  would  not  allow 
them  all  to  vote  for  Lincoln  on  any  one  ballot,  and  thus  kept  him 
for  some  time  within  one  or  two  votes  of  an  election,  until  he  worried 
out  Lincoln's  friends,  and  compelled  them  to  drop  him  and  elect 
VOL.  I.— 26. 


402          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Trumbull  in  violation  of  the  bargain.  I  desire  to  read  you  a  piece 
of  testimony  in  confirmation  of  the  notoriously  public  facts  which  I 
have  stated  to  you.  Colonel  James  H.  Matheny,  of  Springfield,  is, 
and  for  twenty  years  has  been,  the  confidential  personal  and  politi 
cal  friend  and  manager  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Matheny  is  this  very  day 
the  candidate  of  the  Republican  or  Abolition  party  for  Congress 
against  the  gallant  Major  Thomas  L.  Harris,  in  the  Springfield  dis 
trict,  and  is  making  speeches  for  Lincoln  and  against  me.  I  will 
read  you  the  testimony  of  Matheny  about  this  bargain  between  Lin 
coln  and  Trumbull  when  they  undertook  to  Abolitionize  Whigs  and 
Democrats  only  four  years  ago.  Matheny,  being  mad  at  Trumbull  for 
having  played  a  Yankee  trick  on  Lincoln,  exposed  the  bargain  in  a 
public  speech  two  years  ago,  and  I  will  read  the  published  report  of 
that  speech,  the  correctness  of  which  Mr.  Lincoln  will  not  deny : 

The  Whigs,  Abolitionists,  Know-nothings,  and  renegade  Democrats 
made  a  solemn  compact  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  this  State  against  the 
Democracy  on  this  plan :  First,  that  they  would  all  combine  and  elect  Mr. 
Trumbull  to  Congress,  and  thereby  carry  his  district  for  the  legislature, 
in  order  to  throw  all  the  strength  that  could  be  obtained  into  that  body 
against  the  Democrats.  Second,  that  when  the  legislature  should  meet,  the 
officers  of  that  body,  such  as  speaker,  clerks,  doorkeepers,  etc.,  would  be 

fiven  to  the  Abolitionists  j  and,  third,  that  the  Whigs  were  to  have  the 
United  States  senator.  That,  accordingly,  in  good  faith  Trumbull  was 
elected  to  Congress,  and  his  district  carried  for  the  legislature,  and  when  it 
convened  the  Abolitionists  got  all  the  officers  of  that  body,  and  thus  far  the 
"  bond"  was  fairly  executed.  The  Whigs,  on  their  part,  demanded  the  elec 
tion  of  Abraham  Lincoln  to  the  United  States  Senate,  that  the  bond  might 
be  fulfilled,  the  other  parties  to  the  contract  having  already  secured  to  them 
selves  all  that  was  called  for.  But,  in  the  most  perfidious  manner,  they  re 
fused  to  elect  Mr.  Lincoln;  and  the  mean,  low-lived,  sneaking  Trumbull 
succeeded,  by  pledging  all  that  was  required  by  any  party,  in  thrusting  Lin 
coln  aside  and  foisting  himself,  an  excrescence  from  the  rotten  bowels  of 
the  Democracy,  into  the  United  States  Senate  5  and  thus  it  has  ever  been, 
that  an  honest  man  makes  a  bad  bargain  when  he  conspires  or  contracts. 
with  rogues. 

Lincoln's  confidential  friend,  Matheny,  thought  that  Lincoln  made 
a  bad  bargain  when  he  conspired  with  such  rogues  as  Trumbull  an  d  the 
Abolitionists.  I  would  like  to  know  whether  Lincoln  had  as  high  an 
opinion  of  TrumbulPs  veracity  when  the  latter  agreed  to  support  him 
for  the  Senate,  and  then  cheated  him,  as  he  has  now,  when  Trumbull 
comes  forward  and  makes  charges  against  me.  You  could  not  then 
prove  Trumbull  an  honest  man  either  by  Lincoln,  by  Matheny,  or  by 
any  of  Lincoln's  friends.  They  charged  everywhere  that  Trumbull 
had  cheated  them  out  of  the  bargain,  and  Lincoln  found,  sure  enoughr 
that  it  was  a  bad  bargain  to  contract  and  conspire  with  rogues. 

And  now  I  will  explain  to  you  what  has  been  a  mystery  all  over 
the  State  and  Union,  the  reason  why  Lincoln  was  nominated  for  the 
United  States  Senate  by  the  Black  Republican  convention.  You 
know  it  has  never  been  usual  for  any  party,  or  any  convention,  to 
nominate  a  candidate  for  United  States  senator.  Probably  this  was 
the  first  time  that  such  a  thing  was  ever  done.  The  Black  Republi 
can  convention  had  not  been  called  for  that  purpose,  but  to  nominate 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          403 

a  State  ticket,  and  every  man  was  surprised  and  many  disgusted 
when  Lincoln  was  nominated.  Archie  Williams  thought  he  was  en 
titled  to  it,  Browning  knew  that  he  deserved  it,  Wentworth  was  cer 
tain  that  he  would  get  it,  Peck  had  hopes,  Judd  felt  sure  that  he  was 
the  man,  and  Palmer  had  claims  and  had  made  arrangements  to 
secure  it ;  but,  to  their  utter  amazement,  Lincoln  was  nominated  by 
the  convention,  and  not  only  that,  but  he  received  the  nomination 
unanimously,  by  a  resolution  declaring  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
"  the  first,  last,  and  only  choice  "  of  the  Republican  party.  How  did 
this  occur  ?  Why,  because  they  could  not  get  Lincoln's  friends  to 
make  another  bargain  with  "  rogues/7  unless  the  whole  party  would 
come  up  as  one  man  and  pledge  their  honor  that  they  would  stand 
by  Lincoln  first,  last,  and  all  the  time,  and  that  he  should  not  be 
cheated  by  Love  joy  this  time,  as  he  was  by  Trumbull  before.  Thus, 
bypassing  this  resolution,  the  Abolitionists  are  all  for  him,  Lovejoy 
and  Farnsworth  are  canvassing  for  him,  Giddings  is  ready  to  come 
here  in  his  behalf,  and  the  negro  speakers  are  already  on  the  stump 
for  him,  and  he  is  sure  not  to  be  cheated  this  time.  He  would  not  go 
into  the  arrangement  until  he  got  their  bond  for  it,  and  Trumbull  is 
compelled  now  to  take  the  stump,  get  up  false  charges  against  me, 
and  travel  all  over  the  State  to  try  and  elect  Lincoln,  in  order  to  keep 
Lincoln's  friends  quiet  about  the  bargain  in  which  Trumbull  cheated 
them  four  years  ago.  You  see  now  why  it  is  that  Lincoln  and 
Trumbull  are  so  mighty  fond  of  each  other.  They  have  entered  into 
a  conspiracy  to  break  me  down  by  these  assaults  on  my  public  char 
acter,  in  order  to  draw  my  attention  from  a  fair  exposure  of  the  mode 
in  which  they  attempted  to  Abolitionize  the  Old  Whig  and  the  old 
Democratic  parties  and  lead  them  captive  into  the  Abolition  camp. 
Do  you  not  all  remember  that  Lincoln  went  around  here  four  years 
ago  making  speeches  to  you,  and  telling  that  you  should  all  go  for 
the  Abolition  ticket,  and  swearing  that  he  was  as  good  a  Whig  as  he 
ever  was ;  and  that  Trumbull  went  all  over  the  State  making  pledges 
to  the  old  Democrats,  and  trying  to  coax  them  into  the  Abolition 
camp,  swearing  by  his  Maker,  with  the  uplifted  hand,  that  he  was 
still  a  Democrat,  always  intended  to  be,  and  that  never  would  he  de 
sert  the  Democratic  party.  He  got  your  votes  to  elect  an  Abolition 
legislature,  which  passed  Abolition  resolutions,  attempted  to  pass 
Abolition  laws,  and  sustained  Abolitionists  for  office,  State  and  na 
tional.  Now,  the  same  game  is  attempted  to  be  played  over  again. 
Then  Lincoln  and  Trumbull  made  captives  of  the  Old  Whigs  and  old 
Democrats  and  carried  them  into  the  Abolition  camp,  where  Father 
Giddings,  the  high  priest  of  Abolitionism,  received  and  christened 
them  in  the  dark  cause  just  as  fast  as  they  were  brought  in.  Gid 
dings  found  the  converts  so  numerous  that  he  had  to  have  assistance, 
and  he  sent  for  John  P.  Hale,  N.  P.  Banks,  Chase,  and  other  Aboli 
tionists,  and  they  came  on,  and  with  Lovejoy  and  Fred  Douglass, 
the  negro,  helped  to  baptize  these  new  converts  as  Lincoln,  Trumbull, 
Breese,  Reynolds,  and  Dougherty  could  capture  them  and  bring  them 
within  the  Abolition  clutch.  Gentlemen,  they  are  now  around 
making  the  same  kind  of  speeches.  Trumbull  was  down  in  Monroe 
County  the  other  day  assailing  me,  and  making  a  speech  in  favor  of 


404          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Lincoln,  and  I  will  show  you  under  what  notice  his  meeting  was 
called.  You  see  these  people  are  Black  Republicans  or  Abolitionists 
up  north,  while  at  Springfield  to-day  they  dare  not  call  their  conven 
tion  "  Republican/'  but  are  obliged  to  say  "  a  convention  of  all  men 
opposed  to  the  Democratic  party ,"  and  in  Monroe  County  and  lower 
Egypt  Trumbull  advertises  their  meetings  as  follows: 

A  meeting  of  the  Free  Democracy  will  take  place  at  Waterloo,  on  Mon 
day,  September  12th  inst.,  whereat  Hon.  Lyman  Trumbull,  Hon.  Jehu 
Baker,  and  others,  will  address  the  people  upon  the  different  political  topics 
of  the  day.  Members  of  all  parties  are  cordially  invited  to  be  present,  and 
hear  and  determine  for  themselves. 

September  9,  1858.  THE  FREE  DEMOCRACY. 

Did  you  ever  before  hear  of  this  new  party  called  the  "Free 
Democracy"? 

What  object  have  these  Black  Republicans  in  changing  their 
name  in  every  county  ?  They  have  one  name  in  the  north,  another 
in  the  center,  and  another  in  the  south.  When  I  used  to  practise 
law  before  my  distinguished  judicial  friend  whom  I  recognize  in  the 
crowd  before  me,  if  a  man  was  charged  with  horse-stealing,  and  the 
proof  showed  that  he  went  by  one  name  in  Stephenson  County, 
another  in  Sangamon,  a  third  in  Monroe,  and  a  fourth  in  Randolph, 
we  thought  that  the  fact  of  his  changing  his  name  so  often  to  avoid 
detection  was  pretty  strong  evidence  of  his  guilt.  I  would  like  to 
know  why  it  is  that  this  great  Free-soil  Abolition  party  is  not  willing 
to  avow  the  same  name  in  all  parts  of  the  State?  If  this  party 
believes  that  its  course  is  just,  why  does  it  not  avow  the  same  prin 
ciples  in  the  north  and  in  the  south,  in  the  east  and  in  the  west, 
wherever  the  American  flag  waves  over  America. i  soil?  [A  voice: 
"The  party  does  not  call  itself  Black  Republican  in  the  north."] 
Sir,  if  you  will  get  a  copy  of  the  paper  published  at  Waukegan, 
fifty  miles  from  Chicago,  which  advocates  the  election  of  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  and  has  his  name  flying  at  its  masthead,  you  will  find  that  it 
declares  that  "  this  paper  is  devoted  to  the  cause  "  of  Black  Repub 
licanism.  I  had  a  copy  of  it,  and  intended  to  bring  it  down  here  into 
Egypt  to  let  you  see  what  name  the  party  rallied  under  up  in  the 
northern  part  of  the  State,  and  to  convince  you  that  their  principles 
are  as  different  in  the  two  sections  of  the  State  as  is  their  name.  I 
am  sorry  I  have  mislaid  it  and  have  not  got  it  here.  Their  princi 
ples  in  the  north  are  jet-black,  in  the  center  they  are  in  color  a  decent 
mulatto,  and  in  lower  Egypt  they  are  almost  white.  Why,  I  ad 
mired  many  of  the  white  sentiments  contained  in  Lincoln's  speech 
at  Jonesboro,  and  could  not  help  but  contrast  them  with  the  speeches 
of  the  same  distinguished  orator  made  in  the  northern  part  of  the 
State.  Down  here  he  denies  that  the  Black  Republican  party  is 
opposed  to  the  admission  of  any  more  slave  States,  under  any  cir 
cumstances,  and  says  that  they  are  willing  to  allow  the  people  of  each 
State,  when  it  wants  to  come  into  the  Union,  to  do  just  as  it  pleases 
on  the  question  of  slavery.  In  the  north  you  find  Lovejoy,  their 
candidate  for  Congress  in  the  Bloomingto*n  district;  Farusworth, 
their  candidate  in  the  Chicago  district ;  and  Washburne,  their  candi- 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          405 

date  in  the  Galena  district,  all  declaring  that  never  will  they  consent 
under  any  circumstances  to  admit  another  slave  State,  even  if  the 
people  want  it.  Thus,  while  they  avow  one  set  of  principles  up  there, 
they  avow  another  and  entirely  different  set  down  here.  And  here 
let  me  recall  to  Mr.  Lincoln  the  scriptural  quotation  which  he  has 
applied  to  the  Federal  Government,  that  a  house  divided  against 
itself  cannot  stand,  and  ask  him  how  does  he  expect  this  Abolition 
party  to  stand  when  in  one  half  of  the  State  it  advocates  a  set  of 
^principles  which  it  has  repudiated  in  the  other  half? 

I  am  told  that  I  have  but  eight  minutes  more.  I  would  like  to 
talk  to  you  an  hour  and  a  half  longer,  but  I  will  make  the  best  use 
I  can  of  the  remaining  eight  minutes.  Mr.  Lincoln  said  in  his  first 
remarks  that  he  was  not  in  favor  of  the  social  and  political  equality 
of  the  negro  with  the  white  man.  Everywhere  up  north  he  has  de 
clared  that  he  was  not  in  favor  of  the  social  and  political  equality 
of  the  negro,  but  he  would  not  say  whether  or  not  he  was  opposed 
to  negroes  voting  and  negro  citizenship.  I  want  to  know  whether  he 
is  for  or  against  negro  citizenship  ?  He  declared  his  utter  opposition 
to  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and  advanced  as  a  reason  that  the  court 
had  decided  that  it  was  not  possible  for  a  negro  to  be  a  citizen  under 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  If  he  is  opposed  to  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  for  that  reason,  he  must  be  in  favor  of  conferring  the 
right  and  privilege  of  citizenship  upon  the  negro.  I  have  been  try 
ing  to  get  an  answer  from  him  on  that  point,  but  have  never  yet 
obtained  one,  and  I  will  show  you  why.  In  every  speech  he  made  in 
the  north  he  quoted  the  Declaration  of  Independence  to  prove  that 
all  men  were  created  equal,  and  insisted  that  the  phrase  "all  men" 
included  the  negro  as  well  as  the  white  man,  and  that  the  equality 
rested  upon  divine  law.  Here  is  what  he  said  on  that  point : 

I  should  like  to  know  if,  taking  this  old  Declaration  of  Independence, 
which  declares  that  all  men  are  equal  upon  principle,  and  making  excep 
tions  to  it,  where  will  it  stop  ?  If  one  man  says  it  does  not  mean  a  negro, 
why  may  not  another  say  it  does  not  mean  some  other  man?  If  that 
Declaration  is  not  the  truth,  let  us  get  the  statute-book  in  which  we  find  it 
and  tear  it  out. 

Lincoln  maintains  there  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  as 
serts  that  the  negro  is  equal  to  the  white  man,  and  that  under  divine 
law;  and  if  he  believes  so  it  was  rational  for  him  to  advocate  negro 
citizenship,  which,  when  allowed,  puts  the  negro  on  an  equality  under 
the  law.  I  say  to  you  in  all  frankness,  gentlemen,  that  in  my  opinion 
a  negro  is  not  a  citizen,  cannot  be,  and  ought  not  to  be,  under  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  I  will  not  even  qualify  my  opin 
ion  to  meet  the  declaration  of  one  of  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court 
in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  "  that  a  negro  descended  from  African  pa 
rents,  who  was  imported  into  this  country  as  a  slave,  is  not  a  citizen, 
and  cannot  be."  I  say  that  this  government  was  established  on  the 
white  basis.  It  was  made  by  white  men,  for  the  benefit  of  white  men 
and  their  posterity  forever,  and  never  should  be  administered  by  any 
except  white  men.  I  declare  that  a  negro  ought  not  to  be  a  citizen, 
whether  his  parents  were  imported  into  this  country  as  slaves  or  not, 


406         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

or  whether  or  not  he  was  born  here.  It  does  not  depend  upon  the 
place  a  negro's  parents  were  born,  or  whether  they  were  slaves  or 
not,  but  upon  the  fact  that  he  is  a  negro,  belonging  to  a  race  inca 
pable  of  self-government,  and  for  that  reason  ought  not  to  be  on  an 
equality  with  white  men. 

My  friends,  I  am  sorry  that  I  have  not  time  to  pursue  this  argu 
ment  further,  as  I  might  have  done  but  for  the  fact  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
compelled  me  to  occupy  a  portion  of  my  time  in  repelling  those  gross 
slanders  and  falsehoods  that  Trumbull  has  invented  against  me  and 
put  in  circulation.  In  conclusion,  let  me  ask  you  why  should  this 
government  be  divided  by  a  geographical  line  —  arraying  all  men 
North  in  one  great  hostile  party  against  all  men  South  ?  Mr.  Lin 
coln  tells  you,  in  his  speech  at  Springfield,  that  a  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand  j  that  this  government,  divided  into  free 
and  slave  States,  cannot  endure  permanently;  that  they  must  either 
be  all  free  or  all  slave,  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.  Why  cannot 
this  government  endure  divided  into  free  States  and  slave  States,  as 
our  fathers  made  it  ? 

When  this  government  was  established  by  Washington,  Jefferson, 
Madison,  Jay,  Hamilton,  Franklin,  and  the  other  sages  and  patriots 
of  that  day,  it  was  composed  of  free  States  and  slave  States,  bound 
together  by  one  common  Constitution.  We  have  existed  and  pros 
pered  from  that  day  to  this  thus  divided,  and  have  increased  with  a 
rapidity  never  before  equaled  in  wealth,  the  extension  of  territory, 
and  all  the  elements  of  power  and  greatness,  until  we  have  become 
the  first  nation  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  Why  can  we  not  thus  con 
tinue  to  prosper?  We  can  if  we  will  live  up  to  and  execute  the 
government  upon  those  principles  upon  which  our  fathers  estab 
lished  it.  During  the  whole  period  of  our  existence  Divine  Provi 
dence  has  smiled  upon  us,  and  showered  upon  our  nation  richer  and 
more  abundant  blessings  than  have  ever  been  conferred  upon  any 
other. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Rejoinder  in  the  Charleston  Joint  Debate. 

Fellow-citizens :  It  follows  as  a  matter  of  course  that  a  half -hour 
answer  to  a  speech  of  an  hour  and  a  half  can  be  but  a  very  hurried 
one.  I  shall  only  be  able  to  touch  upon  a  few  of  the  points  sug 
gested  by  Judge  Douglas,  and  give  them  a  brief  attention,  while  I 
shall  have  to  totally  omit  others  for  the  want  of  time. 

Judge  Douglas  has  said  to  you  that  he  has  not  been  able  to  get 
from  me  an  answer  to  the  question  whether  I  am  in  favor  of  negro 
citizenship.  So  far  as  I  know,  the  judge  never  asked  me  the  question 
before.  He  shall  have  no  occasion  to  ever  ask  it  again,  for  I  tell 
him  very  frankly  that  I  am  not  in  favor  of  negro  citizenship.  This 
furnishes  me  an  occasion  for  saying  a  few  words  upon  the  subject. 
I  mentioned  in  a  certain  speech  of  mine,  which  has  been  printed,  that 
the  Supreme  Court  had  decided  that  a  negro  could  not  possibly  be 
made  a  citizen,  and  without  saying  what  was  my  ground  of  com 
plaint  in  regard  to  that,  or  whether  I  had  any  ground  of  complaint, 
Judge  Douglas  has  from  that  thing  manufactured  nearly  every- 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          407 

thing  that  he  ever  says  about  my  disposition  to  produce  an  equality 
between  the  negroes  and  the  white  people.  If  any  one  will  read  my 
speech,  he  will  find  I  mentioned  that  as  one  of  the  points  decided  in 
the  course  of  the  Supreme  Court  opinions,  but  I  did  not  state  what 
objection  I  had  to  it.  But  Judge  Douglas  tells  the  people  what  my 
objection  was  when  I  did  not  tell  them  myself.  No\v  my  opinion  is 
that  the  different  States  have  the  power  to  make  a  negro  a  citizen 
under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  if  they  choose.  The 
Dred  Scott  decision  decides  that  they  have  not  that  power.  If  the 
State  of  Illinois  had  that  power,  I  should  be  opposed  to  the  exercise 
of  it.  That  is  all  I  have  to  say  about  it. 

Judge  Douglas  has  told  me  that  he  heard  my  speeches  north  and 
my  speeches  south — that  he  had  heard  me  at  Ottawa  and  at  Free- 
port  in  the  north,  and  recently  at  Jonesboro  in  the  south,  and  there 
was  a  very  different  cast  of  sentiment  in  the  speeches  made  at  the 
different  points.  I  will  not  charge  upon  Judge  Douglas  that  he 
wilfully  misrepresents  me,  but  I  call  upon  every  fair-minded  man 
to  take  these  speeches  and  read  them,  and  I  dare  him  to  point  out 
any  difference  between  my  speeches  north  and  south.  While  I  am 
here  perhaps  I  ought  to  say  a  word,  if  I  have  the  time,  in  regard  to 
the  latter  portion  of  the  judge's  speech,  which  was  a  sort  of  decla 
mation  in  reference  to  my  having  said  I  entertained  the  belief  that 
this  government  would  not  endure  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  have 
said  so,  and  I  did  not  say  it  without  what  seemed  to  me  to  be  good 
reasons.  It  perhaps  would  require  more  time  than  I  have  now  to  set 
forth  these  reasons  in  detail  j  but  let  me  ask  you  a  few  questions. 
Have  we  ever  had  any  peace  on  this  slavery  question  ?  When  are  we 
to  have  peace  upon  it  if  it  is  kept  in  the  position  it  now  occupies  ? 
How  are  we  ever  to  have  peace  upon  it J?  That  is  an  important  ques 
tion.  To  be  sure,  if  we  will  all  stop  and  allow  Judge  Douglas  and  his 
friends  to  march  on  in  their  present  career  until  they  plant  the  insti 
tution  all  over  the  nation,  here  and  wherever  else  our  flag  waves,  and 
we  acquiesce  in  it,  there  will  be  peace.  But  let  me  ask  Judge  Doug 
las  how  he  is  going  to  get  the  people  to  do  that?  They  have  been 
wrangling  over  this  question  for  at  least  forty  years.  This  was  the 
cause  of  the  agitation  resulting  in  the  Missouri  compromise;  this 
produced  the  troubles  at  the  annexation  of  Texas,  in  the  acquisition 
of  the  territory  acquired  in  the  Mexican  war.  Again,  this  was  the 
trouble  which  was  quieted  by  the  compromise  of  1850,  when  it  was 
settled  "  forever,"  as  both  the  great  political  parties  declared  in  their 
national  conventions.  That  "  forever "  turned  out  to  be  just  four 
years,  when  Judge  Douglas  himself  reopened  it. 

When  is  it  likely  to  come  to  an  end  ?  He  introduced  the  Nebraska 
bill  in  1854  to  put  another  end  to  the  slavery  agitation.  He  promised 
that  it  would  finish  it  all  up  immediately,  and  he  has  never  made  a 
speech  since  until  he  got  into  a  quarrel  with  the  President  about  the 
Lecompton  constitution,  in  which  he  has  not  declared  that  we  are 
just  at  the  end  of  the  slavery  agitation.  But  in  one  speech,  I  think 
last  winter,  he  did  say  that  he  did  n't  quite  see  when  the  end  of  the 
slavery  agitation  would  come.  Now  he  tells  us  again  that  it  is  all 
over,  and  the  people  of  Kansas  have  voted  down  the  Lecompton 


408          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

constitution.  How  is  it  over?  That  was  only  one  of  the  attempts 
at  putting  an  end  to  the  slavery  agitation  —  one  of  these  "  final  set 
tlements."  Is  Kansas  in  the  Union?  Has  she  formed  a  constitu 
tion  that  she  is  likely  to  come  in  under  ?  Is  not  the  slavery  agita 
tion  still  an  open  question  in  that  Territory  ?  Has  the  voting  down 
of  that  constitution  put  an  end  to  all  the  trouble?  Is  that  more  likely 
to  settle  it  than  every  one  of  these  previous  attempts  to  settle  the 
slavery  agitation  f  Now,  at  this  day  in  the  history  of  the  world  we 
can  no  more  foretell  where  the  end  of  this  slavery  agitation  will  be 
than  we  can  see  the  end  of  the  world  itself.  The  Nebraska-Kansas 
bill  was  introduced  four  years  and  a  half  ago,  and  if  the  agitation  is 
ever  to  come  to  an  end,  we  may  say  we  are  four  years  and  a  half  nearer 
the  end.  So,  too,  we  can  say  we  are  four  years  and  a  half  nearer  the 
end  of  the  world;  and  we  can  just  as  clearly  see  the  end  of  the  world 
as  we  can  see  the  end  of  this  agitation.  The  Kansas  settlement  did 
not  conclude  it.  If  Kansas  should  sink  to-day,  and  leave  a  great 
vacant  space  in  the  earth's  surface,  this  vexed  question  would  still 
be  among  us.  I  say,  then,  there  is  no  way  of  putting  an  end  to  the 
slavery  agitation  amongst  us  but  to  put  it  back  upon  the  basis  where 
our  fathers  placed  it,  no  way  but  to  keep  it  out  of  our  new  Terri 
tories — to  restrict  it  forever  to  the  old  States  where  it  now  exists. 
Then  the  public  mind  will  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course 
of  ultimate  extinction.  That  is  one  way  of  putting  an  end  to  the 
slavery  agitation. 

The  other  way  is  for  us  to  surrender  and  let  Judge  Douglas  and 
his  friends  have  their  way  and  plant  slavery  over  all  the  States — cease 
speaking  of  it  as  in  any  way  a  wrong  —  regard  slavery  as  one  of  the 
common  matters  of  property,  and  speak  of  negroes  as  we  do  of  our 
horses  and  cattle.  But  while  it  drives  on  in  its  state  of  progress  as 
it  is  now  driving,  and  as  it  has  driven  for  the  last  five  years,  I  have 
ventured  the  opinion,  and  I  say  to-day,  that  we  will  have  no  end  to 
the  slavery  agitation  until  it  takes  one  turn  or  the  other.  I  do  not 
mean  that  when  it  takes  a  turn  toward  ultimate  extinction  it  will  be 
in  a  day,  nor  in  a  year,  nor  in  two  years.  I  do  not  suppose  that  in 
the  most  peaceful  way  ultimate  extinction  would  occur  in  less  than  a 
hundred  years  at  least ;  but  that  it  will  occur  in  the  best  way  for  both 
races,  in  God's  own  good  time,  I  have  no  doubt.  But,  my  friends,  I 
have  used  up  more  of  my  time  than  I  intended  on  this  point. 

Now,  in  regard  to  this  matter  about  Trumbull  and  myself  having 
made  a  bargain  to  sell  out  the  entire  Whig  and  Democratic  parties  in 
1854,  Judge  Douglas  brings  forward  no  evidence  to  sustain  his 
charge,  except  the  speech  Matheny  is  said  to  have  made  in  1856,  in 
which  he  told  a  cock-and-bull  story  of  that  sort,  upon  the  same  moral 
principles  that  Judge  Douglas  tells  it  here  to-day.  This  is  the  simple 
truth.  I  do  not  care  greatly  for  the  story,  but  this  is  the  truth  of  it,, 
and  I  have  twice  told  Judge  Douglas  to  his  face,  that  from  beginning 
to  end  there  is  not  one  word  of  truth  in  it.  I  have  called  upon  him 
for  the  proof,  and  he  does  not  at  all  meet  me  as  Trumbull  met  him 
upon  that  of  which  we  were  just  talking,  by  producing  the  record. 
He  did  n't  bring  the  record,  because  there  was  no  record  for  him  to 
bring.  When  he  asks  if  I  am  ready  to  indorse  TrumbulFs  veracity 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          409 

after  he  has  broken  a  bargain  with  me,  I  reply  that  if  Trumbull  had 
broken  a  bargain  with  me,  I  would  not  be  likely  to  indorse  his  ve 
racity;  but  I  am  ready  to  indorse  his  veracity  because  neither  in  that 
thing,  nor  in  any  other,  in  all  the  years  that  I  have  known  Lyman 
Trumbull,  have  I  known  him  to  fail  of  his  word  or  tell  a  falsehood, 
large  or  small.  It  is  for  that  reason  that  I  indorse  Lyman  Trumbull. 

Mr.  James  Brown  [Douglas  postmaster] :  What  does  Ford's  his 
tory  say  about  him  ? 

Mr.  Lincoln :  Some  gentleman  asks  me  what  Ford's  history  says 
about  him.  My  own  recollection  is,  that  Ford  speaks  of  Trumbull 
in  very  disrespectful  terms  in  several  portions  of  his  book,  and  that 
he  talks  a  great  deal  worse  of  Judge  Douglas.  I  refer  you,  sir,  to 
the  history  for  examination. 

Judge  Douglas  complains  at  considerable  length  about  a  disposi 
tion  on  the  part  of  Trumbull  and  myself  to  attack  him  personally. 
I  want  to  attend  to  that  suggestion  a  moment.  I  don't  want  to  be 
unjustly  accused  of  dealing  illiberally  or  unfairly  with  an  adversary, 
either  in  court,  or  in  a  political  canvass,  or  anywhere  else.  I  would 
despise  myself  if  I  supposed  myself  ready  to  deal  less  liberally  with 
an  adversary  than  I  was  willing  to  be  treated  myself.  Judge  Doug 
las,  in  a  general  way,  without  putting  it  in  a  direct  shape,  revives 
the  old  charge  against  me  in  reference  to  the  Mexican  war.  He  does 
not  take  the  responsibility  of  putting  it  in  a  very  definite  form,  but 
makes  a  general  reference  to  it.  That  charge  is  more  than  ten  years 
old.  He  complains  of  Trumbull  and  myself,  because  he  says  we  bring 
charges  against  him  on£  or  two  years  old.  He  knows,  too,  that  in 
regard  to  the  Mexican  war  story,  the  more  respectable  papers  of  his 
own  party  throughout  the  State  have  been  compelled  to  take  it  back 
and  acknowledge  that  it  was  a  lie. 

[Here  Mr.  Lincoln  turned  to  the  crowd  on  the  platform,  and  select 
ing  Hon.  Orlando  B.  Ficklin,  led  him  forward  and  said:] 

I  do  not  mean  to  do  anything  with  Mr.  Ficklin,  except  to  present 
his  face  and  tell  you  that  he  personally  knows  it  to  be  a  lie !  He 
was  a  member  of  Congress  at  the  only  time  I  was  in  Congress,  and 
he  knows  that  whenever  there  was  an  attempt  to  procure  a  vote 
of  mine  which  would  indorse  the  origin  and  justice  of  the  war,  I 
refused  to  give  such  indorsement,  and  voted  against  it ;  but  I  never 
voted  against  the  supplies  for  the  army,  and  he  knows,  as  well  as 
Judge  Douglas,  that  whenever  a  dollar  was  asked  by  way  of  com 
pensation  or  otherwise,  for  the  benefit  of  the  soldiers,  I  gave  all  the 
votes  that  Ficklin  or  Douglas  did,  and  perhaps  more. 

Mr.  Ficklin :  My  friends,  I  wish  to  say  this  in  reference  to  the 
matter.  Mr.  Lincoln  and  myself  are  just  as  good  personal  friends 
as  Judge  Douglas  and  myself.  In  reference  to  this  Mexican  war, 
my  recollection  is  that  when  Ashmun's  resolution  [amendment]  was 
offered  by  Mr.  Ashmun  of  Massachusetts,  in  which  he  declared  that 
the  Mexican  war  was  unnecessarily  and  unconstitutionally  com 
menced  by  the  President, —  my  recollection  is  that  Mr.  Lincoln  voted 
for  that  resolution. 

Mr.  Lincoln  :  That  is  the  truth.  Now  you  all  remember  that  was 
a  resolution  censuring  the  President  for  the  manner  in  which  the 


410          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

war  was  begun.  You  know  they  have  charged  that  I  voted  against 
the  supplies,  by  which  I  starved  the  soldiers  who  were  out  fighting 
the  battles  of  their  country.  I  say  that  Ficklin  knows  it  is  false. 
When  that  charge  was  brought  forward  by  the  Chicago  "Times," 
the  Springfield  "  Register"  [Douglas  organ]  reminded  the  "  Times  " 
that  the  charge  really  applied  to  John  Henry  ;  and  I  do  know  that 
John  Henry  is  now  making  speeches  and  fiercely  battling  for  Judge 
Douglas.  If  the  judge  now  says  that  he  offers  this  as  a  sort  of  a  set- 
off  to  what  I  said  to-day  in  reference  to  Trumbull's  charge,  then  I 
remind  him  that  he  made  this  charge  before  I  said  a  word  about 
Trumbull's.  He  brought  this  forward  at  Ottawa,  the  first  time  we 
met  face  to  face ;  and  in  the  opening  speech  that  Judge  Douglas 
made,  he  attacked  me  in  regard  to  a  matter  ten  years  old.  Is  n't  he 
a  pretty  man  to  be  whining  about  people  making  charges  against 
him  only  two  years  old! 

The  judge  thinks  it  is  altogether  wrong  that  I  should  have  dwelt 
upon  this  charge  of  Trumbull's  at  all.  I  gave  the  apology  for  doing 
so  in  my  opening  speech.  Perhaps  it  did  n't  fix  your  attention.  I 
said  that  when  Judge  Douglas  was  speaking  at  places  where  I  spoke 
on  the  succeeding  day,  he  used  very  harsh  language  about  this 
charge.  Two  or  three  times  afterward  I  said  I  had  confidence  in 
Judge  Trumbull's  veracity  and  intelligence;  and  my  own  opinion 
was,  from  what  I  knew  of  the  character  of  Judge  Trumbull,  that  he 
would  vindicate  his  position,  and  prove  whatever  he  had  stated  to 
be  true.  This  I  repeated  two  or  three  times ;  and  then  I  dropped  it, 
without  saying  anything  more  on  the  subject  for  weeks  —  perhaps 
a  month.  I  passed  it  by  without  noticing  it  at  all  till  I  found  at 
Jacksonville  that  Judge  Douglas,  in  the  plenitude  of  his  power,  is  not 
willing  to  answer  Trumbull  and  let  me  alone;  but  he  comes  out  there 
and  uses  this  language:  "He  should  not  hereafter  occupy  his  time 
in  refuting  such  charges  made  by  Trumbull,  but  that  Lincoln  hav 
ing  indorsed  the  character  of  Trumbull  for  veracity,  he  should  hold 
him  [Lincoln]  responsible  for  the  slanders."  What  was  Lincoln  to 
do?  Did  he  not  do  right,  when  he  had  the  fit  opportunity  of  meet 
ing  Judge  Douglas  here,  to  tell  him  he  was  ready  for  the  responsi 
bility'?  I  ask  a  candid  audience  whether  in  doing  thus  Judge  Douglas 
was  not  the  assailant  rather  than  I?  Here  I  meet  him  face  to  face, 
and  say  I  am  ready  to  take  the  responsibility  so  far  as  it  rests  on  me. 

Having  done  so,  I  ask  the  attention  of  this  audience  to  the  ques 
tion  whether  I  have  succeeded  in  sustaining  the  charge,  and  whether 
Judge  Douglas  has  at  all  succeeded  in  rebutting  it.  You  all  heard 
me  call  upon  him  to  say  which  of  these  pieces  of  evidence  was  a  for 
gery.  Does  he  say  that  what  I  present  here  as  a  copy  of  the  origi 
nal  Toombs  bill  is  a  forgery  ?  Does  he  say  that  what  I  present  as  a 
copy  of  the  bill  reported  by  himself  is  a  forgery  ?  Or  what  is  pre 
sented  as  a  transcript  from  the  "  Globe,"  of  the  quotations  from  Big- 
ler's  speech,  is  a  forgery?  Does  he  say  the  quotations  from  his  own 
speech  are  forgeries  ?  Does  he  say  this  transcript  from  TrumbulPs 
speech  is  a  forgery ?  ["  He  did  n't  deny  one  of  them."]  I  would  then 
like  to  know  how  it  comes  about  that  when  each  piece  of  a  story  is 
true,  the  whole  story  turns  out  false  ?  I  take  it  these  people  have 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          411 

some  sense ;  they  see  plainly  that  Judge  Douglas  is  playing  cuttle 
fish,  a  small  species  of  fish  that  has  no  mode  of  defending  itself  when 
pursued  except  by  throwing  out  a  black  fluid,  which  makes  the  water 
so  dark  the  enemy  cannot  see  it,  and  thus  it  escapes.  Is  not  the  judge 
playing  the  cuttlefish  ? 

Now  I  would  ask  very  special  attention  to  the  consideration  of 
Judge  Douglas's  speech  at  Jacksonville  j  and  when  you  shall  read  his 
speech  of  to-day,  I  ask  you  to  watch  closely  and  see  which  of  these 
pieces  of  testimony,  every  one  of  which  he  says  is  a  forgery,  he  has 
shown  to  be  such.  Not  one  of  them  has  he  shown  to  be  a  forgery. 
Then  I  ask  the  original  question,  if  each  of  the  pieces  of  testimony 
is  true,  how  is  it  possible  that  the  whole  is  a  falsehood J? 

In  regard  to  Trumbull's  charge  that  he  [Douglas]  inserted  a  provi 
sion  into  the  bill  to  prevent  the  constitution  being  submitted  to  the 
people,  what  was  his  answer  ?  He  comes  here  and  reads  from  the 
"  Congressional  Globe  "  to  show  that  on  his  motion  that  provision 
was  struck  out  of  the  bill.  Why,  Trumbull  has  not  said  it  was  not 
stricken  out,  but  Trumbull  says  he  [Douglas]  put  it  in,  and  it  is  no 
answer  to  the  charge  to  say  he  afterward  took  it  out.  Both  are  per 
haps  true.  It  was  in  regard  to  that  thing  precisely  that  I  told  him 
he  had  dropped  the  cub.  Trumbull  shows  you  by  his  introdu 
cing  the  bill  that  it  was  his  cub.  It  is  no  answer  to  that  assertion  to 
call  Trumbull  a  liar  merely  because  he  did  not  specially  say  that 
Douglas  struck  it  out.  Suppose  that  were  the  case,  does  it  answer 
Trumbull  ?  I  assert  that  you  [pointing  to  an  individual]  are  here  to 
day,  and  you  undertake  to  prove  me  a  liar  by  showing  that  you  were 
in  Mattoon  yesterday.  I  say  that  you  took  your  hat  off  your  head, 
and  you  prove  me  a  liar  by  putting  it  on  your  head.  That  is  the 
whole  force  of  Douglas's  argument. 

Now,  I  want  to  come  back  to  my  original  question.  Trumbull  says 
that  Judge  Douglas  had  a  bill  with  a  provision  in  it  for  submitting 
a  constitution  to  be  made  to  a  vote  of  the  people  of  Kansas.  Does 
Judge  Douglas  deny  that  fact u?  Does  he  deny  that  the  provision 
which  Trumbull  reads  was  put  in  that  bill  ?  Then  Trumbull  says  he 
struck  it  out.  Does  he  dare  to  deny  that !  He  does  not,  and  I  have 
the  right  to  repeat  the  question  —  why  Judge  Douglas  took  it 
out?  Bigler  has  said  there  was  a  combination  of  certain  senators, 
among  whom  he  did  not  include  Judge  Douglas,  by  which  it  was 
agreed  that  the  Kansas  bill  should  have  a  clause  in  it  not  to  have 
the  constitution  formed  under  it  submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  people. 
He  did  not  say  that  Douglas  was  among  them,  but  we  prove  by 
another  source  that  about  the  same  time  Douglas  comes  into  the 
Senate  with  that  provision  stricken  out  of  the  bill.  Although  Bigler 
cannot  say  they  were  all  working  in  concert,  yet  it  looks  very  much 
as  if  the  thing  was  agreed  upon  and  done  with  a  mutual  understand 
ing  after  the  conference;  and  while  we  do  not  know  that  it  was 
absolutely  so,  yet  it  looks  so  probable  that  we  have  a  right  to  call 
upon  the  man^who  knows  the  true  reason  why  it  was  done,  to  tell 
what  the  true  reason  was.  When  he  will  not  tell  what  the  true 
reason  was,  he  stands  in  the  attitude  of  an  accused  thief  who  has 
stolen  goods  in  his  possession,  and  when  called  to  account  refuses  to 


412          ADDEESSES  AND  LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

tell  where  he  got  them.  Not  only  is  this  the  evidence,  but  when  he 
comes  in  with  the  bill  having  the  provision  stricken  out,  he  tells  us 
in  a  speech,  not  then,  but  since,  that  these  alterations  and  modifica 
tions  in  the  bill  had  been  made  by  him,  in  consultation  with  Toombs, 
the  originator  of  the  bill.  He  tells  us  the  same  to-day.  He  says  there 
were  certain  modifications  made  in  the  bill  in  committee  that  he  did 
not  vote  for.  I  ask  you  to  remember  while  certain  amendments  were 
made  which  he  disapproved  of,  but  which  a  majority  of  the  commit 
tee  voted  in,  he  has  himself  told  us  that  in  this  particular  the  altera 
tions  and  modifications  were  made  by  him  upon  consultation  with 
Toombs.  We  have  his  own  word  that  these  alterations  were  made 
by  him  and  not  by  the  committee. 

Now,  I  ask  what  is  the  reason  Judge  Douglas  is  so  chary  about 
coming  to  the  exact  question?  What  is  the  reason  he  will  not  tell 
you  anything  about  how  it  was  made,  by  whom  it  was  made,  or  that 
he  remembers  it  being  made  at  all  ?  Why  does  he  stand  playing  upon 
the  meaning  of  words,  and  quibbling  around  the  edges  of  the  evi 
dence  ?  If  he  can  explain  all  this,  but  leaves  it  unexplained,  I  have 
a  right  to  infer  that  Judge  Douglas  understood  it  was  the  purpose  of 
his  party,  in  engineering  that  bill  through,  to  make  a  constitution, 
and  have  Kansas  come  into  the  Union  with  that  constitution,  without 
its  being  submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  people.  If  he  will  explain  his 
action  on  this  question,  by  giving  a  better  reason  for  the  facts  that 
happened  than  he  has  done,  it  will  be  satisfactory.  But  until  he  does 
that  —  until  he  gives  a  better  or  more  plausible  reason  than  he  has 
offered  against  the  evidence  in  the  case  —  I  suggest  to  him  it  will  not 
avail  him  at  all  that  he  swells  himself  up,  takes  on  dignity,  and  calls 
people  liars.  Why,  sir,  there  is  not  a  word  in  TrumbulFs  speech 
that  depends  on  TrumbulPs  veracity  at  all.  He  has  only  arrayed 
the  evidence  and  told  you  what  follows  as  a  matter  of  reasoning. 
There  is  not  a  statement  in  the  whole  speech  that  depends  on  Trum 
bulPs  word.  If  you  have  ever  studied  geometry,  you  remember  that 
by  a  course  of  reasoning  Euclid  proves  that  all  the  angles  in  a  tri 
angle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles.  Euclid  has  shown  you  how  to 
work  it  out.  Now,  if  you  undertake  to  disprove  that  proposition,  and 
to  show  that  it  is  erroneous,  would  you  prove  it  to  be  false  by  calling 
Euclid  a  liar  ?  They  tell  me  that  my  time  is  out,  and  therefore  I  close* 

September  25,  1858. —  ORDER  FOR  FURNITURE. 

My  old  friend  Henry  Chew,  the  bearer  of  this,  is  in  a  strait  for 
some  furniture  to  commence  housekeeping.  If  any  person  will  fur 
nish  him  twenty-five  dollars'  worth,  and  he  does  not  pay  for  it  by  the 
1st  of  January  next,  I  will. 

September  25, 1858.  A.  LINCOLN. 

URBANA,  February  16, 1859. 
HON.  A.  LINCOLN,  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS. 

My  dear  Friend:  I  herewith  inclose  your  order  which  you  gave  your 
friend  Henry  Chew.  You  will  please  send  me  a  draft  for  the  same  and 
oblige  yours, 

S.  LITTLE. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          413 


[October  1,  1858"?] — FRAGMENT.    NOTES  FOR  SPEECHES. 

But  there  is  a  larger  issue  than  the  mere  question  of  whether 
the  spread  of  negro  slavery  shall  or  shall  not  be  prohibited  by  Con 
gress.  That  larger  issue  is  stated  by  the  Richmond  "  Enquirer,"  a 
Buchanan  paper  in  the  South,  in  the  language  I  now  read.  It  is  also 
stated  by  the  New  York  "  Day-book,"  a  Buchanan  paper  in  the  North, 
in  this  language. —  And  in  relation  to  indigent  white  children,  the 
same  Northern  paper  says. —  In  support  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  on  its 
first  discussion  in  the  Senate,  Senator  Pettit  of  Indiana  declared  the 
equality  of  men,  as  asserted  in  our  Declaration  of  Independence,  to 
be  a  "  self-evident  lie."  In  his  numerous  speeches  now  being  made 
in  Illinois,  Senator  Douglas  regularly  argues  against  the  doctrine  of 
the  equality  of  men ;  and  while  he  does  not  draw  the  conclusion  that 
the  superiors  ought  to  enslave  the  inferiors,  he  evidently  wishes  his 
hearers  to  draw  that  conclusion.  He  shirks  the  responsibility  of 
pulling  the  house  down,  but  he  digs  under  it  that  it  may  fall  of  its 
own  weight.  Now,  it  is  impossible  to  not  see  that  these  newspapers 
and  senators  are  laboring  at  a  common  object,  and  in  so  doing  are 
truly  representing  the  controlling  sentiment  of  their  party. 

It  is  equally  impossible  to  not  see  that  that  common  object  is  to  sub 
vert,  in  the  public  mind,  and  in  practical  administration,  our  old  and 
only  standard  of  free  government,  that  "  all  men  are  created  equal," 
and  to  substitute  for  it  some  different  standard.  What  that  substi 
tute  is  to  be  is  not  difficult  to  perceive.  It  is  to  deny  the  equality 
of  men,  and  to  assert  the  natural,  moral,  and  religious  right  of  one 
class  to  enslave  another. 

[October  1,  1858  ?] — FRAGMENT.    NOTES  FOR  SPEECHES. 

Suppose  it  is  true  that  the  negro  is  inferior  to  the  white  in  the 

fts  of  nature;  is  it  not  the  exact  reverse  of  justice  that  the  white 
mid  for  that  reason  take  from  the  negro  any  part  of  the  little 
which  he  has  had  given  him?    "Give  to  him  that  is  needy"  is  the 
Christian  rule  of  charity;  but  "Take  from  him  that  is  needy"  is 
the  rule  of  slavery. 

Pro-slavery  Theology. 

The  sum  of  pro-slavery  theology  seems  to  be  this:  "Slavery  is  not 
universally  right,  nor  yet  universally  wrong;  it  is  better  for  some 
people  to  be  slaves;  and,  in  such  cases,  it  is  the  will  of  God  that 
they  be  such." 

Certainly  there  is  no  contending  against  the  will  of  God;  but  still 
there  is  some  difficulty  in  ascertaining  and  applying  it  to  particular 
cases.  For  instance,  we  will  suppose  the  Rev.  Dr.  Ross  has  a  slave 
named  Sambo,  and  the  question  is,  "Is  it  the  will  of  God  that  Sambo 
shall  remain  a  slave,  or  be  set  free  ?"  The  Almighty  gives  no  audible 
answer  to  the  question,  and  his  revelation,  the  Bible,  gives  none  — 
or  at  most  none  but  such  as  admits  of  a  squabble  as  to  its  mean 
ing;  no  one  thinks  of  asking  Sambo's  opinion  on  it.  So  at  last  it 


414          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

comes  to  this,  that  Dr.  Ross  is  to  decide  the  question;  and  while  he 
considers  it,  he  sits  in  the  shade,  with  gloves  on  his  hands,  and  sub 
sists  on  the  bread  that  Sambo  is  earning  in  the  burning  sun.  If  he 
decides  that  God  wills  Sambo  to  continue  a  slave,  he  thereby  retains 
his  own  comfortable  position;  but  if  he  decides  that  God  wills 
Sambo  to  be  free,  he  thereby  has  to  walk  out  of  the  shade,  throw 
off  his  gloves,  and  delve  for  his  own  bread.  Will  Dr.  Ross  be 
actuated  by  the  perfect  impartiality  which  has  ever  been  considered 
most  favorable  to  correct  decisions  ? 

[October  1,  1858?]— FRAGMENT.    NOTES  FOR  SPEECHES. 

At  Freeport  I  propounded  four  distinct  interrogations  to  Judge 
Douglas,  all  which  he  assumed  to  answer.  I  say  he  assumed  to  an 
swer  them ;  for  he  did  not  very  distinctly  answer  any  of  them. 

To  the  first,  which  is  in  these  words,  "  If  the  people  of  Kansas 
shall,  by  means  entirely  unobjectionable  in  all  other  respects,  adopt 
a  State  constitution,  and  ask  admission  into  the  Union  under  it,  be 
fore  they  have  the  requisite  number  of  inhabitants  according  to  the 
English  bill, — some  ninety-three  thousand, — will  you  vote  to  admit 
them?"  the  judge  did  not  answer  "Yes"  or  "No,"  "I  would"  or 
"  I  would  not,"  nor  did  he  answer  in  any  other  such  distinct  way. 
But  he  did  so  answer  that  I  infer  he  would  vote  for  the  admission  of 
Kansas  in  the  supposed  case  stated  in  the  interrogatory — that,  other 
objections  out  of  the  way,  he  would  vote  to  admit  Kansas  before  she 
had  the  requisite  population  according  to  the  English  bill.  I  men 
tion  this  now  to  elicit  an  assurance  that  I  correctly  understood  the 
judge  on  this  point. 

To  my  second  interrogatory,  which  is  in  these  words,  "Can  the 
people  of  a  United  States  Territory,  in  any  lawful  way,  against  the 
wish  of  any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery  from  their 
limits,  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  State  constitution!"  the  judge 
answers  that  they  can,  and  he  proceeds  to  show  how  they  can  exclude 
it.  The  how,  as  he  gives  it,  is  by  withholding  friendly  legislation 
and  adopting  unfriendly  legislation.  As  he  thinks,  the  people  still 
can,  by  doing  nothing  to  help  slavery  and  by  a  little  unfriendly  lean 
ing  against  it,  exclude  it  from  their  limits.  This  is  his  position.  This 
position  and  the  Dred  Scott  decision  are  absolutely  inconsistent. 
The  judge  furiously  indorses  the  Dred  Scott  decision;  and  that  de 
cision  holds  that  the  United  States  Constitution  guarantees  to  the 
citizens  of  the  United  States  the  right  to  hold  slaves  in  the  Terri 
tories,  and  that  neither  Congress  nor  a  territorial  legislature  can  de 
stroy  or  abridge  that  right.  In  the  teeth  of  this,  where  can  the  judge 
find  room  for  his  unfriendly  legislation  against  their  right  ?  The 
members  of  a  territorial  legislature  are  sworn  to  support  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States.  How  dare  they  legislate  unfriendlily 
to  a  right  guaranteed  by  that  Constitution  ?  And  if  they  should, 
how  quickly  would  the  courts  hold  their  work  to  be  unconstitu 
tional  and  void!  But  doubtless  the  judge's  chief  reliance  to  sustain 
his  proposition  that  the  people  can  exclude  slavery,  is  based  upon 
non-action — upon  withholding  friendly  legislation.  But  can  mem- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          415 

bers  of  a  territorial  legislature,  having  sworn  to  support  the  United 
States  Constitution,  conscientiously  withhold  necessary  legislative 
protection  to  a  right  guaranteed  by  that  Constitution  ? 

Again,  will  not  the  courts,  without  territorial  legislation,  find  a 
remedy  for  the  evasion  of  a  right  guaranteed  by  the  United  States 
Constitution J?  It  is  a  maxim  of  the  courts  that  "there  is  no  right 
without  a  remedy."  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  non-action,  both  legis 
lative  and  judicial,  will  not  exclude  slavery  from  any  place.  It  is 
of  record  that  Dred  Scott  and  his  family  were  held  in  actual  slavery 
in  Kansas  without  any  friendly  legislation  or  judicial  assistance.  It 
is  well  known  that  other  negroes  were  held  in  actual  slavery  at  the 
military  post  in  Kansas  under  precisely  the  same  circumstances. 
This  was  not  only  done  without  any  friendly  legislation,  but  in 
direct  disregard  of  the  congressional  prohibition, — the  Missouri  Com 
promise, — then  supposed  to  be  valid,  thus  showing  that  it  requires 
positive  law  to  be  both  made  and  executed  to  keep  actual  slavery 
out  of  any  Territory  where  any  owner  chooses  to  take  it.  Slavery 
having  actually  gone  into  a  Territory  to  some  extent,  without  local 
legislation  in  its  favor,  and  against  congressional  prohibition,  how 
much  more  will  it  go  there  now  that  by  a  judicial  decision  that 
congressional  prohibition  is  swept  away,  and  the  constitutional  guar 
anty  of  property  declared  to  apply  to  slavery  in  the  Territories. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Slavery  was  originally  planted  on  this  conti 
nent  without  the  aid  of  friendly  legislation.  History  proves  this. 
After  it  was  actually  in  existence  to  a  sufficient  extent  to  become, 
in  some  sort,  a  public  interest,  it  began  to  receive  legislative  atten 
tion,  but  not  before.  How  futile,  then,  is  the  proposition  that  the 
people  of  a  Territory  can  exclude  slavery  by  simply  not  legislating 
in  its  favor.  Learned  disputants  use  what  they  call  the  argumentum 
ad  hominem — a  course  of  argument  which  does  not  intrinsically  reach 
the  issue,  but  merely  turns  the  adversary  against  himself.  There 
are  at  least  two  arguments  of  this  sort  which  may  easily  be  turned 
against  Judge  Douglas's  proposition  that  the  people  of  a  Territory 
can  lawfully  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits  prior  to  forming  a 
State  constitution:  In  his  report  of  the  12th  of  March,  1856,  on 
page  28,  Judge  Douglas  says :  "  The  sovereignty  of  a  Territory 
remains  in  abeyance,  suspended  in  the  United  States,  in  trust  for 
the  people,  until  they  shall  be  admitted  into  the  Union  as  a  State.'7 
If  so, —  if  they  have  no  active  living  sovereignty, —  how  can  they 
readily  enact  the  judge's  unfriendly  legislation  to  slavery  ? 

But  in  1856,  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  Judge  Trumbull  asked 
Judge  Douglas  the  direct  question,  "  Can  the  people  of  a  Territory 
exclude  slavery  prior  to  forming  a  State  constitution  ? n —  and  Judge 
Douglas  answered,  "  That  is  a  question  for  the  Supreme  Court."  I 
think  he  made  the  same  answer  to  the  same  question  more  than 
once.  But  now,  when  the  Supreme  Court  has  decided  that  the  peo 
ple  of  a  Territory  cannot  so  exclude  slavery,  Judge  Douglas  shifts 
his  ground,  saying  the  people  can  exclude  it,  and  thus  virtually 
saying  it  is  not  a  question  for  the  Supreme  Court. 

I  am  aware  Judge  Douglas  avoids  admitting  in  direct  terms  that 
the  Supreme  Court  have  decided  against  the  power  of  the  people  of 


416          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

a  Territory  to  exclude  slavery.  He  also  avoids  saying  directly  that 
they  have  not  so  decided  j  but  he  labors  to  leave  the  impression  that 
he  thinks  they  have  not  so  decided.  For  instance,  in  his  Springfield 
speech  of  July  17,  1858,  Judge  Douglas,  speaking  of  me,  says:  "He 
infers  that  it  [the  court]  would  decide  that  the  territorial  legislatures 
could  not  prohibit  slavery.  I  will  not  stop  to  inquire  whether  the 
courts  will  carry  the  decision  that  far  or  not.'7  The  court  has  already 
carried  the  decision  exactly  that  far,  and  I  must  say  I  think  Judge 
Douglas  very  well  knows  it  has.  After  stating  that  Congress  cannot 
prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territories,  the  court  adds :  "And  if  Congress 
itself  cannot  do  this,  if  it  be  beyond  the  powers  conferred  on  the 
Federal  Government,  it  will  be  admitted,  we  presume,  that  it  could 
not  authorize  a  territorial  government  to  exercise  them,  it  could 
confer  no  power  on  any  local  government,  established  by  its  author 
ity,  to  violate  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution." 

Can  any  mortal  man  misunderstand  this  language?  Does  not 
Judge  Douglas  equivocate  when  he  pretends  not  to  know  that  the 
Supreme  Court  has  decided  that  the  people  of  a  Territory  cannot 
exclude  slavery  prior  to  forming  a  State  constitution  ? 

My  third  interrogatory  to  the  judge  is  in  these  words :  "If  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States  shall  decide  that  States  cannot 
exclude  slavery  from  their  limits,  are  you  in  favor  of  acquiescing  in, 
adopting,  and  following  such  decision  as  a  rule  of  political  action  ? " 
To  this  question  the  judge  gives  no  answer  whatever.  He  dis 
poses  of  it  by  an  attempt  to  ridicule  the  idea  that  the  Supreme 
Court  will  ever  make  such  a  decision.  When  Judge  Douglas  is  drawn 
up  to  a  distinct  point,  there  is  significance  in  all  he  says,  and  in  all 
he  omits  to  say.  In  this  case  he  will  not,  on  the  one  hand,  face  the 
people  and  declare  he  will  support  such  decision  when  made,  nor  on 
the  other  will  he  trammel  himself  by  saying  he  will  not  support  it. 

Now  I  propose  to  show,  in  the  teeth  of  Judge  Douglas's  ridicule, 
that  such  a  decision  does  logically  and  necessarily  follow  the  Dred 
Scott  decision.  In  that  case  the  court  holds  that  Congress  can  legis 
late  for  the  Territories  in  some  respects,  and  in  others  it  cannot ; 
that  it  cannot  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territories,  because  to  do  so 
would  infringe  the  "  right  of  property  "  guaranteed  to  the  citizen  by 
the  fifth  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  which  provides  that  "no 
person  shall  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property  without  due  pro 
cess  of  law."  Unquestionably  there  is  such  a  guaranty  in  the  Con 
stitution,  whether  or  not  the  court  rightfully  apply  it  in  this  case. 
I  propose  to  show,  beyond  the  power  of  quibble,  that  that  guaranty 
applies  with  all  the  force,  if  not  more,  to  States  that  it  does  to  Ter 
ritories.  The  answers  to  two  questions  fix  the  whole  thing:  to 
whom  is  this  guaranty  given  ?  and  against  whom  does  it  protect 
those  to  whom  it  is  given  ?  The  guaranty  makes  no  distinction  be 
tween  persons  in  the  States  and  those  in  the  Territories ;  it  is  given 
to  persons  in  the  States  certainly  as  much  as,  if  not  more  than,  to 
those  in  the  Territories.  "  No  person,"  under  the  shadow  of  the  Con 
stitution,  "  shall  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property  without  due 
process  of  law." 

Against  whom  does  this  guaranty  protect  the  rights  of  prop- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN         417 

erty?  Not  against  Congress  alone,  but  against  the  world — against 
State  constitutions  and  laws,  as  well  as  against  acts  of  Congress. 
The  United  States  Constitution  is  the  supreme  law  of  the  land  j  this 
guaranty  of  property  is  expressly  given  in  that  Constitution,  in  that 
supreme  law ;  and  no  State  constitution  or  law  can  override  it.  It 
is  not  a  case  where  power  over  the  subject  is  reserved  to  the  States, 
because  it  is  not  expressly  given  to  the  General  Government;  it  is  a 
case  where  the  guaranty  is  expressly  given  to  the  individual  citizen, 
in  and  by  the  organic  law  of  the  General  Government ;  and  the  duty 
of  maintaining  that  guaranty  is  imposed  upon  that  General  Govern 
ment,  overriding  all  obstacles. 

The  following  is  the  article  of  the  Constitution  containing  the 
guaranty  of  property  upon  which  the  Dred  Scott  decision  is  based : 

ARTICLE  V.  No  person  shall  be  held  to  answer  for  a  capital  or  otherwise 
infamous  crime,  unless  on  a  presentment  or  indictment  by  a  grand  jury, 
except  in  cases  arising  in  the  land  or  naval  forces,  or  in  the  militia  when  in 
actual  service,  in  time  of  war  or  public  danger  j  nor  shall  any  person  be 
subject  for  the  same  offense  to  be  twice  put  in  jeopardy  of  life  or  limb  j  nor 
shall  be  compelled,  in  any  criminal  case,  to  be  a  witness  against  himself,  nor 
be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property  without  due  process  of  law ;  nor 
shall  private  property  be  taken  for  public  use  without  just  compensation. 

Suppose,  now,  a  provision  in  a  State  constitution  should  negative 
all  the  above  propositions,  declaring  directly  or  substantially  that 
"  any  person  may  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property  without 
due  process  of  law,"  a  direct  contradiction  —  collision  —  would  be 
pronounced  between  the  United  States  Constitution  and  such  State 
constitution.  And  can  there  be  any  doubt  but  that  which  is  declared 
to  be  the  supreme  law  would  prevail  over  the  other  to  the  extent  of 
the  collision  !  Such  State  constitution  would  be  unconstitutional. 

There  is  no  escape  from  this  conclusion  but  in  one  way,  and  that 
is  to  deny  that  the  Supreme  Court,  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  properly 
applies  this  constitutional  guaranty  of  property.  The  Constitution 
itself  impliedly  admits  that  a  person  may  be  deprived  of  property  by 
"due  process  of  law,"  and  the  Republicans  hold  that  if  there  be  a  law 
of  Congress  or  territorial  legislature  telling  the  slaveholder  in  ad 
vance  that  he  shall  not  bring  his  slave  into  the  Territory  upon  pain 
of  forfeiture,  and  he  still  will  bring  him,  he  will  be  deprived  of  his 
property  in  such  slave  by  "due  process  of  law."  And  the  same 
would  be  true  in  the  case  of  taking  a  slave  into  a  State  against  a 
State  constitution  or  law  prohibiting  slavery. 

[October  1,  1858 !] — FRAGMENT.    NOTES  FOR  SPEECHES. 

.  .  .  When  Douglas  ascribes  such  to  me,  he  does  so,  not  by 
argument,  but  by  mere  burlesques  on  the  art  and  name  of  argument — 
by  such  fantastic  arrangements  of  words  as  prove  "horse-chestnuts 
to  be  chestnut  horses."  In  the  main  I  shall  trust  an  intelligent  com 
munity  to  learn  my  objects  and  aims  from  what  I  say  and  do  myself, 
rather  than  from  what  Judge  Douglas  may  say  of  me.  But  I  must  not 
leave  the  judge  just  yet.  When  he  has  burlesqued  me  into  a  position 
VOL.  I.— 27. 


418          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

which  I  never  thought  of  assuming  myself,  he  will,  in  the  most 
benevolent  and  patronizing  manner  imaginable,  compliment  me  by 
saying  uhe  has  no  doubt  I  am  perfectly  conscientious  in  it."  I 
thank  him  for  that  word  "  conscientious."  It  turns  my  attention 
to  the  wonderful  evidences  of  conscience  he  manifests.  When  he 
assumes  to  be  the  first  discoverer  and  sole  advocate  of  the  right 
of  a  people  to  govern  themselves,  he  is  conscientious.  When  he 
affects  to  understand  that  a  man,  putting  a  hundred  slaves  through 
under  the  lash,  is  simply  governing  himself,  he  is  more  conscien 
tious.  When  he  affects  not  to  know  that  the  Dred  Scott  decision 
forbids  a  territorial  legislature  to  exclude  slavery,  he  is  most  con 
scientious.  When,  as  in  his  last  Springfield  speech,  he  declares  that 
I  say,  unless  I  shall  play  my  batteries  successfully,  so  as  to  abolish 
slavery  in  every  one  of  the  States,  the  Union  shall  be  dissolved,  he 
is  absolutely  bursting  with  conscience.  It  is  nothing  that  I  have 
never  said  any  such  thing.  With  some  men  it  might  make  a  differ 
ence;  but  consciences  differ  in  different  individuals.  Judge  Douglas 
has  a  greater  conscience  than  most  men.  It  corresponds  with  his 
other  points  of  greatness.  Judge  Douglas  amuses  himself  by  saying 
I  wish  to  go  into  the  Senate  on  my  qualifications  as  a  prophet.  He 
says  he  has  known  some  other  prophets,  and  does  not  think  very  well 
of  them.  Well,  others  of  us  have  also  known  some  prophets.  We 
know  one  who  nearly  five  years  ago  prophesied  that  the  'Nebraska 
bilP  would  put  an  end  to  slavery  agitation  in  next  to  no  time  — 
one  who  has  renewed  that  prophecy  at  least  as  often  as  quarter- 
yearly  ever  since;  and  still  the  prophecy  has  not  been  fulfilled.  That 
one  might  very  well  go  out  of  the  Senate  on  his  qualifications  as  a 
false  prophet. 

Allow  me  now,  in  my  own  way,  to  state  with  what  aims  and  objects 
I  did  enter  upon  this  campaign.  I  claim  no  extraordinary  exemption 
from  personal  ambition.  That  I  like  preferment  as  well  as  the  av 
erage  of  men  may  be  admitted.  But  I  protest  I  have  not  entered 
upon  this  hard  contest  solely,  or  even  chiefly,  for  a  merely  personal 
object.  I  clearly  see,  as  I  think,  a  powerful  plot  to  make  slavery 
universal  and  perpetual  in  this  nation.  The  effort  to  carry  that 
plot  through  will  be  persistent  and  long  continued,  extending  far 
beyond  the  senatorial  term  for  which  Judge  Douglas  and  I  are  just 
now  struggling.  I  enter  upon  the  contest  to  contribute  my  humble 
and  temporary  mite  in  opposition  to  that  effort. 

At  the  Republican  State  convention  at  Springfield  I  made  a  speech. 
That  speech  has  been  considered  the  opening  of  the  canvass  on  my 
part.  In  it  I  arranged  a  string  of  incontestable  facts  which,  I  think, 
prove  the  existence  of  a  conspiracy  to  nationalize  slavery.  The 
evidence  was  circumstantial  only ;  but  nevertheless  it  seemed  incon 
sistent  with  every  hypothesis,  save  that  of  the  existence  of  such  con 
spiracy.  I  believe  the  facts  can  be  explained  to-day  on  no  other 
hypothesis.  Judge  Douglas  can  so  explain  them  if  any  one  can. 
From  warp  to  woof  his  handiwork  is  everywhere  woven  in. 

At  New  York  he  finds  this  speech  of  mine,  and  devises  his  plan  of 
assault  upon  it.  At  Chicago  he  develops  that  plan.  Passing  over, 
unnoticed,  the  obvious  purport  of  the  whole  speech,  he  cooks  up  two 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          419 

or  three  issues  upon  points  not  discussed  by  me  at  all,  and  then  au 
thoritatively  announces  that  these  are  to  be  the  issues  of  the  cam 
paign.  Next  evening  I  answer,  assuring  him  that  he  misunderstands 
me — that  he  takes  issues  which  I  have  not  tendered.  In  good  faith 
I  try  to  set  him  right.  If  he  really  has  misunderstood  my  meaning, 
I  give  him  language  that  can  no  longer  be  misunderstood.  He  will 
have  none  of  it.  At  Bloomington,  six  days  later,  he  speaks  again,  and 
perverts  me  even  worse  than  before.  He  seems  to  have  grown  con 
fident  and  jubilant,  in  the  belief  that  he  has  entirely  diverted  me 
from  my  purpose  of  fixing  a  conspiracy  upon  him  and  his  co-workers. 
Next  day  he  speaks  again  at  Springfield,  pursuing  the  same  course, 
with  increased  confidence  and  recklessness  of  assertion.  At  night 
of  that  day  I  speak  again.  I  tell  him  that  as  he  has  carefully  read 
my  speech  making  the  charge  of  conspiracy,  and  has  twice  spoken 
of  the  speech  without  noticing  the  charge,  upon  his  own  tacit  admis 
sion  I  renew  the  charge  against  him.  I  call  him,  and  take  a  default 
upon  him.  At  Clinton,  ten  days  after,  he  comes  in  with  a  plea.  The 
substance  of  that  plea  is  that  he  never  passed  a  word  with  Chief 
Justice  Taney  as  to  what  his  decision  was  to  be  in  the  Dred  Scott 
case ;  that  I  ought  to  know  that  he  who  affirms  what  he  does  not 
know  to  be  true  falsifies  as  much  as  he  who  affirms  what  he  does 
know  to  be  false;  and  that  he  would  pronounce  the  whole  charge  of 
conspiracy  a  falsehood,  were  it  not  for  his  own  self-respect! 

Now  I  demur  to  this  plea.  Waiving  objection  that  it  was  not  filed 
till  after  default,  I  demur  to  it  on  the  merits.  I  say  it  does  not  meet 
the  case.  What  if  he  did  not  pass  a  word  with  Chief  Justice  Taney? 
Could  he  not  have  as  distinct  an  understanding,  and  play  his  part 
just  as  well,  without  directly  passing  a  word  with  Taney,  as  with  it? 
But  suppose  we  construe  this  part  of  the  plea  more  broadly  than  he 
puts  it  himself — suppose  we  construe  it,  as  in  an  answer  in  chancery, 
to  be  a  denial  of  all  knowledge,  information,  or  belief  of  such  con 
spiracy.  Still  I  have  the  right  to  prove  the  conspiracy,  even  against 
his  answer  •  and  there  is  much  more  than  the  evidence  of  two  wit 
nesses  to  prove  it  by.  Grant  that  he  has  no  knowledge,  information, 
or  belief  of  such  conspiracy,  and  what  of  it?  That  does  not  disturb 
the  facts  in  evidence.  It  only  makes  him  the  dupe,  instead  of  a 
principal,  of  conspirators. 

What  if  a  man  may  not  affirm  a  proposition  without  knowing  it 
to  be  true  ?  I  have  not  affirmed  that  a  conspiracy  does  exist,  I  have 
only  stated  the  evidence,  and  affirmed  my  belief  in  its  existence.  If 
Judge  Douglas  shall  assert  that  I  do  not.  believe  what  I  say,  then 
he  affirms  what  he  cannot  know  to  be  true,  and  falls  within  the  con 
demnation  of  his  own  rule. 

Would  it  not  be  much  better  for  him  to  meet  the  evidence,  and 
show,  if  he  can,  that  I  have  no  good  reason  to  believe  the  charge  ? 
Would  not  this  be  far  more  satisfactory  than  merely  vociferating  an 
intimation  that  he  may  be  provoked  to  call  somebo'dy  a  liar? 

So  far  as  I  know,  he  denies  no  fact  which  I  have  alleged.  With 
out  now  repeating  all  those  facts,  I  recall  attention  to  only  a  few  of 
them.  A  provision  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  penned  by  Judge  Douglas, 
is  in  these  words : 


420          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

It  being  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery 
into  any  Territory  or  State,  nor  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the  peo 
ple  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domestic  institutions 
in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

In  support  of  this  the  argument,  evidently  prepared  in  advance, 
went  forth :  "  Why  not  let  the  people  of  a  Territory  have  or  exclude 
slavery,  just  as  they  choose?  Have  they  any  less  sense  or  less  pa 
triotism  when  they  settle  in  the  Territories  than  when  they  lived  in 
the  States?" 

Now  the  question  occurs:  Did  Judge  Douglas,  even  then,  in 
tend  that  the  people  of  a  Territory  should  have  the  power  to  ex 
clude  slavery?  If  he  did,  why  did  he  vote  against  an  amendment 
expressly  declaring  they  might  exclude  it?  With  men  who  then 
knew  and  intended  that  a  Supreme  Court  decision  should  soon 
follow,  declaring  that  the  people  of  a  Territory  could  not  exclude 
slavery,  voting  down  such  an  amendment  was  perfectly  rational. 
But  with  men  not  expecting  or  desiring  such  a  decision,  and  really 
wishing  the  people  to  have  such  power,  voting  down  such  an  amend 
ment,  to  my  mind,  is  wholly  inexplicable. 

That  such  an  amendment  was  voted  down  by  the  friends  of  the 
bill,  including  Judge  Douglas,  is  a  recorded  fact  of  the  case.  There 
was  some  real  reason  for  so  voting  it  down.  What  that  reason  was, 
Judge  .Douglas  can  tell.  I  believe  that  reason  was  to  keep  the  way 
clear  for  a  court  decision,  then  expected  to  come,  and  which  has 
since  come,  in  the  case  of  Dred  Scott.  If  there  was  any  other  reason 
for  voting  down  that  amendment,  Judge  Douglas  knows  of  it  and 
can  tell  it  ?  Again,  in  the  before-quoted  part  of  the  Nebraska  bill, 
what  means  the  provision  that  the  people  of  the  "State"  shall  be 
left  perfectly  free,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution?  Congress  was 
not  therein  legislating  for,  or  about,  States  or  the  people  of  States. 
In  that  bill  the  provision  about  the  people  of  "  States"  is  the  odd 
half  of  something,  the  other  half  of  which  was  not  yet  quite  ready 
for  exhibition.  What  is  that  other  half  to  be?  Another  Supreme 
Court  decision,  declaring  that  the  people  of  a  State  cannot  exclude 
slavery,  is  exactly  fitted  to  be  that  other  half.  As  the  power  of  the 
people  of  the  Territories  and  of  the  States  is  cozily  set  down  in  the 
Nebraska  bill  as  being  the  same:  so  the  constitutional  limitations 
on  that  power  will  then  be  judicially  held  to  be  precisely  the  same 
in  both  Territories  and  States — that  is,  that  the  Constitution  per 
mits  neither  a  Territory  nor  a  State  to  exclude  slavery. 

With  persons  looking  forward  to  such  additional  decision,  the  in 
serting  a  provision  about  States  in  the  Nebraska  bill  was  perfectly 
rational ;  but  to  persons  not  looking  for  such  decision  it  was  a  puzzle. 
There  was  a  real  reason  for  inserting  such  provision.  Judge  Doug 
las  inserted  it,  and  therefore  knows,  and  can  tell,  what  that  real 
reason  was. 

Judge  Douglas's  present  course  by  no  means  lessens  my  belief 
in  the  existence  of  a  purpose  to  make  slavery  alike  lawful  in  all 
the  States.  This  can  be  done  by  a  Supreme  Court  decision  hold 
ing  that  the  United  States  Constitution  forbids  a  State  to  exclude 
slavery  5  and  probably  it  can  be  done  in  no  other  way.  The  idea  of 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          421 

forcing  slavery  into  a  free  State,  or  out  of  a  slave  State,  at  the  point 
of  the  bayonet,  is  alike  nonsensical.  Slavery  can  only  become  ex 
tinct  by  being  restricted  to  its  present  limits,  and  dwindling  out.  It 
can  only  become  national  by  a  Supreme  Court  decision.  To  such  a 
decision,  when  it  comes,  Judge  Douglas  is  fully  committed.  Such  a 
decision  acquiesced  in  by  the  people  effects  the  whole  object.  Bearing 
this  in  mind,  look  at  what  Judge  Douglas  is  doing  every  day.  For 
the  first  sixty-five  years  under  the  United  States  Constitution,  the 
practice  of  government  had  been  to  exclude  slavery  from  the  new 
free  Territories.  About  the  end  of  that  period  Congress,  by  the  Ne 
braska  bill,  resolved  to  abandon  this  practice ;  and  this  was  rapidly 
succeeded  by  a  Supreme  Court  decision  holding  the  practice  to  have 
always  been  unconstitutional.  Some  of  us  refuse  to  obey  this  deci 
sion  as  a  political  rule.  Forthwith  Judge  Douglas  espouses  the  de 
cision,  and  denounces  all  opposition  to  it  in  no  measured  terms.  He 
adheres  to  it  with  extraordinary  tenacity ;  and  under  rather  extra 
ordinary  circumstances.  He  espouses  it  not  on  any  opinion  of  his 
that  it  is  right  within  itself.  On  this  he  forbears  to  commit  himself. 
He  espouses  it  exclusively  on  the  ground  of  its  binding  authority  on 
all  citizens  —  a  ground  which  commits  him  as  fully  to  the  next  deci 
sion  as  to  this.  I  point  out  to  him  that  Mr.  Jefferson  and  General 
Jackson  were  both  against  him  on  the  binding  political  authority 
of  Supreme  Court  decisions.  No  response.  I  might  as  well  preach 
Christianity  to  a  grizzly  bear  as  to  preach  Jefferson  and  Jackson 
to  him. 

I  tell  him  I  have  often  heard  him  denounce  the  Supreme  Court 
decision  in  favor  of  a  national  bank.  He  denies  the  accuracy  of 
my  recollection — which  seems  strange  to  me,  but  I  let  it  pass. 

I  remind  him  that  he,  even  now,'  indorses  the  Cincinnati  platform, 
which  declares  that  Congress  has  no  constitutional  power  to  charter 
a  bank ;  and  that  in  the  teeth  of  a  Supreme  Court  decision  that 
Congress  has  such  power.  This  he  cannot  deny;  and  so  he  remem 
bers  to  forget  it. 

I  remind  him  of  a  piece  of  Illinois  history  about  Supreme  Court 
decisions  —  of  a  time  when  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  consisting 
of  four  judges,  because  of  one  decision  made,  and  one  expected  to  be 
made,  were  overwhelmed  by  the  adding  of  five  new  judges  to  their 
number ;  that  he,  Judge  Douglas,  took  a  leading  part  in  that  onslaught, 
ending  in  his  sitting  down  on  the  bench  as  one  of  the  five  added 
judges.  I  suggest  to  him  that  as  to  his  questions  how  far  judges 
have  to  be  catechized  in  advance,  when  appointed  under  such  cir 
cumstances,  and  how  far  a  court,  so  constituted,  is  prostituted 
beneath  the  contempt  of  all  men,  no  man  is  better  posted  to  answer 
than  he,  having  once  been  entirely  through  the  mill  himself. 

Still  no  response,  except  " Hurrah  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision!'7 
These  things  warrant  me  in  saying  that  Judge  Douglas  adheres  to 
the  Dred  Scott  decision  under  rather  extraordinary  circumstances  — 
circumstances  suggesting  the  question,  "  Why  does  he  adhere  to  it 
so  pertinaciously  J?  Why  does  he  thus  belie  his  whole  past  life  ? 
Why,  with  a  long  record  more  marked  for  hostility  to  judicial  deci 
sions  than  almost  any  living  man,  does  he  cling  to  this  with  a  devotion 


422         ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABBAHAM   LINCOLN 

that  nothing  can  baffle  ? "  In  this  age,  and  this  country,  public  senti 
ment  is  everything.  With  it,  nothing  can  fail ;  against  it,  nothing 
can  succeed.  Whoever  molds  public  sentiment  goes  deeper  than  he 
who  enacts  statutes  or  pronounces  judicial  decisions.  He  makes 
possible  the  enforcement  of  them,  else  impossible. 

Judge  Douglas  is  a  man  of  large  influence.  His  bare  opinion  goes 
far  to  fix  the  opinions  of  others.  Besides  this,  thousands  hang  their 
hopes  upon  forcing  their  opinions  to  agree  with  his.  It  is  a  party 
necessity  with  them  to  say  they  agree  with  him,  and  there  is  danger 
they  will  repeat  the  saying  till  they  really  come  to  believe  it.  Others 
dread,  and  shrink  from,  his  denunciations,  his  sarcasms,  and  his  in 
genious  misrepresentations.  The  susceptible  young  hear  lessons 
from  him,  such  as  their  fathers  never  heard  when  they  were  young. 

If,  by  all  these  means,  he  shall  succeed  in  molding  public  sen 
timent  to  a  perfect  accordance  with  his  own ;  in  bringing  all  men 
to  indorse  all  court  decisions,  without  caring  to  know  whether  they 
are  right  or  wrong  •  in  bringing  all  tongues  to  as  perfect  a  silence 
as  his  own,  as  to  there  being  any  wrong  in  slavery ;  in  bringing  all 
to  declare,  with  him,  that  they  care  not  whether  slavery  be  voted 
down  or  voted  up ;  that  if  any  people  want  slaves  they  have  a  right 
to  have  them  ;  that  negroes  are  not  men  j  have  no  part  in  the  Decla 
ration  of  Independence ;  that  there  is  no  moral  question  about  sla 
very;  that  liberty  and  slavery  are  perfectly  consistent  —  indeed, 
necessary  accompaniments ;  that  for  a  strong  man  to  declare  himself 
the  superior  of  a  weak  one,  and  thereupon  enslave  the  weak  one,  is 
the  very  essence  of  liberty,  the  most  sacred  right  of  self-government ; 
when,  I  say,  public  sentiment  shall  be  brought  to  all  this,  in  the 
name  of  Heaven  what  barrier  will  be  left  against  slavery  being  made 
lawful  everywhere  ?  Can  you  find  one  word  of  his  opposed  to  it  ? 
Can  you  not  find  many  strongly  favoring  it  ?  If  for  his  life,  for 
his  eternal  salvation,  he  was  solely  striving  for  that  end,  could  he 
find  any  means  so  well  adapted  to  reach  the  end  ? 

If  our  presidential  election,  by  a  mere  plurality,  and  of  doubtful 
significance,  brought  one  Supreme  Court  decision  that  no  power 
can  exclude  slavery  from  a  Territory,  how  much  more  shall  a  pub 
lic  sentiment,  in  exact  accordance  with  the  sentiments  of  Judge 
Douglas,  bring  another  that  no  power  can  exclude  it  from  a  State  ? 

And  then,  the  negro  being  doomed,  and  damned,  and  forgotten, 
to  everlasting  bondage,  is  the  white  man  quite  certain  that  the 
tyrant  demon  will  not  turn  upon  him  too  I 


[October  1,  1858?]  —  FRAGMENT.    NOTES  FOR  SPEECHES. 

From  time  to  time,  ever  since  the  Chicago  "  Times7'  and  "  Illinois 
State  Register "  declared  their  opposition  to  the  Lecompton  consti 
tution,  and  it  began  to  be  understood  that  Judge  Douglas  was  also 
opposed  to  it,  I  have  been  accosted  by  friends  of  his  with  the  ques 
tion,  "What  do  you  think  now?"  Since  the  delivery  of  his  speech 
in  the  Senate,  the  question  has  been  varied  a  little.  "  Have  you  read 
Douglas's  speech  1 "  "  Yes."  "  Well,  what  do  you  think  of  it  I »  In 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          423 

every  instance  the  question  is  accompanied  with  an  anxious  inquiring 
stare,  which  asks,  quite  as  plainly  as  words  could,  "  Can't  you  go  for 
Douglas  now?"  Like  boys  who  have  set  a  bird-trap,  they  are 
watching  to  see  if  the  birds  are  picking  at  the  bait  and  likely  to  go 
under. 

I  think,  then,  Judge  Douglas  knows  that  the  Republicans  wish 
Kansas  to  be  a  free  State.  He  knows  that  they  know,  if  the  ques 
tion  be  fairly  submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  people  of  Kansas,  it  will  be 
a  free  State;  and  he  would  not  object  at  all  if,  by  drawing  their  at 
tention  to  this  particular  fact,  and  himself  becoming  vociferous  for 
such  fair  vote,  they  should  be  induced  to  drop  their  own  organiza 
tion,  fall  into  rank  behind  him,  and  form  a  great  free-State  Demo 
cratic  party. 

But  before  Republicans  do  this,  I  think  they  ought  to  require  a 
few  questions  to  be  answered  on  the  other  side.  If  they  so  fall  in 
with  Judge  Douglas,  and  Kansas  shall  be  secured  as  a  free  State, 
there  then  remaining  no  cause  of  difference  between  him  and  the 
regular  Democracy,  will  not  the  Republicans  stand  ready,  haltered 
and  harnessed,  to  be  handed  over  by  him  to  the  regular  Democracy, 
to  filibuster  indefinitely  for  additional  slave  territory, —  to  carry 
slavery  into  all  the  States,  as  well  as  Territories,  under  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  construed  and  enlarged  from  time  to  time,  according 
to  the  demands  of  the  regular  slave  Democracy, —  and  to  assist  in  re 
viving  the  African  slave-trade  in  order  that  all  may  buy  negroes 
where  they  can  be  bought  cheapest,  as  a  clear  incident  of  that 
"  sacred  right  of  property,"  now  held  in  some  quarters  to  be  above 
all  constitutions? 

By  so  falling  in,  will  we  not  be  committed  to  or  at  least  compro- 
mitted  with,  the  Nebraska  policy?  If  so,  we  should  remember  that 
Kansas  is  saved,  not  by  that  policy  or  its  authors,  but  in  spite  of  both 
—  by  an  effort  that  cannot  be  kept  up  in  future  cases. 

Did  Judge  Douglas  help  any  to  get  a  free-State  majority  into  Kan 
sas  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it —  the  exact  contrary.  Does  he  now  express  any 
wish  that  Kansas,  or  any  other  place,  shall  be  free  ?  Nothing  like  it. 
He  tells  us,  in  this  very  speech,  expected  to  be  so  palatable  to  Re 
publicans,  that  he  cares  not  whether  slavery  is  voted  down  or  voted 
up.  His  whole  effort  is  devoted  to  clearing  the  ring,  and  giving 
slavery  and  freedom  a  fair  fight.  With  one  who  considers  slavery 
just  as  good  as  freedom,  this  is  perfectly  natural  and  consistent. 
But  have  Republicans  any  sympathy  with  such  a  view  ?  They  think 
slavery  is  wrong;  and  that,  like  every  other  wrong  which  some  men 
will  commit  if  left  alone,  it  ought  to  be  prohibited  by  law.  They 
consider  it  not  only  morally  wrong,  but  a  "deadly  poison"  in  a 
government  like  ours,  professedly  based  on  the  equality  of  men. 
Upon  this  radical  difference  of  opinion  with  Judge  Douglas,  the 
Republican  party  was  organized.  There  is  all  the  difference  between 
him  and  them  now  that  there  ever  was.  He  will  not  say  that  he 
has  changed;  have  you? 

Again,  we  ought^to  be  informed  as  to  Judge  Douglas's  present 
opinion  as  to  the  inclination  of  Republicans  to  marry  with  negroes. 
By  his  Springfield  speech  we  know  what  it  was  last  June ;  and  by  his 


424          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

resolution  dropped  at  Jacksonville  in  September  we  know  what  it 
was  then.  Perhaps  we  have  something  even  later  in  a  Chicago 
speech,  in  which  the  danger  of  being  "  stunk  out  of  church  "  was 
descanted  upon.  But  what  is  his  opinion  on  the  point  now  ?  There 
is,  or  will  be,  a  sure  sign  to  judge  by.  If  this  charge  shall  be  silently 
dropped  by  the  judge  and  his  friends,  if  no  more  resolutions  on  the 
subject  shall  be  passed  in  Douglas  Democratic  meetings  and  con 
ventions,  it  will  be  safe  to  swear  that  he  is  courting.  Our  "witch 
ing  smile"  has  " caught  his  youthful  fancy";  and  henceforth  Cuffy 
and  he  are  rival  beaux  for  our  gushing  affections. 

We  also  ought  to  insist  on  knowing  what  the  judge  now  thinks 
on  tl Sectionalism."  Last  year  he  thought  it  was  a  "clincher" 
against  us  on  the  question  of  Sectionalism,  that  we  could  get  no 
support  in  the  slave  States,  and  could  not  be  allowed  to  speak,  or 
even  breathe,  south  of  the  Ohio  River.  In  vain  did  we  appeal  to 
the  justice  of  our  principles.  He  would  have  it  that  the  treatment 
we  received  was  conclusive  evidence  that  we  deserved  it.  He  and 
his  friends  would  bring  speakers  from  the  slave  States  to  their  meet 
ings  and  conventions  in  the  free  States,  and  parade  about,  arm  in 
arm  with  them, breathing  in  every  gesture  and  tone, "  How  we  national 
apples  do  swim ! "  Let  him  cast  about  for  this  particular  evidence  of 
his  own  nationality  now.  Why,  just  now,  he  and  Fremont  would 
make  the  closest  race  imaginable  in  the  Southern  States. 

In  the  present  aspect  of  affairs  what  ought  the  Republicans  to  do  ? 
I  think  they  ought  not  to  oppose  any  measure  merely  because  Judge 
Douglas  proposes  it.  Whether  the  Lecompton  constitution  should 
be  accepted  or  rejected  is  a  question  upon  which,  in  the  minds  of 
men  not  committed  to  any  of  its  antecedents,  and  controlled  only  by 
the  Federal  Constitution,  by  republican  principles,  and  by  a  sound 
morality,  it  seems  to  me  there  could  not  be  two  opinions.  It  should 
be  throttled  and  killed  as  hastily  and  as  heartily  as  a  rabid  dog. 
What  those  should  do  who  are  committed  to  all  its  antecedents  is 
their  business,  not  ours.  If,  therefore.  Judge  Douglas's  bill  secures 
a  fair  vote  to  the  people  of  Kansas,  without  contrivance  to  commit 
any  one  farther,  I  think  Republican  members  of  Congress  ought  to 
support  it.  They  can  do  so  without  any  inconsistency.  They  believe 
Congress  ought  to  prohibit  slavery  wherever  it  can  be  done  with 
out  violation  of  the  Constitution  or  of  good  faith.  And  having  seen 
the  noses  counted,  and  actually  knowing  that  a  majority  of  the 

Eeople  of  Kansas  are  against  slavery,  passing  an  act  to  secure  them  a 
lir  vote  is  little  else  than  prohibiting  slavery  in  Kansas  by  act  of 
Congress. 

Congress  cannot  dictate  a  constitution  to  a  new  State.  All  it  can 
do  at  that  point  is  to  secure  the  people  a  fair  chance  to  form  one  for 
themselves,  and  then  to  accept  or  reject  it  when  they  ask  admission 
into  the  Union.  As  I  understand,  Republicans  claim  no  more  than 
this.  But  they  do  claim  that  Congress  can  and  ought  to  keep 
slavery  out  of  a  Territory,  up  to  the  time  of  its  people  forming  a 
State  constitution ;  and  they  should  now  be  careful  to  not  stultify 
themselves  to  any  extent  on  that  point. 

I  am  glad  Judge  Douglas  has,  at  last,  distinctly  told  us  that  he 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          425 

cares  not  whether  slavery  be  voted  down  or  voted  up.  Not  so 
much  that  this  is  any  news  to  me ;  nor  yet  that  it  may  be  slightly 
new  to  some  of  that  class  of  his  friends  who  delight  to  say  that  they 
"  are  as  much  opposed  to  slavery  as  anybody."  I  am  glad  because 
it  affords  such  a  true  and  excellent  definition  of  the  Nebraska 
policy  itself.  That  policy,  honestly  administered,  is  exactly  that. 
It  seeks  to  bring  the  people  of  the  nation  to  not  care  anything 
about  slavery.  This  is  Nebraskaism  in  its  abstract  purity — in  its 
very  best  dress. 

Now,  I  take  it,  nearly  everybody  does  care  something  about  sla 
very — is  either  for  it  or  against  it;  and  that  the  statesmanship  of 
a  measure  which  conforms  to  the  sentiments  of  nobody  might  well 
be  doubted  in  advance. 

But  Nebraskaism  did  not  originate  as  a  piece  of  statesmanship. 
General  Cass,  in  1848,  invented  it,  as  a  political  manoeuver,  to  secure 
himself  the  Democratic  nomination  for  the  presidency.  It  served 
its  purpose  then,  and  sunk  out  of  sight.  Six  years  later  Judge 
Douglas  fished  it  up,  and  glozed  it  over  with  what  he  called,  and  still 
persists  in  calling,  "  sacred  rights  of  self-government." 

Well,  I,  too,  believe  in  self-government  as  I  understand  it;  but 
I  do  not  understand  that  the  privilege  one  man  takes  of  making  a 
slave  of  another,  or  holding  him  as  such,  is  any  part  of  "  self-govern 
ment."  To  call  it  so  is,  to  my  mind,  simply  absurd  and  ridiculous. 
I  am  for  the  people  of  the  whole  nation  doing  just  as  they  please 
in  all  matters  which  concern  the  whole  nation ;  for  those  of  each 
part  doing  just  as  they  choose  in  all  matters  which  concern  no  other 
part ;  and  for  each  individual  doing  just  as  he  chooses  in  all  mat 
ters  which  concern  nobody  else.  This  is  the  principle.  Of  course 
I  am  content  with  any  exception  which  the  Constitution,  or  the 
actually  existing  state  of  things,  makes  a  necessity.  But  neither 
the  principle  nor  the  exception  will  admit  the  indefinite  spread  and 
perpetuity  of  human  slavery. 

I  think  the  true  magnitude  of  the  slavery  element  in  this  nation 
is  scarcely  appreciated  by  any  one.  Four  years  ago  the  Nebraska 
policy  was  adopted,  professedly,  to  drive  the  agitation  of  the  sub 
ject  into  the  Territories,  and  out  of  every  other  place,  and  especially 
out  of  Congress. 

When  Mr.  Buchanan  accepted  the  presidential  nomination,  he 
felicitated  himself  with  the  belief  that  the  whole  thing  would  be 
quieted  and  forgotten  in  about  six  weeks.  In  his  inaugural,  and  in 
his  Silliman  letter,  at  their  respective  dates,  he  was  just  not  quite 
in  reach  of  the  same  happy  consummation.  And  now,  in  his  first 
annual  message,  he  urges  the  acceptance  of  the  Lecompton  constitu 
tion  (not  quite  satisfactory  to  him)  on  the  sole  ground  of  getting 
this  little  unimportant  matter  out  of  the  way. 

Meanwhile,  in  those  four  years,  there  has  really  been  more  angry 
agitation  of  this  subject,  both  in  and  out  of  Congress,  than  ever 
before.  And  just  now  it  is  perplexing  the  mighty  ones  as  no  sub 
ject  ever  did  before.  Nor  is  it  confined  to  politics  alone.  Presby 
terian  assemblies,  Methodist  conferences,  Unitarian  gatherings,  and 
single  churches  to  an  indefinite  extent,  are  wrangling,  and  cracking, 


426          ADDRESSES   AND  LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

and  going  to  pieces  on  the  same  question.     Why,  Kansas  is  neither 
the  whole  nor  a  tithe  of  the  real  question. 

A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand. 

I  believe  the  government  cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave 
and  half  free.  I  expressed  this  belief  a  year  ago  j  and  subsequent 
developments  have  but  confirmed  me.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to 
be  dissolved.  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall ;  but  I  do  expect  it 
will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the 
other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further 
spread  of  it,  and  put  it  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction ;  or  its 
advocates  will  push  it  forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all 
the  States,  old  as  well  as  new.  Do  you  doubt  it  ?  Study  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  and  then  see  how  little  even  now  remains  to  be  done. 
That  decision  may  be  reduced  to  three  points.  The  first  is  that  a 
negro  cannot  be  a  citizen.  That  point  is  made  in  order  to  deprive 
the  negro,  in  every  possible  event,  of  the  benefit  of  that  provision  of 
the  United  States  Constitution  which  declares  that  "the  citizens 
of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all  privileges  and  immunities  of 
citizens  in  the  several  States." 

The  second  point  is  that  the  United  States  Constitution  protects 
slavery,  as  property,  in  all  the  United  States  territories,  and  that 
neither  Congress,  nor  the  people  of  the  Territories,  nor  any  other 
power,  can  prohibit  it  at  any  time  prior  to  the  formation  of  State 
constitutions. 

This  point  is  made  in  order  that  the  Territories  may  safely  be 
filled  up  with  slaves,  before  the  formation  of  State  constitutions, 
thereby  to  embarrass  the  free-State  sentiment,  and  enhance  the 
chances  of  slave  constitutions  being  adopted. 

The  third  point  decided  is  that  the  voluntary  bringing  of  Dred 
Scott  into  Illinois  by  his  master,  and  holding  him  here  a  long  time 
as  a  slave,  did  not  operate  his  emancipation  —  did  not  make  him 
free. 

This  point  is  made,  not  to  be  pressed  immediately;  but  if  acqui 
esced  in  for  a  while,  then  to  sustain  the  logical  conclusion  that  what 
Dred  Scott's  master  might  lawfully  do  with  Dred  in  the  free  State 
of  Illinois,  every  other  master  may  lawfully  do  with  any  other  one  or 
one  hundred  slaves  in  Illinois,  or  in  any  other  free  State.  Auxiliary 
to  all  this,  and  working  hand  in  hand  with  it,  the  Nebraska  doctrine 
is  to  educate  and  mold  public  opinion  to  "  not  care  whether  slavery 
is  voted  up  or  voted  down."  At  least  Northern  public  opinion  must 
cease  to  care  anything  about  it.  Southern  public  opinion  may, 
without  offense,  continue  to  care  as  much  as  it  pleases. 

Welcome  or  unwelcome,  agreeable  or  disagreeable,  whether  this 
shall  be  an  entire  slave  nation  is  the  issue  before  us.  Every  inci 
dent  —  every  little  shifting  of  scenes  or  of  actors  —  only  clears  away 
the  intervening  trash,  compacts  and  consolidates  the  opposing  hosts, 
and  brings  them  more  and  more  distinctly  face  to  face.  The  conflict 
will  be  a  severe  one ;  and  it  will  be  fought  through  by  those  who  do 
care  for  the  result,  and  not  by  those  who  do  not  care — by  those  who 
are  for,  and  those  who  are  against,  a  legalized  national  slavery.  The 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN         427 

combined  charge  of  Nebraskaism  and  Dred-Scottism  must  be  re 
pulsed  and  rolled  back.  The  deceitful  cloak  of  "  self-government," 
wherewith  "the  sum  of  all  villanies"  seeks  to  protect  and  adorn  it 
self,  must  be  torn  from  its  hateful  carcass.  That  burlesque  upon 
judicial  decisions,  and  slander  and  profanation  upon  the  honored 
names  and  sacred  history  of  republican  America,  must  be  overruled 
and  expunged  from  the  books  of  authority. 

To  give  the  victory  to  the  right,  not  bloody  bullets,  but  peaceful 
ballots  only  are  necessary.  Thanks  to  our  good  old  Constitution, 
and  organization  under  it,  these  alone  are  necessary.  It  only  needs 
that  every  right  thinking  man  shall  go  to  the  polls,  and  without  fear 
or  prejudice  vote  as  he  thinks. 

October  7, 1858. — FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  GALESBURG,  ILLINOIS. 
Mr.  Douglas's  Opening  Speech. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen :  Four  years  ago  I  appeared  before  the 
people  of  Knox  County  for  the  purpose  of  defending  my  political 
action  upon  the  compromise  measures  of  1850  and  the  passage  of 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill.  Those  of  you  before  me  who  were 
present  then  will  remember  that  I  vindicated  myself  for  supporting 
those  two  measures  by  the  fact  that  they  rested  upon  the  great  funda 
mental  principle  that  the  people  of  each  State  and  each  Territory  of 
this  Union  have  the  right,  and  ought  to  be  permitted  to  exercise  the 
right,  of  regulating  their  own  domestic  concerns  in  their  own  way, 
subject  to  no  other  limitation  or  restriction  than  that  which  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  imposes  upon  them.  I  then  called 
upon  the  people  of  Illinois  to  decide  whether  that  principle  of  self- 
government  was  right  or  wrong.  If  it  was  and  is  right,  then  the 
compromise  measures  of  1850  were  right,  and,  consequently,  the 
Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill,  based  upon  the  same  principle,  must 
necessarily  have  been  right. 

The  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill  declared,  in  so  many  words,  that  it 
was  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  the  act  not  to  legislate  slavery 
into  any  State  or  Territory,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave 
the  people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domestic 
institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  For  the  last  four  years  I  have  devoted  all  my 
energies,  in  private  and  public,  to  commend  that  principle  to  the 
American  people.  Whatever  else  may  be  said  in  condemnation  or 
support  of  my  political  course,  I  apprehend  that  no  honest  man  will 
doubt  the  fidelity  with  which  under  all  circumstances  I  have  stood 
by  it. 

During  the  last  year  a  question  arose  in  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  whether  or  not  that  principle  would  be  violated  by 
the  admission  of  Kansas  into  the  Union  under  the  Lecompton  con 
stitution.  In  my  opinion,  the  attempt  to  force  Kansas  in  under  that 
constitution  was  a  gross  violation  of  the  principle  enunciated  in  the 
compromise  measures  of  1850,  and  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill 
of  1854,  and  therefore  I  led  off  in  the  fight  against  the  Lecompton 


428         ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

constitution,  and  conducted  it  until  the  effort  to  carry  that  constitu 
tion  through  Congress  was  abandoned.  And  I  can  appeal  to  all 
men,  friends  and  foes,  Democrats  and  Kepublicans,  Northern  men  and 
Southern  men,  that  during  the  whole  of  that  fight  I  carried  the  ban 
ner  of  popular  sovereignty  aloft,  and  never  allowed  it  to  trail  in  the 
dust,  or  lowered  my  flag  until  victory  perched  upon  our  arms.  When 
the  Lecompton  constitution  was  defeated,  the  question  arose  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  had  advocated  it  what  they  should  next  resort 
to  in  order  to  carry  out  their  views.  They  devised  a  measure  known 
as  the  English  bill,  and  granted  a  general  amnesty  and  political  par 
don  to  all  men  who  had  fought  against  the  Lecompton  constitution, 
provided  they  would  support  that  bill.  I  for  one  did  not  choose  to 
accept  the  pardon,  or  to  avail  myself  of  the  amnesty  granted  on  that 
condition.  The  fact  that  the  supporters  of  Lecompton  were  willing 
to  forgive  all  differences  of  opinion  at  that  time,  in  the  event  those 
who  opposed  it  favored  the  English  bill,  was  an  admission  that  they 
did  not  think  that  opposition  to  Lecompton  impaired  a  man's  stand 
ing  in  the  Democratic  party.  Now  the  question  arises :  What  was  that 
English  bill  which  certain  men  are  now  attempting  to  make  a  test  of 
political  orthodoxy  in  this  country.  It  provided,  in  substance,  that 
the  Lecompton  constitution  should  be  sent  back  to  the  people  of 
Kansas  for  their  adoption  or  rejection,  at  an  election  which  was  held 
in  August  last,  and  in  case  they  refused  admission  under  it,  that 
Kansas  should  be  kept  out  of  the  Union  until  she  had  93,420  in 
habitants. 

I  was  in  favor  of  sending  the  constitution  back  in  order  to  enable 
the  people  to  say  whether  or  not  it  was  their  act  and  deed,  and  em 
bodied  their  will;  but  the  other  proposition,  that  if  they  refused  to 
come  into  the  Union  under  it,  they  should  be  kept  out  until  they  had 
double  or  treble  the  population  they  then  had,  I  never  would  sanction 
by  my  vote.  The  reason  why  I  could  not  sanction  it  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  by  the  English  bill,  if  the  people  of  Kansas  had  only 
agreed  to  become  a  slaveholding  State  under  the  Lecompton  consti 
tution,  they  could  have  done  so  with  35,000  people,  but  if  they  in 
sisted  on  being  a  free  State,  as  they  had  a  right  to  do,  then  they  were 
to  be  punished  by  being  kept  out  of  the  Union  until  they  had  nearly 
three  times  that  population.  I  then  said  in  my  place  in  the  Senate, 
as  I  now  say  to  you,  that  whenever  Kansas  has  population  enough 
for  a  slave  State  she  has  population  enough  for  a  free  State.  I  have 
never  yet  given  a  vote,  and  I  never  intend  to  record  one,  making  an 
odious  and  unjust  distinction  between  the  different  States  of  this 
Union.  I  hold  it  to  be  a  fundamental  principle  in  our  republican 
form  of  government  that  all  the  States  of  this  Union,  old  and  new, 
free  and  slave,  stand  on  an  exact  equality.  Equality  among  the 
different  States  is  a  cardinal  principle  on  which  all  our  institutions 
rest.  Wherever,  therefore,  you  make  a  discrimination,  saying  to  a 
slave  State  that  it  shall  be  admitted  with  35,000  inhabitants,  and  to  a 
free  State  that  it  shall  not  be  admitted  until  it  has  93,000  or  100,000 
inhabitants,  you  are  throwing  the  whole  weight  of  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment  into  the  scale  in  favor  of  one  class  of  States  against  the 
other.  Nor  would  I  on  the  other  hand  any  sooner  sanction  the  doc- 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN          429 

trine  that  a  free  State  could  be  admitted  into  the  Union  with  35,000 
people,  while  a  slave  State  was  kept  out  until  it  had  93,000.  I  have 
always  declared  in  the  Senate  my  willingness,  and  I  am  willing  now, 
to  adopt  the  rule  that  no  Territory  shall  ever  become  a  State  until 
it  has  the  requisite  population  for  a  member  of  Congress,  according 
to  the  then  existing  ratio.  But  while  I  have  always  been,  and  am 
now,  willing  to  adopt  that  general  rule,  I  was  not  willing  and  would 
not  consent  to  make  an  exception  of  Kansas,  as  a  punishment  for  her 
obstinacy  in  demanding  the  right  to  do  as  she  pleased  in  the  forma 
tion  of  her  constitution.  It  is  proper  that  I  should  remark  here  that 
my  opposition  to  the  Lecompton  constitution  did  not  rest  upon  the 
peculiar  position  taken  by  Kansas  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  I  held 
then,  and  hold  now,  that  if  the  people  of  Kansas  want  a  slave  State, 
it  is  their  right  to  make  one  and  be  received  into  the  Union  under  it; 
if,  on  the  contrary,  they  want  a  free  State,  it  is  their  right  to  have  it, 
and  no  man  should  ever  oppose  their  admission  because  they  ask  it 
under  the  one  or  the  other.  I  hold  to  that  great  principle  of  self- 
government  which  asserts  the  right  of  every  people  to  decide  for 
themselves  the  nature  and  character  of  the  domestic  institutions  and 
fundamental  law  under  which  they  are  to  live. 

The  effort  has  been,  and  is  now  being,  made  in  this  State  by  cer 
tain  postmasters  and  other  federal  office-holders,  to  make  a  test  of 
faith  on  the  support  of  the  English  bill.  These  men  are  now  mak 
ing  speeches  all  over  the  State  against  me  and  in  favor  of  Lincoln, 
either  directly  or  indirectly,  because  I  would  not  sanction  a  dis 
crimination  between  slave  and  free  States  by  voting  for  the  English 
bill.  But  while  that  bill  is  made  a  test  in  Illinois  for  the  purpose  of 
breaking  up  the  Democratic  organization  in  this  State,  how  is  it  in 
the  other  States J?  Go  to  Indiana,  and  there  you  find  that  English  him 
self,  the  author  of  the  English  bill,  who  is  a  candidate  for  reelection 
to  Congress,  has  been  forced  by  public  opinion  to  abandon  his  own 
darling  project,  and  to  give  a  promise  that  he  will  vote  for  the  ad 
mission  of  Kansas  at  once,  whenever  she  forms  a  constitution  in 
pursuance  of  law,  and  ratines  it  by  a  majority  vote  of  her  people. 
Not  only  is  this  the  case  with  English  himself,  but  I  am  informed  that 
every  Democratic  candidate  for  Congress  in  Indiana  takes  the  same 
ground.  Pass  to  Ohio,  and  there  you  find  that  Groesbeck,  and  Pen- 
dleton,  and  Cox,  and  all  the  other  anti-Lecompton  men  who  stood 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  me  against  the  Lecompton  constitution, 
but  voted  for  the  English  bill,  now  repudiate  it  and  take  the  same 
ground  that  I  do  on  that  question.  So  it  is  with  the  Joneses  and 
others  of  Pennsylvania,  and  so  it  is  with  every  other  Lecompton 
Democrat  in  the  free  States. 

They  now  abandon  even  the  English  bill,  and  come  back  to  the 
true  platform  which  I  proclaimed  at  the  time  in  the  Senate,  and 
upon  which  the  Democracy  of  Illinois  now  stand.  And  yet,  not 
withstanding  the  fact  that  every  Lecompton  and  anti-Lecompton 
Democrat  in  the  free  States  has  abandoned  the  English  bill,  you  are 
told  that  it  is  to  be  made  a  test  upon  me,  while  the  power  and  pa 
tronage  of  the  government  are  all  exerted  to  elect  men  to  Congress 
in  the  other  States  who  occupy  the  same  position  with  reference  to 


430          ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN 

it  that  I  do.  It  seems  that  my  political  offense  consists  in  the  fact 
that  I  did  not  first  vote  for  the  English  bill,  and  thus  pledge  myself 
to  keep  Kansas  out  of  the  Union  until  she  has  a  population  of 
93,420,  and  then  return  home,  violate  that  pledge,  repudiate  the  bill, 
and  take  the  opposite  ground.  If  I  had  done  this,  perhaps  the  ad 
ministration  would  now  be  advocating  my  reelection,  as  it  is  that  of 
the  others  who  have  pursued  this  course.  I  did  not  choose  to  give 
that  pledge,  for  the  reason  that  I  did  not  intend  to  carry  out  that 
principle.  I  never  will  consent,  for  the  sake  of  conciliating  the  frowns 
of  power,  to  pledge  my  self  to  do  that  which  I  do  not  intend  to  perform. 
I  now  submit  the  question  to  you,  as  my  constituency,  whether  I  was 
not  right  —  first,  in  resisting  the  adoption  of  the  Lecompton  constitu 
tion  ;  and  secondly,  in  resisting  the  English  bill.  I  repeat  that  I  op 
posed  the  Lecompton  constitution  because  it  was  not  the  act  and  deed 
of  the  people  of  Kansas,  and  did  not  embody  their  will.  I  denied 
the  right  of  any  power  on  earth,  under  our  system  of  government, 
to  force  a  constitution  on  an  unwilling  people.  There  was  a  time 
when  some  men  could  pretend  to  believe  that  the  Lecompton  con 
stitution  embodied  the  will  of  the  people  of  Kansas,  but  that  time  has 
passed.  The  question  was  referred  to  the  people  of  Kansas  under  the 
English  bill  last  August,  and  then,  at  a  fair  election,  they  rejected  the 
Lecompton  constitution  by  a  vote  of  from  eight  to  ten  against  it  to 
one  in  its  favor.  Since  it  has  been  voted  down  by  so  overwhelming 
a  majority,  no  man  can  pretend  that  it  was  the  act  and  deed  of 
that  people.  I  submit  the  question  to  you,  whether  or  not,  if  it  had 
not  been  for  me,  that  constitution  would  have  been  crammed  down 
the  throats  of  the  people  of  Kansas  against  their  consent.  While 
at  least  ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  people  here  present  agree 
that  I  was  right  in  defeating  that  project,  yet  my  enemies  use  the 
fact  that  I  did  defeat  it  by  doing  right,  to  break  me  down  and  put 
another  man  in  the  United  States  Senate  in  my  place.  The  very 
men  who  acknowledge  that  I  was  right  in  defeating  Lecompton  now 
form  an  alliance  with  federal  office-holders,  professed  Lecompton 
men,  to  defeat  me  because  I  did  right. 

My  political  opponent,  Mr.  Lincoln,  has  no  hope  on  earth,  and  has 
never  dreamed  that  he  had  a  chance  of  success,  were  it  not  for  the 
aid  that  he  is  receiving  from  federal  office-holders,  who  are  using 
their  influence  and  the  patronage  of  the  government  against  me  in 
revenge  for  my  having  defeated  the  Lecompton  constitution.  What 
do  you  Republicans  think  of  apolitical  organization  that  will  try  to 
make  an  unholy  and  unnatural  combination  with  its  professed  foes 
to  beat  a  man  merely  because  he  has  done  right  ?  You  know  such 
is  the  fact  with  regard  to  your  own  party.  You  know  that  the  ax 
of  decapitation  is  suspended  over  every  man  in  office  in  Illinois,  and 
the  terror  of  proscription  is  threatened  every  Democrat  by  the 
present  administration,  unless  he  supports  the  Republican  ticket  in 
preference  to  my  Democratic  associates  and  myself.  I  could  find  an 
instance  in  the  postmaster  of  the  city  of  Galesburg,  and  in  every 
other  postmaster  in  this  vicinity,  all  of  whom  have  been  stricken 
down  simply  because  they  discharged  the  duties  of  their  offices 
honestly,  and  supported  the  regular  Democratic  ticket  in  this  State 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          431 

in  the  right.  The  Republican  party  is  availing  itself  of  every 
unworthy  means  in  the  present  contest  to  carry  the  election,  because 
its  leaders  know  that  if  they  let  this  chance  slip  they  will  never  have 
another,  and  their  hopes  of  making  this  a  Republican  State  will  be 
blasted  forever. 

Now,  let  me  ask  you  whether  the  country  has  any  interest  in  sus 
taining  this  organization  known  as  the  Republican  party.  That 
party  is  unlike  all  other  political  organizations  in  this  country.  All 
other  parties  have  been  national  in  their  character — have  avowed 
their  principles  alike  in  the  slave  and  free  States,  in  Kentucky  as 
well  as  Illinois,  in  Louisiana  as  well  as  in  Massachusetts.  Such  was 
the  case  with  the  Old  Whig  party,  and  such  was  and  is  the  case  with 
the  Democratic  party.  Whigs  and  Democrats  could  proclaim  their 
principles  boldly  and  fearlessly  in  the  North  and  in  the  South,  in  the 
East  and  in  the  West,  wherever  the  Constitution  ruled  and  the 
American  flag  waved  over  American  soil. 

But  now  you  have  a  sectional  organization,  a  part}7  which 
appeals  to  the  Northern  section  of  the  Union  against  the  South 
ern,  a  party  which  appeals  to  Northern  passion,  Northern  pride, 
Northern  ambition,  and  Northern  prejudices,  against  Southern 
people,  the  Southern  States,  and  Southern  institutions.  The  lead 
ers  of  that  party  hope  that  they  will  be  able  to  unite  the  Northern 
States  in  one  great  sectional  party,  and  inasmuch  as  the  North 
is  the  stronger  section,  that  they  will  thus  be  enabled  to  outvote, 
conquer,  govern,  and  control  the  South.  Hence  you  find  that  they 
now  make  speeches  advocating  principles  and  measures  which  can 
not  be  defended  in  any  slave-holding  State  of  this  Union.  Is  there 
a  Republican  residing  in  Galesburg  who  can  travel  into  Ken 
tucky,  and  carry  his  principles  with  him  across  the  Ohio  ?  What 
Republican  from  Massachusetts  can  visit  the  Old  Dominion  with 
out  leaving  his  principles  behind  him  when  he  crosses  Mason's 
and  Dixon's  line?  Permit  me  to  say  to  you  in  perfect  good  hu 
mor,  but  in  all  sincerity,  that  no  political  creed  is  sound  which 
cannot  be  proclaimed  fearlessly  in  every  State  of  this  Union  where 
the  Federal  Constitution  is  the  supreme  law  of  the  land.  Not  only 
is  this  Republican  party  unable  to  proclaim  its  principles  alike  in 
the  North  and  in  the  South,  in  the  free  States  and  in  the  slave  States, 
but  it  cannot  even  proclaim  them  in  the  same  forms  and  give  them 
the  same  strength  and  meaning  in  all  parts  of  the  same  State.  My 
friend  Lincoln  finds  it  extremely  difficult  to  manage  a  debate  in 
the  central  part  of  the  State,  where  there  is  a  mixture  of  men  from 
the  North  and  the  South.  In  the  extreme  northern  part  of  Illinois 
he  can  proclaim  as  bold  and  radical  Abolitionism  as  ever  Giddings, 
Lovejoy,  or  Garrison  enunciated;  but  when  he  gets  down  a  little 
further  south  he  claims  that  he  is  an  old-line  Whig,  a  disciple  of 
Henry  Clay,  and  declares  that  he  still  adheres  to  the  old-line  Whig 
creed,  and  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  Abolitionism,  or  negro 
equality,  or  negro  citizenship!  I  once  before  hinted  this  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  in  a  public  speech,  and  at  Charleston  he  defied  me  to  show 
that  there  was  any  difference  between  his  speeches  in  the  north  and 
in  the  south,  and  "that  they  were  not  in  strict  harmony.  I  will  now 


432          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN 

call  your  attention  to  two  of  them,  and  you  can  then  say  whether 
you  would  be  apt  to  believe  that  the  same  man  ever  uttered  both.  In 
a  speech  in  reply  to  me  at  Chicago  in  July  last,  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  speak 
ing  of  the  equality  of  the  negro  with  the  white  man,  used  the  following 
language : 

I  should  like  to  know  if,  taking  this  old  Declaration  of  Independence, 
which  declares  that  all  men  are  equal  upon  principle,  and  making  excep 
tions  to  it,  where  will  it  stop  ?  If  one  man  says  it  does  not  mean  a  negro, 
why  may  not  another  man  say  it  does  not  mean  another  man  ?  If  the  Decla 
ration  is  not  the  truth,  let  us  get  the  statute-book  in  which  we  find  it  and 
tear  it  out.  Who  is  so  bold  as  to  do  it  ?  If  it  is  not  true,  let  us  tear  it  out. 

You  find  that  Mr.  Lincoln  there  proposed  that  if  the  doctrine  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  declaring  all  men  to  be  born  equal, 
did  not  include  the  negro  and  put  him  on  an  equality  with  the  white 
man,  that  we  should  take  the  statute-book  and  tear  it  out.  He  there 
took  the  ground  that  the  negro  race  is  included  in  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  as  the  equal  of  the  white  race,  and  that  there  could 
be  no  such  thing  as  a  distinction  in  the  races,  making  one  superior 
and  the  other  inferior.  I  read  now  from  the  same  speech : 

My  friends  [he  says],  I  have  detained  you  about  as  long  as  I  desire  to  do, 
and  I  have  only  to  say  let  us  discard  all  this  quibbling  about  this  man  and 
the  other  man — this  race  and  that  race  and  the  other  race  being  inferior, 
and  therefore  they  must  be  placed  in  an  inferior  position,  discarding  our 
standard  that  we  have  left  us.  Let  us  discard  all  these  things,  and  unite 
as  one  people  throughout  this  land,  until  we  shall  once  more  stand  up  de 
claring  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

["  That 's  right,"  etc.] 

Yes,  I  have  no  doubt  that  you  think  it  is  right,  but  the  Lincoln 
men  down  in  Coles,  Tazewell,  and  Sangamon  counties  do  not  think 
it  is  right.  In  the  conclusion  of  the  same  speech,  talking  to  the 
Chicago  Abolitionists,  he  said :  "  I  leave  you,  hoping  that  the  lamp 
of  liberty  will  burn  in  your  bosoms  until  there  shall  no  longer  be  a 
doubt  that  all  men  are  created  free  and  equal."  ["Good,  good!"] 
Well,  you  say  good  to  that,  and  you  are  going  to  vote  for  Lincoln 
because  he  holds  that  doctrine.  I  will  not  blame  you  for  support 
ing  him  on  that  ground,  but  I  will  show  you,  in  immediate  contrast 
with  that  doctrine,  what  Mr.  Lincoln  said  down  in  Egypt  in  order 
to  get  votes  in  that  locality  where  they  do  not  hold  to  such  a  doc 
trine.  In  a  joint  discussion  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  myself,  at 
Charleston,  I  think,  on  the  18th  of  last  month,  Mr.  Lincoln,  refer 
ring  to  this  subject,  used  the  following  language : 

I  will  say,  then,  that  I  am  not  nor  ever  have  been  in  favor  of  bringing 
about  in  any  way  the  social  and  political  equality  of  the  white  and  black 
races ;  that  I  am  not  nor  ever  have  been  in  favor  of  making  voters  of  the 
free  negroes,  or  jurors,  or  qualifying  them  to  hold  office,  or  having  them 
to  marry  with  white  people.  I  will  say  in  addition,  that  there  is  a  physi 
cal  difference  between  the  white  and  black  races,  which,  I  suppose,  will 
forever  forbid  the  two  races  living  together  upon  terms  of  social  and 
political  equality,  and  inasmuch  as  they  cannot  so  live,  that  while  they  do 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          433 

remain  together,  there  must  be  the  position  of  superior  and  inferior,  that 
I  as  much  as  any  other  man  am  in  favor  of  the  superior  position  being 
assigned  to  the  white  man. 

[" Good  for  Lincoln!"] 

Fellow-citizens,  here  you  find  men  hurrahing  for  Lincoln,  and  say 
ing  that  he  did  right  when  in  one  part  of  the  State  he  stood  up  for 
negro  equality,  and  in  another  part,  for  political  effect,  discarded  the 
doctrine,  and  declared  that  there  always  must  be  a  superior  and 
inferior  race.  Abolitionists  up  north  are  expected  and  required  to 
vote  for  Lincoln  because  he  goes  for  the  equality  of  the  races,  hold 
ing  that  by  the  Declaration  of  Independence  the  white  man  and  the 
negro  were  created  equal,  and  endowed  by  the  divine  law  with  that 
equality,  and  down  south  he  tells  the  Old  Whigs,  the  Kentuckiaus, 
Virginians,  and  Tennesseeans  that  there  is  a  physical  difference  in  the 
races,  making  one  superior  and  the  other  inferior,  and  that  he  is  in 
favor  of  maintaining  the  superiority  of  the  white  race  over  the  negro. 

Now,  how  can  you  reconcile  those  two  positions  of  Mr.  Lincoln  ? 
He  is  to  be  voted  for  in  the  south  as  a  pro-slavery  man,  and  he  is  to 
be  voted  for  in  the  north  as  an  Abolitionist.  Up  here  he  thinks  it 
is  all  nonsense  to  talk  about  a  difference  between  the  races,  and 
says  that  we  must  "  discard  all  quibbling  about  this  race  and  that 
race  and  the  other  race  being  inferior,  and  therefore  they  must  be 
placed  in  an  inferior  position."  Down  south  he  makes  this  "  quib 
ble  "  about  this  race  and  that  race  and  the  other  race  being  inferior 
as  the  creed  of  his  party,  and  declares  that  the  negro  can  never  be 
elevated  to  the  position  of  the  white  man.  You  find  that  his  politi 
cal  meetings  are  called  by  different  names  in  different  counties  in 
the  State.  Here  they  are  called  Republican  meetings,  but  in  old 
Tazewell,  where  Lincoln  made  a  speech  last  Tuesday,  he  did  not 
address  a  Republican  meeting,  but  "  a  grand  rally  of  the  Lincoln 
men."  There  are  very  few  Republicans  there,  because  Tazewell 
County  is  filled  with  old  Virginians  and  Kentuckians,  all  of  whom 
are  Whigs  or  Democrats,  and  if  Mr.  Lincoln  had  called  an  Abolition 
or  Republican  meeting  there,  he  would  not  get  many  votes.  Go 
down  into  Egypt,  and  you  will  find  that  he  and  his  party  are  operat 
ing  under  an  alias  there,  which  his  friend  Trumbull  has  given  them, 
in  order  that  they  may  cheat  the  people.  When  I  was  down  in 
Monroe  County  a  few  weeks  ago  addressing  the  people,  I  saw  hand 
bills  posted  announcing  that  Mr.  Trumbull  was  going  to  speak  in 
behalf  of  Lincoln,  and  what  do  you  think  the  name  of  his  party  was 
there  ?  Why,  the  "Free  Democracy."  Mr.  Trumbull  and  Mr.  Jehu 
Baker  were  announced  to  address  the  Free  Democracy  of  Monroe 
County,  and  the  bill  was  signed  "  Many  Free  Democrats."  The  rea 
son  that  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  party  adopted  the  name  of  "  Free  De 
mocracy  "  down  there  was  because  Monroe  County  has  always  been 
an  old-fashioned  Democratic  county,  and  hence  it  was  necessary  to 
make  the  people  believe  that  they  were  Democrats,  sympathized 
with  them,  and  were  fighting  for  Lincoln  as  Democrats.  Come  up 
to  Springfield,  where  Lincoln  now  lives  and  always  has  lived,  and 
you  find  that  the  convention  of  his  party  which  assembled  to  nomi 
nate  candidates  for  the  legislature,  who  are  expected  to  vote  for  him 
VOL.  I.— 28. 


434          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

if  elected,  dare  not  adopt  the  name  of  Republican, but  assembled  under 
the  title  of  "  All  opposed  to  the  Democracy."  Thus  you  find  that  Mr. 
Lincoln's  creed  cannot  travel  through  even  one  half  of  the  counties 
of  this  State,  but  that  it  changes  its  hues,  and  becomes  lighter  and 
lighter  as  it  travels  from  the  extreme  north,  until  it  is  nearly  white 
when  it  reaches  the  extreme  south  end  of  the  State.  I  ask  you,  my 
friends,  why  cannot  Republicans  avow  their  principles  alike  every 
where  ?  I  would  despise  myself  if  I  thought  that  I  was  procuring 
your  votes  by  concealing  my  opinions,  and  by  avowing  one  set  of 
principles  in  one  part  of  the  State,  and  a  different  set  in  another 
part. 

If  I  do  not  truly  and  honorably  represent  your  feelings  and  prin 
ciples,  then  I  ought  not  to  be  your  senator;  and  I  will  never  conceal 
my  opinions,  or  modify  or  change  them  a  hair's-breadth,  in  order  to 
get  votes.  I  tell  you  that  this  Chicago  doctrine  of  Lincoln's — de 
claring  that  the  negro  and  the  white  man  are  made  equal  by  the  Dec 
laration  of  Independence  and  by  Divine  Providence —  is  a  monstrous 
heresy.  The  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  never 
dreamed  of  the  negro  when  they  were  writing  that  document.  They 
referred  to  white  men,  to  men  of  European  birth  and  European  de 
scent,  when  they  declared  the  equality  of  all  men.  I  see  a  gentleman 
there  in  the  crowd  shaking  his  head.  Let  me  remind  him  that  when 
Thomas  Jefferson  wrote  that  document  he  was  the  owner,  and  so 
continued  until  his  death,  of  a  large  number  of  slaves.  Did  he  in 
tend  to  say  in  that  Declaration  that  his  negro  slaves,  which  he  held 
and  treated  as  property,  were  created  his  equals  by  divine  law,  and 
that  he  was  violating  the  law  of  God  every  day  of  his  life  by  holding 
them  as  slaves  ?  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  when  that  Declara 
tion  was  put  forth,  every  one  of  the  thirteen  colonies  were  slave- 
holding  colonies,  and  every  man  who  signed  that  instrument  repre 
sented  a  slaveholding  constituency.  Recollect,  also,  that  no  one  of 
them  emancipated  his  slaves,  much  less  put  them  on  an  equality  with 
himself,  after  he  signed  the  Declaration.  On  the  contrary,  they  all 
continued  to  hold  their  negroes  as  slaves  during  the  Revolutionary 
War.  Now,  do  you  believe — are  you  willing  to  have  it  said — that 
every  man  who  signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence  declared  the 
negro  his  equal,  and  then  was  hypocrite  enough  to  continue  to  hold 
him  as  a  slave,  in  violation  of  what  he  believed  to  be  the  divine  law! 
And  yet  when  you  say  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  includes 
the  negro,  you  charge  the  signers  of  it  with  hypocrisy. 

I  say  to  you  frankly,  that  in  my  opinion  this  government  was 
made  by  our  fathers  on  the  white  basis.  It  was  made  by  white  men 
for  the  benefit  of  white  men  and  their  posterity  forever,  and  was 
intended  to  be  administered  by  white  men  in  all  time  to  come.  But 
while  I  hold  that  under  our  Constitution  and  political  system  the 
negro  is  not  a  citizen,  cannot  be  a  citizen,  and  ought  not  to  be  a 
citizen,  it  does  not  follow  by  any  means  that  he  should  be  a  slave. 
On  the  contrary,  it  does  follow  that  the  negro  as  an  inferior  race 
ought  to  possess  every  right,  every  privilege,  every  immunity  which 
he  can  safely  exercise  consistent  with  the  safety  of  the  society  in 
which  he  lives.  Humanity  requires,  and  Christianity  commands,  that 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          435 

you  shall  extend  to  every  inferior  being,  and  every  dependent  being, 
all  the  privileges,  immunities,  and  advantages  which  can  be  granted 
to  them  consistent  with  the  safety  of  society.  If  you  ask  me  the 
nature  and  extent  of  these  privileges,  I  answer  that  that  is  a  ques 
tion  which  the  people  of  each  State  must  decide  for  themselves. 
Illinois  has  decided  that  question  for  herself.  We  have  said  that  in 
this  State  the  negro  shall  not  be  a  slave,  nor  shall  he  be  a  citizen. 
Kentucky  holds  a  different  doctrine.  New  York  holds  one  different 
from  either,  and  Maine  one  different  from  all.  Virginia,  in  her 
policy  on  this  question,  differs  in  many  respects  from  the  others,  and 
so  on,  until  there  are  hardly  two  States  whose  policy  is  exactly  alike 
in  regard  to  the  relation  of  the  white  man  and  the  negro.  Nor  can 
you  reconcile  them  and  make  them  alike.  Each  State  must  do  as  it 
pleases.  Illinois  had  as  much  right  to  adopt  the  policy  which  we 
have  on  that  subject  as  Kentucky  had  to  adopt  a  different  policy. 
The  great  principle  of  this  government  is  that  each  State  has  the 
right  to  do  as  it  pleases  on  all  these  questions,  and  no  other  State  or 
power  on  earth  has  the  right  to  interfere  with  us,  or  complain  of  us 
merely  because  our  system  differs  from  theirs.  In  the  compromise 
measures  of  1850,  Mr.  Clay  declared  that  this  great  principle  ought 
to  exist  in  the  Territories  as  well  as  in  the  States,  and  I  reasserted 
his  doctrine  in  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill  in  1854. 

But  Mr.  Lincoln  cannot  be  made  to  understand,  and  those  who 
are  determined  to  vote  for  him,  no  matter  whether  he  is  a  pro- 
slavery  man  in  the  south  and  a  negro-equality  advocate  in  the 
north,  cannot  be  made  to  understand,  how  it  is  that  in  a  Territory 
the  people  can  do  as  they  please  on  the  slavery  question  under  the 
Dred  Scott  decision.  Let  us  see  whether  I  cannot  explain  it  to  the 
satisfaction  of  all  impartial  men.  Chief  Justice  Taney  has  said,  in 
his  opinion  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  that  a  negro  slave,  being  property, 
stands  on  an  equal  footing  with  other  property,  and  that  the  owner 
may  carry  them  into  United  States  territory  the  same  as  he  does 
other  property.  Suppose  any  two  of  you  neighbors  shall  conclude 
to  go  to  Kansas,  one  carrying  $100,000  worth  of  negro  slaves  and 
the  other  $100,000  worth  of  mixed  merchandise,  including  quantities 
of  liquors.  You  both  agree  that  under  that  decision  you  may  carry 
your  property  to  Kansas,  but  when  you  get  it  there,  the  merchant 
who  is  possessed  of  the  liquors  is  met  by  the  Maine  liquor  law,  which 
prohibits  the  sale  or  use  of  his  property,  and  the  owner  of  the  slaves 
is  met  by  equally  unfriendly  legislation,  which  makes  his  property 
worthless  after  he  gets  it  there.  What  is  the  right  to  carry  your  prop 
erty  into  the  Territory  worth  to  either,  when  unfriendly  legislation 
in  the  Territory  renders  it  worthless  after  you  get  it  there  ?  The 
slaveholder,  when  he  gets  his  slaves  there,  finds  that  there  is  no  local 
law  to  protect  him  in  holding  them,  no  slave  code,  no  police  regula 
tion  maintaining  and  supporting  him  in  his  right,  and  he  discovers 
at  once  that  the  absence  of  such  friendly  legislation  excludes  his  prop 
erty  from  the  Territory  just  as  irresistibly  as  if  there  was  a  positive 
constitutional  prohibition  excluding  it. 

Thus  you  find  it  is  with  any  kind  of  property  in  a  Territory ;  it  de 
pends  for  its  protection  on  the  local  and  municipal  law.  If  the  peo- 


436         ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

pie  of  a  Territory  want  slavery,  they  make  friendly  legislation  to 
introduce  it,  but  if  they  do  not  want  it,  they  withhold  all  protection 
from  it,  and  then  it  cannot  exist  there.  Such  was  the  view  taken  on 
the  subject  by  different  Southern  men  when  the  Nebraska  bill  passed. 
See  the  speech  of  Mr.  Orr,  of  South  Carolina,  the  present  Speaker  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  of  Congress,  made  at  that  time,  and 
there  you  will  find  this  whole  doctrine  argued  out  at  full  length. 
Read  the  speeches  of  other  Southern  congressmen,  senators,  and  repre 
sentatives,  made  in  1854,  and  you  will  find  that  they  took  the  same 
view  of  the  subject  as  Mr.  Orr — that  slavery  could  never  be  forced 
on  a  people  who  did  not  want  it.  I  hold  that  in  this  country  there 
is  no  power  on  the  face  of  the  globe  that  can  force  any  institution  on 
an  unwilling  people.  The  great  fundamental  principle  of  our  gov 
ernment  is  that  the  people  of  each  State  and  each  Territory  shall  be 
left  perfectly  free  to  decide  for  themselves  what  shall  be  the  nature 
and  character  of  their  institutions.  When  this  government  was  made, 
it  was  based  on  that  principle.  At  the  time  of  its  formation  there 
were  twelve  slaveholdmg  States,  and  one  free  State,  in  this  Union. 
Suppose  this  doctrine  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  Republicans,  of  uni 
formity  of  laws  of  all  the  States  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  'had  pre 
vailed;  suppose  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  had  been  a  member  of  the 
convention  which  framed  the  Constitution,  and  that  he  had  risen  in 
that  august  body,  and,  addressing  the  Father  of  his  Country,  had  said 
as  he  did  at  Springfield : 

A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  believe  this  government 
cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the 
Union  to  be  dissolved  —  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall,  but  I  do  expect 
it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing,  or  all  the  other. 

What  do  you  think  would  have  been  the  result  ?  Suppose  he  had 
made  that  convention  believe  that  doctrine,  and  they  had  acted  upon 
it,  what  do  you  think  would  have  been  the  result !  Do  you  believe 
that  one  free  State  would  have  outvoted  the  twelve  slaveholding 
States,  and  thus  abolished  slavery  ?  On  the  contrary,  would  not  the 
twelve  slaveholding  States  have  outvoted  the  one  free  State,  and 
under  his  doctrine  have  fastened  slavery  by  an  irrevocable  constitu 
tional  provision  upon  every  inch  of  the  American  republic  ?  Thus 
you  see  that  the  doctrine  he  now  advocates,  if  proclaimed  at  the 
beginning  of  the  government,  would  have  established  slavery  every 
where  throughout  the  American  continent;  and  are  you  willing,  now 
that  we  have  the  majority  section,  to  exercise  a  power  which  we 
never  would  have  submitted  to  when  we  were  in  the  minority  ?  If 
the  Southern  States  had  attempted  to  control  our  institutions,  and 
make  the  States  all  slave  when  they  had  the  power,  I  ask  would  you 
have  submitted  to  it  ?  If  you  would  not,  are  you  willing,  now  that 
we  have  become  the  strongest  under  that  great  principle  of  self- 
government  that  allows  each  State  to  do  as  it  pleases,  to  attempt 
to  control  the  Southern  institutions?  Then,  my  friends,  I  say  to 
you  that  there  is  but  one  path  of  peace  in  this  republic,  and  that 
is  to  administer  this  government  as  our  fathers  made  it,  divided 
into  free  and  slave  States,  allowing  each  State  to  decide  for  itself 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          437 

whether  it  wants  slavery  or  not.  If  Illinois  will  settle  the  sla 
very  question  for  herself,  and  mind  her  own  business  and  let  her 
neighbors  alone,  we  will  be  at  peace  with  Kentucky,  and  every  other 
Southern  State.  If  every  other  State  in  the  Union  will  do  the  same, 
there  will  be  peace  between  the  North  and  South,  and  in  the  whole 
Union. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Reply  in  the  Galesburg  Joint  Debate. 

My  Fellow-citizens:  A  very  large  portion  of  the  speech  which 
Judge  Douglas  has  addressed  to  you  has  previously  been  delivered 
and  put  in  print.  I  do  not  mean  that  for  a  hit  upon  the  judge  at  all. 
If  I  had  not  been  interrupted,  I  was  going  to  say  that  such  an  answer 
as  I  was  able  to  make  to  a  very  large  portion  of  it,  had  already  been 
more  than  once  made  and  published.  There  has  been  an  opportu 
nity  afforded  to  the  public  to  see  our  respective  views  upon  the  topics 
discussed  in  a  large  portion  of  the  speech  which  he  has  just  delivered. 
I  make  these  remarks  for  the  purpose  of  excusing  myself  for  not 
passing  over  the  entire  ground  that  the  judge  has  traversed.  I, 
however,  desire  to  take  up  some  of  the  points  that  he  has  attended 
to,  and  ask  your  attention  to  them,  and  I  shall  follow  him  backward 
upon  some  notes  which  I  have  taken,  reversing  the  order  by  begin 
ning  where  he  concluded. 

The  judge  has  alluded  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and 
insisted  that  negroes  are  not  included  in  that  Declaration ;  and  that 
it  is,  a  slander  upon  the  framers  of  that  instrument  to  suppose  that 
negroes  were  meant  therein;  and  he  asks  you:  Is  it  possible  to 
believe  that  Mr.  Jefferson,  who  penned  the  immortal  paper,  could 
have  supposed  himself  applying  the  language  of  that  instrument  to 
the  negro  race,  and  yet  held  a  portion  of  that  race  in  slavery? 
Would  he  not  at  once  have  freed  them  ?  I  only  have  to  remark 
upon  this  part  of  the  judge's  speech  (and  that,  too,  very  briefly,  for 
I  shall  not  detain  myself,  or  you,  upon  that  point  for  any  great 
length  of  time),  that  I  believe  the  entire  records  of  the  world,  from 
the  date  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  up  to  within  three  years 
ago,  may  be  searched  in  vain  for  one  single  affirmation,  from  one 
single  man,  that  the  negro  was  not  included  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence ;  I  think  I  may  defy  Judge  Douglas  to  show  that  he 
ever  said  so,  that  Washington  ever  said  so,  that  any  president  ever 
said  so,  that  any  member  of  Congress  ever  said  so,  or  that  any 
living  man  upon  the  whole  earth  ever  said  so,  until  the  necessities  of 
the  present  policy  of  the  Democratic  party,  in  regard  to  slavery,  had 
to  invent  that  affirmation.  And  I  will  remind  Judge  Douglas  and 
this  audience  that  while  Mr.  Jefferson  was  the  owner  of  slaves,  as 
undoubtedly  he  was,  in  speaking  upon  this  very  subject,  he  used  the 
strong  language  that  "he  trembled  for  his  country  when  he  remem 
bered  that  God  was  just";  and  I  will  offer  the  highest  premium  in 
my  power  to  Judge  Douglas  if  he  will  show  that  he,  in  all  his  life, 
ever  uttered  a  sentiment  at  all  akin  to  that  of  Jefferson. 

The  next  thing  to  which  I  will  ask  your  attention  is  the  judge's 
comments  upon  the  fact,  as  he  assumes  it  to  be,  that  we  cannot  call 


438         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

our  public  meetings  as  Republican  meetings ;  and  he  instances  Taze- 
well  County  as  one  of  the  places  where  the  friends  of  Lincoln  have 
called  a  public  meeting  and  have  not  dared  to  name  it  a  Republican 
meeting.  He  instances  Monroe  County  as  another  where  Judge 
Trumbull  and  Jehu  Baker  addressed  the  persons  whom  the  judge 
assumes  to  be  the  friends  of  Lincoln,  calling  them  the  "Free  Democ 
racy."  I  have  the  honor  to  inform  Judge  Douglas  that  he  spoke  in 
that  very  county  of  Tazewell  last  Saturday,  and  I  was  there  on  Tues 
day  last,  and  wien  he  spoke  there  he  spoke  under  a  call  not  ventur 
ing  to  use  the  word  "Democrat."  [Turning  to  Judge  Douglas.] 
What  think  you  of  this? 

So,  again,  there  is  another  thing  to  which  I  would  ask  the  judge's 
attention  upon  this  subject.  In  the  contest  of  1856  his  party  de 
lighted  to  call  themselves  together  as  the  "National  Democracy," 
but  now,  if  there  should  be  a  notice  put  up  anywhere  for  a  meeting 
of  the  "National  Democracy,"  Judge  Douglas  and  his  friends  would 
not  come.  They  would  not  suppose  themselves  invited.  They 
would  understand  that  it  was  a  call  for  those  hateful  postmasters 
whom  he  talks  about. 

Now  a  few  words  in  regard  to  these  extracts  from  speeches  of 
mine  which  Judge  Douglas  has  read  to  you,  and  which  he  supposes 
are  in  very  great  contrast  to  each  other.  Those  speeches  have  been 
before  the  public  for  a  considerable  time,  and  if  they  have  any  in 
consistency  in  them,  if  there  is  any  conflict  in  them,  the  public  have 
been  able  to  detect  it.  When  the  judge  says,  in  speaking  on  this 
subject,  that  I  make  speeches  of  one  sort  for  the  people  of  the 
northern  end  of  the  State,  and  of  a  different  sort  for  the  southern 
people,  he  assumes  that  I  do  not  understand  that  my  speeches  will 
be  put  in  print  and  read  north  and  south.  I  knew  all  the  while  that 
the  speech  that  I  made  at  Chicago  and  the  one  I  made  at  Jonesboro 
and  the  one  at  Charleston  would  all  be  put  in  print,  and  all  the  read 
ing  and  intelligent  men  in  the  community  would  see  them  and  know 
all  about  my  opinions  j  and  I  have  not  supposed,  and  do  not  now 
suppose,  that  there  is  any  conflict  whatever  between  them.  But  the 
judge  will  have  it  that  if  we  do  not  confess  that  there  is  a  sort  of  in 
equality  between  the  white  and  black  races  which  justifies  us  in 
making  them  slaves,  we  must,  then,  insist  that  there  is  a  degree  of 
equality  that  requires  us  to  make  them  our  wives.  Now,  I  have  all 
the  while  taken  a  broad  distinction  in  regard  to  that  matter ;  and 
that  is  all  there  is  in  these  different  speeches  which  he  arrays  here, 
and  the  entire  reading  of  either  of  the  speeches  will  show  that  that 
distinction  was  made.  Perhaps  by  taking  two  parts  of  the  same 
speech  he  could  have  got  up  as  much  of  a  conflict  as  the  one  he  has 
found.  I  have  all  the  while  maintained  that  in  so  far  as  it  should 
be  insisted  that  there  was  an  equality  between  the  white  and  black 
races  that  should  produce  a  perfect  social  and  political  equality,  it 
was  an  impossibility.  This  you  have  seen  in  my  printed  speeches, 
and  with  it  I  have  said  that  in  their  right  to  "  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness,"  as  proclaimed  in  that  old  Declaration,  the  in 
ferior  races  are  our  equals.  And  these  declarations  I  have  constantly 
made  in  reference  to  the  abstract  moral  question,  to  contemplate  and 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          439 

consider  when  we  are  legislating  about  any  new  country  which  is  not 
already  cursed  with  the  actual  presence  of  the  evil — slavery.  I  have 
never  manifested  any  impatience  with  the  necessities  that  spring 
from  the  actual  presence  of  black  people  amongst  us,  and  the  actual 
existence  of  slavery  amongst  us  where  it  does  already  exist ;  but  I 
have  insisted  that,  in  legislating  for  new  countries  where  it  does  not 
exist,  there  is  no  just  rule  other  than  that  of  moral  and  abstract 
right.  With  reference  to  those  new  countries,  those  maxims  as  to 
the  right  of  a  people  to  "  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  " 
were  the  just  rules  to  be  constantly  referred  to.  There  is  no  mis 
understanding  this,  except  by  men  interested  to  misunderstand  it.  I 
take  it  that  I  have  to  address  an  intelligent  and  reading  community 
who  will  peruse  what  I  say,  weigh  it,  and  then  judge  whether  I  ad 
vance  improper  or  unsound  views,  or  whether  I  advance  hypocritical 
and  deceptive  and  contrary  views  in  different  portions  of  the  country. 
I  believe  myself  to  be  guilty  of  no  such  thing  as  the  latter,  though, 
of  course,  I  cannot  claim  that  I  am  entirely  free  from  all  error  in  the 
opinions  I  advance. 

The  judge  has  also  detained  us  awhile  in  regard  to  the  distinction 
between  his  party  and  our  party.  His  he  assumes  to  be  a  national 
party — ours  a  sectional  one.  He  does  this  in  asking  the  question 
whether  this  country  has  any  interest  in  the  maintenance  of  the 
Republican  party?  He  assumes  that  our  party  is  altogether  sec 
tional — that  the  party  to  which  he  adheres  is  national;  and  the 
argument  is  that  no  party  can  be  a  rightful  party  —  can  be  based 
upon  rightful  principles  —  unless  it  can  announce  its  principles 
everywhere.  I  presume  that  Judge  Douglas  could  not  go  into  Rus 
sia  and  announce  the  doctrine  of  our  national  Democracy;  he  could 
not  denounce  the  doctrine  of  kings  and  emperors  and  monarchies  in 
Russia ;  and  it  may  be  true  of  this  country,  that  in  some  places  we 
may  not  be  able  to  proclaim  a  doctrine  as  clearly  true  as  the  truth 
of  Democracy,  because  there  is  a  section  so  directly  opposed  to  it 
that  they  will  not  tolerate  us  in  doing  so.  Is  it  the  true  test  of  the 
soundness  of  a  doctrine,  that  in  some  places  people  won't  let  you 
proclaim  it?  Is  that  the  way  to  test  the  truth  of  any  doctrine? 
Why,  I  understand  that  at  one  time  the  people  of  Chicago  would 
not  let  Judge  Douglas  preach  a  certain  favorite  doctrine  of  his.  I 
commend  to  his  consideration  the  question,  whether  he  takes  that  as 
a  test  of  the  unsoundness  of  what  he  wanted  to  preach. 

There  is  another  thing  to  which  I  wish  to  ask  attention  for  a  little 
while  on  this  occasion.  What  has  always  been  the  evidence  brought 
forward  to  prove  that  the  Republican  party  is  a  sectional  party  ? 
The  main  one  was  that  in  the  Southern  portion  of  the  Union  the 
people  did  not  let  the  Republicans  proclaim  their  doctrines  amongst 
them.  That  has  been  the  main  evidence  brought  forward  —  that 
they  had  no  supporters,  or  substantially  none,  in  the  slave  States. 
The  South  have  not  taken  hold  of  our  principles  as  we  announce 
them  j  nor  does  Judge  Douglas  now  grapple  with  those  principles. 
We  have  a  Republican  State  platform,  laid  down  in  Springfield  in 
June  last,  stating  our  position  all  the  way  through  the  questions  be 
fore  the  country.  We  are  now  far  advanced  in  this  canvass.  Judge 


440         ADDEESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Douglas  and  I  have  made  perhaps  forty  speeches  apiece,  and  we  have 
now  for  the  fifth  time  met  face  to  face  in  debate,  and  up  to  this  day  I 
have  not  found  either  Judge  Douglas  or  any  friend  of  his  taking  hold 
of  the  Republican  platform  or  laying  his  finger  upon  anything  in  it 
that  is  wrong.  I  ask  you  all  to  recollect  that.  Judge  Douglas  turns 
away  from  the  platform  of  principles  to  the  fact  that  he  can  find  peo 
ple  somewhere  who  will  not  allow  us  to  announce  those  principles. 
If  he  had  great  confidence  that  our  principles  were  wrong,  he  would 
take  hold  of  them  and  demonstrate  them  to  be  wrong.  But  he  does 
not  do  so.  The  only  evidence  he  has  of  their  being  wrong  is  in  the 
fact  that  there  are  people  who  won't  allow  us  to  preach  them.  I  ask 
again  is  that  the  way  to  test  the  soundness  of  a  doctrine  ? 

I  ask  his  attention  also  to  the  fact  that  by  the  rule  of  nationality  he 
is  himself  fast  becoming  sectional.  I  ask  his  attention  to  the  fact  that 
his  speeches  would  not  go  as  current  now  south  of  the  Ohio  River 
as  they  have  formerly  gone  there.  I  ask  his  attention  to  the  fact 
that  he  felicitates  himself  to-day  that  all  the  Democrats  of  the  free 
States  are  agreeing  with  him,  while  he  omits  to  tell  us  that  the  Demo 
crats  of  any  slave  State  agree  with  him.  If  he  has  not  thought  of 
this,  I  commend  to  his  consideration  the  evidence  in  his  own  declara 
tion,  on  this  day,  of  his  becoming  sectional  too.  I  see  it  rapidly  ap 
proaching.  Whatever  may  be  the  result  of  this  ephemeral  contest 
between  Judge  Douglas  and  myself,  I  see  the  day  rapidly  approach 
ing  when  his  pill  of  sectionalism,  which  he  has  been  thrusting  down 
the  throats  of  Republicans  for  years  past,  will  be  crowded  down  his 
own  throat. 

Now  in  regard  to  what  Judge  Douglas  said  (in  the  beginning  of 
his  speech)  about  the  compromise  of  1850  containing  the  principle 
of  the  Nebraska  bill ;  although  I  have  often  presented  my  views  upon 
that  subject,  yet  as  I  have  not  done  so  in  this  canvass,  I  will,  if  you 
please,  detain  you  a  little  with  them.  I  have  always  maintained  so 
far  as  I  was  able  that  there  was  nothing  of  the  principle  of  the  Ne 
braska  bill  in  the  compromise  of  1850  at  all  —  nothing  whatever. 
Where  can  you  find  the  principle  of  the  Nebraska  bill  in  that  com 
promise  ?  If  anywhere,  in  the  two  pieces  of  the  compromise  organ 
izing  the  Territories  of  New  Mexico  and  Utah.  It  was  expressly 
provided  in  these  two  acts  that,  when  they  came  to  be  admitted  into 
the  Union,  they  should  be  admitted  with  or  without  slavery,  as  they 
should  choose,  by  their  own  constitutions.  Nothing  was  said  in 
either  of  those  acts  as  to  what  was  to  be  done  in  relation  to  slavery 
during  the  territorial  existence  of  those  Territories,  while  Henry 
Clay  constantly  made  the  declaration  (Judge  Douglas  recognizing 
him  as  a  leader)  that,  in  his  opinion,  the  old  Mexican  laws  would 
control  that  question  during  the  territorial  existence,  and  that  these 
old  Mexican  laws  excluded  slavery.  How  can  that  be  used  as  a 
principle  for  declaring  that  during  the  territorial  existence,  as  well 
as  at  the  time  of  framing  the  constitution,  the  people,  if  you  please, 
might  have  slaves  if  they  wanted  them?  I  am  not  discussing  the 
question  whether  it  is  right  or  wrong ;  but  how  are  the  New  Mexican 
and  Utah  laws  patterns  for  the  Nebraska  bill  ?  I  maintain  that  the 
organization  of  Utah  and  New  Mexico  did  not  establish  a  general 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          441 

principle  at  all.  It  had  no  feature  establishing  a  general  princi 
ple.  The  acts  to  which  I  have  referred  were  a  part  of  a  general  sys 
tem  of  compromises.  They  did  not  lay  down  what  was  proposed  as 
a  regular  policy  for  the  Territories  ;  only  an  agreement  in  this  par 
ticular  case  to  do  in  that  way,  because  other  things  were  done  that 
were  to  be  a  compensation  for  it.  They  were  allowed  to  come  in  in 
that  shape,  because  in  another  way  it  was  paid  for  —  considering  that 
as  a  part  of  that  system  of  measures  called  the  compromise  of  1850, 
which  finally  included  half  a  dozen  acts.  It  included  the  admission 
of  California  as  a  free  State,  which  was  kept  out  of  the  Union  for 
half  a  year  because  it  had  formed  a  free  constitution.  It  included 
the  settlement  of  the  boundary  of  Texas,  which  had  been  undefined 
before,  which  was  in  itself  a  slavery  question  ;  for  if  you  pushed  the 
line  further  west,  you  made  Texas  larger,  and  made  more  slave  Ter 
ritory  ;  while  if  you  drew  the  line  toward  the  east,  you  narrowed  the 
boundary  and  diminished  the  domain  of  slavery,  and  by  so  much 
increased  free  Territory.  It  included  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade 
in  the  District  of  Columbia.  It  included  the  passage  of  a  new  fugitive- 
slave  law.  All  these  things  were  put  together,  and  though  passed 
in  separate  acts,  were  nevertheless  in  legislation  (as  the  speeches  at 
the  time  will  show)  made  to  depend  upon  each  other.  Each  got 
votes,  with  the  understanding  that  the  other  measures  were  to  pass, 
and  by  this  system  of  compromise,  in  that  series  of  measures,  those 
two  bills  —  the  New  Mexico  and  Utah  bills  —  were  passed  ;  and  I  say 
for  that  reason  they  could  not  be  taken  as  models,  framed  upon  their 
own  intrinsic  principle,  for  all  future  Territories.  And  I  have  the 
evidence  of  this  in  the  fact  that  Judge  Douglas,  a  year  afterward, 
or  more  than  a  year  afterward  perhaps,  when  he  first  introduced 
bills  for  the  purpose  of  framing  new  Territories,  did  not  attempt  to 
follow  these  bills  of  New  Mexico  and  Utah  •  and  even  when  he  intro 
duced  this  Nebraska  bill,  I  think  you  will  discover  that  he  did  not 
exactly  follow  them.  But  I  do  not  wish  to  dwell  at  great  length 
upon  this  branch  of  the  discussion.  My  own  opinion  is  that  a  thorough 
investigation  will  show  most  plainly  that  the  New  Mexico  and  Utah 
bills  were  part  of  a  system  of  compromise,  and  not  designed  as 
patterns  for  future  territorial  legislation,  and  that  this  Nebraska  bill 
did  not  follow  them  as  a  pattern  at  all. 

The  judge  tells  us,  in  proceeding,  that  he  is  opposed  to  making  any 
odious  distinctions  between  free  and  slave  States.  I  am  altogether 
unaware  that  the  Republicans  are  in  favor  of  making  any  odious 
distinctions  between  the  free  and  slave  States.  But  there  still  is  a 
difference,  I  think,  between  Judge  Douglas  and  the  Republicans  in 
this.  I  suppose  that  the  real  difference  between  Judge  Douglas  and 
his  friends  and  the  Republicans,  on  the  contrary,  is  that  the  judge 
is  not  in  favor  of  making  any  difference  between  slavery  and  lib 
erty — that  he  is  in  favor  of  eradicating,  of  pressing  out  of  view, 
the  questions  of  preference  in  this  country  for  free  or  slave  institu 
tions  ;  and  consequently  every  sentiment  he  utters  discards  the  idea 
that  there  is  any  wrong  in  slavery.  Everything  that  emanates  from 
him  or  his  coadjutors  in  their  course  of  policy  carefully  excludes 
the  thought  that  there  is  anything  wrong  in  slavery.  All  their 


442          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

arguments,  if  you  will  consider  them,  will  be  seen  to  exclude  the 
thought  that  there  is  anything  whatever  wrong  in  slavery.  If  you 
will  take  the  judge's  speeches,  and  select  the  short  and  pointed  sen 
tences  expressed  by  him, —  as  his  declaration  that  he  "don't  care 
whether  slavery  is  voted  up  or  down," — you  will  see  at  once  that 
this  is  perfectly  logical,  if  you  do  not  admit  that  slavery  is  wrong. 
If  you  do  admit  that  it  is  wrong,  Judge  Douglas  cannot  logically  say 
he  don't  care  whether  a  wrong  is  voted  up  or  voted  down.  Judge 
Douglas  declares  that  if  any  community  wants  slavery  they  have  a 
right  to  have  it.  He  can  say  that  logically,  if  he  says  that  there  is 
no  wrong  in  slavery;  but  if  you  admit  that  there  is  a  wrong  in  it,  he 
cannot  logically  say  that  anybody  has  a  right  to  do  wrong.  He  in 
sists  that,  upon  the  score  of  equality,  the  owners  of  slaves  and 
owners  of  property  —  of  horses  and  every  other  sort  of  property  — 
should  be  alike,  and  hold  them  alike  in  a  new  Territory.  That  is 
perfectly  logical,  if  the  two  species  of  property  are  alike,  and  are 
equally  founded  in  right.  But  if  you  admit  that  one  of  them  is 
wrong,  you  cannot  institute  any  equality  between  right  and  wrong. 
And  from  this  difference  of  sentiment — the  belief  on  the  part  of 
one  that  the  institution  is  wrong,  and  a  policy  springing  from  that 
belief  which  looks  to  the  arrest  of  the  enlargement  of  that  wrong ; 
and  this  other  sentiment,  that  it  is  no  wrong,  and  a  policy  sprung  from 
that  sentiment  which  will  tolerate  no  idea  of  preventing  that  wrong 
from  growing  larger,  and  looks  to  there  never  being  an  end  of  it 
through  all  the  existence  of  things — arises  the  real  difference  be 
tween  Judge  Douglas  and  his  friends  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
Republicans  on  the  other.  Now,  I  confess  myself  as  belonging  to 
that  class  in  the  country  who  contemplate  slavery  as  a  moral,  social, 
and  political  evil,  having  due  regard  for  its  actual  existence  amongst 
us,  and  the  difficulties  of  getting  rid  of  it  in  any  satisfactory  way, 
and  to  all  the  constitutional  obligations  which  have  been  thrown 
about  it  ;  but  who,  nevertheless,  desire  a  policy  that  looks  to  the  pre 
vention  of  it  as  a  wrong,  and  looks  hopefully  to  the  time  when  as  a 
wrong  it  may  come  to  an  end. 

Judge  Douglas  has  again,  for,  I  believe,  the  fifth  time,  if  not  the 
seventh,  in  my  presence,  reiterated  his  charge  of  a  conspiracy  or  com 
bination  between  the  National  Democrats  and  Republicans.  What 
evidence  Judge  Douglas  has  upon  this  subject  I  know  not,  inasmuch 
as  he  never  favors  us  with  any.  I  have  said  upon  a  former  occasion, 
and  I  do  not  choose  to  suppress  it  now,  that  I  have  no  objection  to  the 
division  in  the  judge's  party.  He  got  it  up  himself.  It  was  all  his 
and  their  work.  He  had,  I  think,  a  great  deal  more  to  do  with  the 
steps  that  led  to  the  Lecompton  constitution  than  Mr.  Buchanan 
had ;  though  at  last,  when  they  reached  it,  they  quarreled  over  it, 
and  their  friends  divided  upon  it.  I  am  very  free  to  confess  to  Judge 
Douglas  that  I  have  no  objection  to  the  division;  but  I  defy  the 
judge  to  show  any  evidence  that  I  have  in  any  way  promoted  that 
division,  unless  he  insists  on  being  a  witness  himself  in  merely  say 
ing  so.  I  can  give  all  fair  friends  of  Judge  Douglas  here  to  under 
stand  exactly  the  view  that  Republicans  take  in  regard  to  that 
division.  Don't  you  remember  how  two  years  ago  the  opponents 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          443 

of  the  Democratic  party  were  divided  between  Fremont  and  Fill- 
more  J?  I  guess  you  do.  Any  Democrat  who  remembers  that  divi 
sion  will  remember  also  that  he  was  at  the  time  very  glad  of  it,  and 
then  he  will  be  able  to  see  all  there  is  between  the  National  Demo 
crats  and  the  Republicans.  What  we  now  think  of  the  two  divisions 
of  Democrats,  you  then  thought  of  the  Fremont  and  Fillmore  divi 
sions.  That  is  all  there  is  of  it. 

But  if  the  judge  continues  to  put  forward  the  declaration  that 
there  is  an  unholy,  unnatural  alliance  between  the  Republicans  and 
the  National  Democrats,  I  now  want  to  enter  my  protest  against 
receiving  him  as  an  entirely  competent  witness  upon  that  subject. 
I  want  to  call  to  the  judge's  attention  an  attack  he  made  upon  me 
in  the  first  one  of  these  debates,  at  Ottawa,  on  the  21st  of  August.  In 
order  to  fix  extreme  Abolitionism  upon  me,  Judge  Douglas  read  a 
set  of  resolutions  which  he  declared  had  been  passed  by  a  Republican 
State  convention,  in  October,  1854,  at  Springfield,  Illinois,  and  he 
declared  I  had  taken  part  in  that  convention.  It  turned  out  that 
although  a  few  men  calling  themselves  an  anti-Nebraska  State  con 
vention  had  sat  at  Springfield  about  that  time,  yet  neither  did  I  take 
any  part  in  it,  nor  did  it  pass  the  resolutions  or  any  such  resolutions 
as  Judge  Douglas  read.  So  apparent  had  it  become  that  the  resolu 
tions  which  he  read  had  not  been  passed  at  Springfield  at  all,  nor  by 
any  State  convention  in  which  I  had  taken  part,  that  seven  days 
afterward,  at  Freeport,  Judge  Douglas  declared  that  he  had  been 
misled  by  Charles  H.  Lanphier,  editor  of  the  "  State  Register,"  and 
Thomas  L.  Harris,  member  of  Congress  in  that  district,  and  he 
promised  in  that  speech  that  when  he  went  to  Springfield  he  would 
investigate  the  matter.  Since  then  Judge  Douglas  has  been  to 
Springfield,  and  I  presume  has  made  the  investigation;  but  a 
month  has  passed  since  he  has  been  there,  and  so  far  as  I  know, 
he  has  made  no  report  of  the  result  of  his  investigation.  I  have 
waited  as  I  think  a  sufficient  time  for  the  report  of  that  investiga 
tion,  and  I  have  some  curiosity  to  see  and  hear  it.  A  fraud,  an 
absolute  forgery,  was  committed,  and  the  perpetration  of  it  was  traced 
to  the  three — Lanphier,  Harris,  and  Douglas.  Whether  it  can  be 
narrowed  in  any  way,  so  as  to  exonerate  any  one  of  them,  is  what 
Judge  Douglas's  report  would  probably  show. 

It  is  true  that  the  set  of  resolutions  read  by  Judge  Douglas  were 
published  in  the  Illinois  "  State  Register "  on  the  16th  of  October, 
1854,  as  being  the  resolutions  of  an  anti-Nebraska  convention  which 
had  sat  in  that  same  month  of  October,  at  Springfield.  But  it  is  also 
true  that  the  publication  in  the  "  Register  "  was  a  forgery  then,  and 
the  question  is  still  behind,  which  of  the  three,  if  not  all  of  them, 
committed  that  forgery  ?  The  idea  that  it  was  done  by  mistake  is 
absurd.  The  article  in  the  Illinois  "  State  Register  "  contains  part  of 
the  real  proceedings  of  that  Springfield  convention,  showing  that 
the  writer  of  the  article  had  the  real  proceedings  before  him,  and 
purposely  threw  out  the  genuine  resolutions  passed  by  the  conven 
tion,  and  fraudulently  substituted  the  others.  Lanphier  then,  as  now, 
was  the  editor  of  the  "  Register,"  so  that  there  seems  to  be  but  little 
room  for  his  escape.  But  then  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  Lan- 


444         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

pliier  had  less  interest  in  the  object  of  that  forgery  than  either  of  the 
other  two.  The  main  object  of  that  forgery  at  that  time  was  to  beat 
Yates  and  elect  Harris  to  Congress,  and  that  object  was  known  to  be 
exceedingly  dear  to  Judge  Douglas  at  that  time.  Harris  and  Doug 
las  were  both  in  Springfield  when  the  convention  was  in  session,  and 
although  they  both  left  before  the  fraud  appeared  in  the  "  Register,'' 
subsequent  events  show  that  they  have  both  had  their  eyes  fixed 
upon  that  convention. 

The  fraud  having  been  apparently  successful  upon  that  occasion, 
both  Harris  and  Douglas  have  more  than  once  since  then  been  at 
tempting  to  put  it  to  new  uses.  As  the  fisherman's  wife,  whose 
drowned  husband  was  brought  home  with  his  body  full  of  eels,  said 
when  she  was  asked  what  was  to  be  done  with  him,  "Take  the 
eels  out  and  set  him  again,"  so  Harris  and  Douglas  have  shown  a 
disposition  to  take  the  eels  out  of  that  stale  fraud  by  which  they 
gained  Harris's  election,  and  set  the  fraud  again  more  than  once.  On 
the  9th  of  July,  1856,  Douglas  attempted  a  repetition  of  it  upon 
Trumbull  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  as  will  ap 
pear  from  the  appendix  to  the  "  Congressional  Globe  "  of  that  date. 
On  the  9th  of  August,  Harris  attempted  it  again  upon  Norton  in 
the  House  of  Representatives,  as  will  appear  by  the  same  docu 
ment —  the  appendix  to  the  "Congressional  Globe"  of  that  date. 
On  the  21st  of  August  last,  all  three — Lanphier,  Douglas,  and  Har 
ris —  reattempted  it  upon  me  at  Ottawa.  It  has  been  clung  to  and 
played  out  again  and  again  as  an  exceedingly  high  trump  by  this 
blessed  trio.  And  now  that  it  has  been  discovered  publicly  to  be  a 
fraud,  we  find  that  Judge  Douglas  manifests  no  surprise  at  it  at  all. 
He  makes  no  complaint  of  Lanphier,  who  must  have  known  it  to  be 
a  fraud  from  the  beginning.  He,  Lanphier,  and  Harris  are  just  as 
cozy  now,  and  just  as  active  in  the  concoction  of  new  schemes  as. 
they  were  before  the  general  discovery  of  this  fraud.  Now  all  this 
is  very  natural  if  they  are  all  alike  guilty  in  that  fraud,  and  it  is  very 
unnatural  if  any  one' of  them  is  innocent.  Lanphier  perhaps  insists 
that  the  rule  of  honor  among  thieves  does  not  quite  require  him  to 
take  all  upon  himself,  and  consequently  my  friend  Judge  Douglas 
finds  it  difficult  to  make  a  satisfactory  report  upon  his  investigation. 
But  meanwhile  the  three  are  agreed  that  each  is  "  a  most  honor 
able  man." 

Judge  Douglas  requires  an  indorsement  of  his  truth  and  honor  by 
a  reelection  to  the  United  States  Senate,  and  he  makes  and  reports 
against  me  and  against  Judge  Trumbull,  day  after  day,  charges 
which  we  know  to  be  utterly  untrue,  without  for  a  moment  seeming 
to  think  that  this  one  unexplained  fraud,  which  he  promised  to  in 
vestigate,  will  be  the  least  drawback  to  his  claim  to  belief.  Harris 
ditto.  He  asks  a  reelection  to  the  lower  House  of  Congress  without 
seeming  to  remember  at  all  that  he  is  involved  in  this  dishonorable 
fraud !  The  Illinois  "  State  Register,"  edited  by  Lanphier,  then,  as 
now,  the  central  organ  of  both  Harris  and  Douglas,  continues  to  din 
the  public  ear  with  these  assertions  without  seeming  to  suspect  that 
they  are  at  all  lacking  in  title  to  belief. 

After  all,  the  question  still  recurs  upon  us,  how  did  that  fraud 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          445 

originally  get  into  the  "  State  Register "  ?  Lanphier  then,  as  now, 
was  the  editor  of  that  paper.  Lanphier  knows.  Lanphier  cannot  be 
ignorant  of  how  and  by  whom  it  was  originally  concocted.  Can  he 
be  induced  to  tell,  or  if  he  has  told,  can  Judge  Douglas  be  induced 
to  tell,  how  it  originally  was  concocted  ?  It  may  be  true  that  Lanphier 
insists  that  the  two  men  for  whose  benefit  it  was  originally  devised 
shall  at  least  bear  their  share  of  it !  How  that  is,  I  do  not  know,  and 
while  it  remains  unexplained,  I  hope  to  be  pardoned  if  I  insist  that 
the  mere  fact  of  Judge  Douglas  making  charges  against  Trumbull 
and  myself  is  not  quite  sufficient  evidence  to  establish  them ! 

While  we  were  at  Freeport,  in  one  of  these  joint  discussions,  I 
answered  certain  interrogatories  which  Judge  Douglas  had  pro 
pounded  to  me,  and  there  in  turn  propounded  sonle  to  him,  which 
he  in  a  sort  of  way  answered.  The  third  one  of  these  interrogatories 
I  have  with  me,  and  wish  now  to  make  some  comments  upon  it.  It 
was  in  these  words:  ''If  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
shall  decide  that  States  cannot  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits,  are 
you  in  favor  of  acquiescing  in,  adopting,  and  following  such  decision 
as  a  rule  of  political  action  ? " 

To  this  interrogatory  Judge  Douglas  made  no  answer  in  any  just 
sense  of  the  word.  He  contented  himself  with  sneering  at  the 
thought  that  it  was  possible  for  the  Supreme  Court  ever  to  make 
such  a  decision.  He  sneered  at  me  for  propounding  the  interroga 
tory.  I  had  not  propounded  it  without  some  reflection,  and  I  wish 
now  to  address  to  this  audience  some  remarks  upon  it. 

In  the  second  clause  of  the  sixth  article,  I  believe  it  is,  of  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States,  we  find  the  following  language : 
"  This  Constitution  and  the  laws  of  the  United  States  which  shall  be 
made  in  pursuance  thereof,  and  all  treaties  made,  or  which  shall 
be  made,  under  the  authority  of  the  United  States,  shall  be  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land  j  and  the  judges  in  every  State  shall  be  bound 
thereby,  anything  in  the  constitution  or  laws  of  any  State  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding." 

The  essence  of  the  Dred  Scott  case  is  compressed  into  the  sen 
tence  which  I  will  now  read:  "Now,  as  we  have  already  said  in  an 
earlier  part  of  this  opinion,  upon  a  different  point,  the  right  of  prop 
erty  in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  in  the  Constitu 
tion."  I  repeat  it,  "  the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and 
expressly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution" !  What  is  it  to  be  "affirmed" 
in  the  Constitution?  Made  firm  in  the  Constitution  —  so  made  that 
it  cannot  be  separated  from  the  Constitution  without  breaking  the 
Constitution — durable  as  the  Constitution,  and  part  of  the  Constitu 
tion  ?  Now,  remembering  the  provision  of  the  Constitution  which  I 
have  read,  affirming  that  that  instrument  is  the  supreme  law  of  the 
land ;  that  the  judges  of  every  State  shall  be  bound  by  it,  any  law 
or  constitution  of  any  State  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding ;  that 
the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  affirmed  in  that  Constitution,  is 
made,  formed  into,  and  cannot  be  separated  from  it  without  break 
ing  it;  durable  as  the  instrument,  part  of  the  instrument, —  what 
follows  as  a  short  and  even  syllogistic  argument  from  it?  I  think 
it  follows,  and  I  submit  to  the  consideration  of  men  capable  of  argu- 


446          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

ing,  whether  as  I  state  it,  in  syllogistic  form,  the  argument  has  any 
fault  in  it  f 

Nothing  in  the  constitution  or  laws  of  any  State  can  destroy  a 
right  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States. 

The  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

Therefore,  nothing  in  the  constitution  or  laws  of  any  State  can 
destroy  the  right  of  property  in  a  slave. 

I  believe  that  no  fault  can  be  pointed  out  in  that  argument;  assum 
ing  the  truth  of  the  premises,  the  conclusion,  so  far  as  I  have  ca 
pacity  at  all  to  understand  it,  follows  inevitably.  There  is  a  fault  in 
it,  as  I  think,  but  the  fault  is  not  in  the  reasoning  j  the  falsehood,  in 
fact,  is  a  fault  in  the  premises.  I  believe  that  the  right  of  property  in  a 
slave  is  not  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution,  and 
Judge  Douglas  thinks  it  is.  I  believe  that  the  Supreme  Court  and  the 
advocates  of  that  decision  may  search  in  vain  for  the  place  in  the  Con 
stitution  where  the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and  ex 
pressly  affirmed.  I  say,  therefore,  that  I  think  one  of  the  premises  is 
not  true  in  fact.  But  it  is  true  with  Judge  Douglas.  It  is  true  with 
the  Supreme  Court  who  pronounced  it.  They  are  estopped  from 
denying  it,  and  being  estopped  from  denying  it,  the  conclusion  fol 
lows  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  being  the  supreme 
law,  no  constitution  or  law  can  interfere  with  it.  It  being  affirmed  in 
the  decision  that  the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and  ex 
pressly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution,  the  conclusion  inevitably  fol 
lows  that  no  State  law  or  constitution  can  destroy  that  right.  I  then 
say  to  Judge  Douglas,  and  to  all  others,  that  I  think  it  will  take 
a  better  answer  than  a  sneer  to  show  that  those  who  have  said  that 
the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed 
in  the  Constitution  are  not  prepared  to  show  that  no  constitution  or 
law  can  destroy  that  right.  I  say  I  believe  it  will  take  a  far  better 
argument  than  a  mere  sneer  to  show  to  the  minds  of  intelligent  men 
that  whoever  has  so  said  is  not  prepared,  whenever  public  sentiment 
is  so  far  advanced  as  to  justify  it,  to  say  the  other. 

This  is  but  an  opinion,  and  the  opinion  of  one  very  humble  man  -r 
but  it  is  my  opinion  that  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  as  it  is,  never  would 
have  been  "made  in  its  present  form  if  the  party  that  made  it  had  not 
been  sustained  previously  by  the  elections.  My  own  opinion  is  that  the 
new  Dred  Scott  decision,  deciding  against  the  right  of  the  people  of 
the  States  to  exclude  slavery,  will  never  be  made  if  that  party  is  not 
sustained  by  the  elections.  "  I  believe,  further,  that  it  is  just  as  sure 
to  be  made  'as  to-morrow  is  to  come,  if  that  party  shall  be  sustained. 
I  have  said  upon  a  former  occasion,  and  I  repeat  it  now,  that  the 
course  of  argument  that  Judge  Douglas  makes  use  of  upon  this  sub 
ject  (I  charge  not  his  motives  in  this)  is  preparing  the  public  mind 
for  that  new  Dred  Scott  decision.  I  have  asked  him  again  to  point 
out  to  me  the  reasons  for  his  first  adherence  to  the  Dred  Scott  de 
cision  as  it  is.  I  have  turned  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  General 
Jackson  differed  with  him  in  regard  to  the  political  obligation  of  a 
Supreme  Court  decision.  I  have  asked  his  attention  to  the  fact  that 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          447 

Jefferson  differed  with  him  in  regard  to  the  political  obligation  of  a 
Supreme  Court  decision.  Jefferson  said  that  "  judges  are  as  honest 
as  other  men,  and  not  more  so."  And  he  said,  substantially,  that 
whenever  a  free  people  should  give  up  in  absolute  submission  to 
any  department  of  government,  retaining  for  themselves  no  appeal 
from  it,  their  liberties  were  gone.  I  have  asked  his  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  Cincinnati  platform,  upon  which  he  says  he  stands,  dis 
regards  a  time-honored  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  in  defying 
the  power  of  Congress  to  establish  a  national  bank.  I  have  asked 
his  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  himself  was  one  of  the  most  active 
instruments  at  one  time  in  breaking  down  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
State  of  Illinois,  because  it  had  made  a  decision  distasteful  to  him — 
a  struggle  ending  in  the  remarkable  circumstance  of  his  sitting  down 
as  one  of  the  new  judges  who  were  to  overslaugh  that  decision, 
getting  his  title  of  judge  in  that  very  way. 

So  far  in  this  controversy  I  can  get  no  answer  at  all  from  Judge 
Douglas  upon  these  subjects.  Not  one  can  I  get  from  him,  except 
that  he  swells  himself  up  and  says :  "All  of  us  who  stand  by  the  de 
cision  of  the  Supreme  Court  are  the  friends  of  the  Constitution ; 
all  you  fellows  that  dare  question  it  in  any  way  are  the  enemies  of  the 
Constitution."  Now  in  this  very  devoted  adherence  to  this  decision, 
in  opposition  to  all  the  great  political  leaders  whom  he  has  recog 
nized  as  leaders — in  opposition  to  his  former  self  and  history,  there 
is  something  very  marked.  And  the  manner  in  which  he  adheres 
to  it  —  not  as  being  right  upon  the  merits,  as  he  conceives  (because 
he  did  not  discuss  that  at  all),  but  as  being  absolutely  obligatory  upon 
every  one  simply  because  of  the  source  from  whence  it  comes  —  as 
that  which  no  man  can  gainsay,  whatever  it  may  be  —  this  is  another 
marked  feature  of  his  adherence  to  that  decision.  It  marks  it  in  this 
respect,  that  it  commits  him  to  the  next  decision,  whenever  it  comes, 
as  being  as  obligatory  as  this  one,  since  he  does  not  investigate  it, 
and  won't  inquire  whether  this  opinion  is  right  or  wrong.  So  he 
takes  the  next  one  without  inquiring  whether  it  is  right  or  wrong. 
He  teaches  men  this  doctrine,  and  in  so  doing  prepares  the  public 
mind  to  take  the  next  decision  when  it  comes  without  any  inquiry. 
In  this  I  think  I  argue  fairly  (without  questioning  motives  at  all) 
that  Judge  Douglas  is  most  ingeniously  and  powerfully  preparing 
the  public  mind  to  take  that  decision  when  it  comes ;  and  not  only 
so,  but  he  is  doing  it  in  various  other  ways.  In  these  general  maxims 
about  liberty  —  in  his  assertions  that  he  "  don't  care  whether  slavery 
is  voted  up  or  voted  down " ;  that  "  whoever  wants  slavery  has  a 
right  to  have  it" ;  that  " upon  principles  of  equality  it  should  be  al 
lowed  to  go  everywhere  " ;  that  "  there  is  no  inconsistency  between 
free  and  slave  institutions" — in  this  he  is  also  preparing  (whether 
purposely  or  not)  the  way  for  making  the  institution  of  slavery 
national.  I  repeat  again,  for  I  wish  no  misunderstanding,  that  I  do 
not  charge  that  he  means  it  so ;  but  I  call  upon  your  minds  to  in 
quire,  if  you  were  going  to  get  the  best  instrument  you  could,  and 
then  set  it  to  work  in  the  most  ingenious  way,  to  prepare  the  public 
mind  for  this  movement,  operating  in  the  free  States,  where  there  is 
now  an  abhorrence  of  the  institution  of  slavery,  could  you  find  an  in- 


448         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

strum  ent  so  capable  of  doing  it  as  Judge  Douglas,  or  one  employed 
in  so  apt  a  way  to  do  it  ? 

I  have  said  once  before,  and  I  will  repeat  it  now,  that  Mr.  Clay, 
when  he  was  once  answering  an  objection  to  the  Colonization  Society, 
that  it  had  a  tendency  to  the  ultimate  emancipation  of  the  slaves, 
said  that  "  those  who  would  repress  all  tendencies  to  liberty  and 
ultimate  emancipation  must  do  more  than  put  down  the  benevolent 
efforts  of  the  Colonization  Society — they  must  go  back  to  the  era  of 
pur  liberty  and  independence,  and  muzzle  the  cannon  that  thunders 
its  annual  joyous  return — they  must  blot  out  the  moral  lights  around 
us  —  they  must  penetrate  the  human  soul,  and  eradicate  the  light  of 
reason  and  the  love  of  liberty  "  !  And  I  do  think  —  I  repeat,  though 
I  said  it  on  a  former  occasion  —  that  Judge  Douglas,  and  whoever, 
like  him,  teaches  that  the  negro  has  no  share,  humble  though  it  may 
be,  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  is  going  back  to  the  era  of 
our  liberty  and  independence,  and,  so  far  as  in  him  lies,  muzzling 
the  cannon  that  thunders  its  annual  joyous  return  j  that  he  is  blow 
ing  out  the  moral  lights  around  us,  when  he  contends  that  whoever 
wants  slaves  has  a  right  to  hold  them  •  that  he  is  penetrating,  so  far 
as  lies  in  his  power,  the  human  soul,  and  eradicating  the  light  of 
reason  and  the  love  of  liberty,  when  he  is  in  every  possible  way  pre 
paring  the  public  mind,  by  his  vast  influence,  for  making  the  institu 
tion  of  slavery  perpetual  and  national. 

There  is,  my  friends,  only  one  other  point  to  which  I  will  call  your 
attention  for  the  remaining  time  that  I  have  left  me,  and  perhaps  I 
shall  not  occupy  the  entire  time  that  I  have,  as  that  one  point  may 
not  take  me  clear  through  it. 

Among  the  interrogatories  that  Judge  Douglas  propounded  to  me 
at  Freeport,  there  was  one  in  about  this  language :  "  Are  you  opposed 
to  the  acquisition  of  any  further  territory  to  the  United  States,  unless 
slavery  shall  first  be  prohibited  therein  ?  "  I  answered  as  I  thought,  in 
this  way,  that  I  am  not  generally  opposed  to  the  acquisition  of  addi 
tional  territory,  and  that  I  would  support  a  proposition  for  the  acquisi 
tion  of  additional  territory,  according  as  my  supporting  it  was  or  was 
not  calculated  to  aggravate  this  slavery  question  amongst  us.  I  then 
proposed  to  Judge  Douglas  another  interrogatory,  which  was  correla 
tive  to  that :  "  Are  you  in  favor  of  acquiring  additional  territory  in 
disregard  of  how  it  may  affect  us  upon  the  slavery  question  ? "  Judge 
Douglas  answered  —  that  is,  in  his  own  way  he  answered  it.  I  believe 
that,  although  he  took  a  good  many  words  to  answer  it,  it  was  little 
more  fully  answered  than  any  other.  The  substance  of  his  answer 
was  that  this  country  would  continue  to  expand  —  that  it  would  need 
additional  territory — that  it  was  as  absurd  to  suppose  that  we  could 
continue  upon  our  present  territory,  enlarging  in  population  as  we 
are,  as  it  would  be  to  hoop  a  boy  twelve  years  of  age,  and  expect  him 
to  grow  to  man's  size  without  bursting  the  hoops.  I  believe  it  was 
something  like  that.  Consequently  he  was  in  favor  of  the  acquisition 
of  further  territory,  as  fast  as  we  might  need  it,  in  disregard  of  how 
it  might  affect  the  slaverv  question.  I  do  not  say  this  as  giving  his 
exact  language,  but  he  said  so  substantially,  and  he  would  leave  the 
question  of  slavery  where  the  territory  was  acquired,  to  be  settled  by 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          449 

the  people  of  the  acquired  territory.  ["  That 's  the  doctrine."]  Maybe 
it  is ;  let  us  consider  that  for  a  while.  This  will  probably,  in  the  run 
of  things,  become  one  of  the  concrete  manifestations  of  this  slavery 
question.  If  Judge  Douglas's  policy  upon  this  question  succeeds  and 
gets  fairly  settled  down  until  all  opposition  is  crushed  out,  the  next 
thing  will  be  a  grab  for  the  territory  of  poor  Mexico,  an  invasion  of 
the  rich  lands  of  South  America,  then  the  adjoining  islands  will  fol 
low,  each  one  of  which  promises  additional  slave-fields.  And  this 
question  is  to  be  left  to  the  people  of  those  countries  for  settlement. 
When  we  shall  get  Mexico,  I  don't  know  whether  the  judge  will  be  in 
favor  of  the  Mexican  people  that  we  get  with  it  settling  that  question 
for  themselves  and  all  others  j  because  we  know  the  judge  has  a 
great  horror  for  mongrels,  and  I  understand  that  the  people  of  Mex 
ico  are  most  decidedly  a  race  of  mongrels.  I  understand  that  there 
is  not  more  than  one  person  there  out  of  eight  who  is  a  pure  white, 
and  I  suppose  from  the  judge's  previous  declaration  that  when  we 
get  Mexico,  or  any  considerable  portion  of  it,  he  will  be  in  favor  of 
these  mongrels  settling  the  question,  which  would  bring  him  some 
what  into  collision  with  his  horror  of  an  inferior  race. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  though,  that  this  power  of  acquiring 
additional  territory  is  a  power  confided  to  the  President  and  Senate 
of  the  United  States.  It  is  a  power  not  under  the  control  of  the  rep 
resentatives  of  the  people  any  further  than  they,  the  President  and 
the  Senate,  can  be  considered  the  representatives  of  the  people.  Let 
me  illustrate  that  by  a  case  we  have  in  our  history.  When  we  ac 
quired  the  territory  from  Mexico  in  the  Mexican  war,  the  House  of 
Representatives,  composed  of  the  immediate  representatives  of  the 
people,  all  the  time  insisted  that  the  territory  thus  to  be  acquired 
should  be  brought  in  upon  condition  that  slavery  should  be  forever 
prohibited  therein,  upon  the  terms  and  in  the  language  that  slavery 
had  been  prohibited  from  coming  into  this  country.  That  was  in 
sisted  upon  constantly,  and  never  failed  to  call  forth  an  assurance  that 
any  territory  thus  acquired  should  have  that  prohibition  in  it,  so  far 
as  the  House  of  Representatives  was  concerned.  But  at  last  the  Pres 
ident  and  Senate  acquired  the  territory  without  asking  the  House  of 
Representatives  anything  about  it,  and  took  it  without  that  prohibi 
tion.  They  have  the  power  of  acquiring  territory  without  the  imme 
diate  representatives  of  the  people  being  called  upon  to  say  anything 
about  it,  thus  furnishing  a  very  apt  and  powerful  means  of  bring 
ing  new  territory  into  the  Union,  and,  when  it  is  once  brought  into  the 
country,  involving  us  anew  in  this  slavery  agitation.  It  is  therefore, 
as  I  think,  a  very  important  question  for  the  consideration  of  the 
American  people,  whether  the  policy  of  bringing  in  additional  ter 
ritory,  without  considering  at  all  how  it  will  operate  upon  the  safety 
of  the  Union  in  reference  to  this  one  great  disturbing  element  in 
our  national  politics,  shall  be  adopted  as  the  policy  of  the  country. 
You  will  bear  in  mind  that  it  is  to  be  acquired,  according  to  the 
judge's  view,  as  fast  as  it  is  needed,  and  the  indefinite  part  of  this 
proposition  is  that  we  have  only  Judge  Douglas  and  his  class  of  men 
to  decide  how  fast  it  is  needed.  We  have  no  clear  and  certain  way 
of  determining  or  demonstrating  how  fast  territory  is  needed  by  the 
VOL.  I.— 29. 


450          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

necessities  of  the  country.  Whoever  wants  to  go  out  filibustering, 
then,  thinks  that  more  territory  is  needed.  Whoever  wants  wider 
slave-fields  feels  sure  that  some  additional  territory  is  needed  as 
slave  territory.  Then  it  is  as  easy  to  show  the  necessity  of  addi 
tional  slave  territory  as  it  is  to  assert  anything  that  is  incapable  of 
absolute  demonstration.  Whatever  motive  a  man  or  a  set  of  men 
may  have  for  making  annexation  of  property  or  territory,  it  is  very 
easy  to  assert,  but  much  less  easy  to  disprove,  that  it  is  necessary  for 
the  wants  of  the  country. 

And  now  it  only  remains  for  me  to  say  that  I  think  it  is  a  very 
grave  question  for  the  people  of  this  Union  to  consider  whether,  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  this  slavery  question  has  been  the  only  one 
that  has  ever  endangered  our  republican  institutions — the  only  one 
that  has  ever  threatened  or  menaced  a  dissolution  of  the  Union — that 
has  ever  disturbed  us  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  us  fear  for  the  per 
petuity  of  our  liberty — in  view  of  these  facts,  I  think  it  is  an  exceed 
ingly  interesting  and  important  question  for  this  people  to  consider 
whether  we  shall  engage  in  the  policy  of  acquiring  additional  terri 
tory,  discarding  altogether  from  our  consideration,  while  obtaining 
new  territory,  the  question  how  it  may  affect  us  in  regard  to  this  the 
only  endangering  element  to  our  liberties  and  national  greatness. 
The  judge's  view  has  been  expressed.  I,  in  my  answer  to  his  ques 
tion,  have  expressed  mine.  I  think  it  will  become  an  important  and 
practical  question.  Our  views  are  before  the  public.  I  am  willing 
and  anxious  that  they  should  consider  them  fully  —  that  they  should 
turn  it  about  and  consider  the  importance  of  the  question,  and  arrive 
at  a  just  conclusion  as  to  whether  it  is  or  is  not  wise  in  the  people  of 
this  Union,  in  the  acquisition  of  new  territory,  to  consider  whether  it 
will  add  to  the  disturbance  that  is  existing  among  us — whether  it 
will  add  to  the  one  only  danger  that  has  ever  threatened  the  per 
petuity  of  the  Union  or  our  own  liberties.  I  think  it  is  extremely 
important  that  they  shall  decide,  and  rightly  decide,  that  question 
before  entering  upon  that  policy. 

And  now,  my  friends,  having  said  the  little  I  wish  to  say  upon  this 
head,  whether  I  have  occupied  the  whole  of  the  remnant  of  my  time 
or  not,  I  believe  I  could  not  enter  upon  any  new  topic  so  as  to  treat 
it  fully  without  transcending  my  time,  which  I  would  not  for  a  mo 
ment  think  of  doing.  I  give  way  to  Judge  Douglas. 

Mr.  Douglas's  Rejoinder  in  the  Galesburg  Joint  Debate. 

Gentlemen :  The  highest  compliment  you  can  pay  me  during  the 
brief  half -hour  that  I  have  to  conclude  is  by  observing  a  strict  silence. 
I  desire  to  be  heard  rather  than  to  be  applauded. 

The  first  criticism  that  Mr.  Lincoln  makes  on  my  speech  was  that 
it  was  in  substance  what  I  have  said  everywhere  else  in  the  State 
where  I  have  addressed  the  people.  I  wish  I  could  say  the  same  of 
his  speech.  Why,  the  reason  I  complain  of  him  is  because  he  makes 
one  speech  north  and  another  south.  Because  he  has  one  set  of  sen 
timents  for  the  Abolition  counties,  and  another  set  for  the  counties 
opposed  to  Abolitionism.  My  point  of  complaint  against  him  is  that 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          451 

I  cannot  induce  him  to  hold  up  the  same  standard,  to  carry  the  same 
flag  in  all  parts  of  the  State.  He  does  not  pretend,  and  no  other  man 
will,  that  I  have  one  set  of  principles  for  Galesburg  and  another  for 
Charleston.  He  does  not  pretend  that  I  hold  to  one  doctrine  in 
Chicago  and  an  opposite  one  in  Jonesboro.  I  have  proved  that  he 
has  a  different  set  of  principles  for  each  of  these  localities.  All  I 
asked  of  him  was  that  he  should  deliver  the  speech  that  he  has  made 
here  to-day  in  Coles  County  instead  of  in  old  Knox.  It  would  have 
settled  the  question  between  us  in  that  doubtful  county.  Here  I 
understand  him  to  reaffirm  the  doctrine  of  negro  equality,  and  to  as 
sert  that  by  the  Declaration  of  Independence  the  negro  is  declared 
equal  to  the  white  man.  He  tells  you  to-day  that  the  negro  was  in 
cluded  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  when  it  asserted  that  all 
men  were  created  equal.  [  "  We  believe  it."  ]  Very  well. 

Mr.  Lincoln  asserts  to-day,  as  he  did  at  Chicago,  that  the  negro  was 
included  in  that  clause  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  which  says 
that  all  men  were  created  equal,  and  endowed  by  the  Creator  with  cer 
tain  inalienable  rights,  among  which  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness.  If  the  negro  was  made  his  equal  and  mine,  if  that 
equality  was  established  by  divine  law,  and  was  the  negro's  inalien 
able  right,  how  came  he  to  say  at  Charleston  to  the  Kentuckians 
residing  in  that  section  of  our  State,  that  the  negro  was  physically 
inferior  to  the  white  man,  belonged  to  an  inferior  race,  and  he  was 
for  keeping  him  always  in  that  inferior  condition.  I  wish  you  to 
bear  these  things  in  mind.  At  Charleston  he  said  that  the  negro 
belonged  to  an  inferior  race,  and  that  he  was  for  keeping  him  in 
that  inferior  condition.  There  he  gave  the  people  to  understand 
that  there  was  no  moral  question  involved,  because  the  inferiority 
being  established,  it  was  only  a  question  of  degree  and  not  a  ques 
tion  of  right  5  here,  to-day,  instead  of  making  it  a  question  of  degree, 
he  makes  it  a  moral  question,  says  that  it  is  a  great  crime  to  hold  the 
negro  in  that  inferior  condition.  ["  He  's  right."]  Is  he  right  now, 
or  was  he  right  in  Charleston  ?  ["  Both."]  He  is  right  then,  sir,  in 
your  estimation,  not  because  he  is  consistent,  but  because  he  can 
trim  his  principles  any  way  in  any  section,  so  as  to  secure  votes. 
All  I  desire  of  him  is  that  he  will  declare  the  same  principles  in  the 
south  that  he  does  in  the  north. 

But  did  you  notice  how  he  answered  my  position  that  a  man  should 
hold  the  same  doctrines  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  this 
republic  ?  He  said,  "  Would  Judge  Douglas  go  to  Russia  and  pro 
claim  the  same  principles  he  does  here  V  I  would  remind  him  that 
Russia  is  not  under  the  American  Constitution.  If  Russia  was  a 
part  of  the  American  republic,  under  our  Federal  Constitution,  and 
I  was  sworn  to  support  the  Constitution,  I  would  maintain  the  same 
doctrine  in  Russia  that  I  do  in  Illinois.  The  slaveholding  States  are 
governed  by  the  same  Federal  Constitution  as  ourselves,  and  hence 
a  man's  principles,  in  order  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  Constitution, 
must  be  the  same  in  the  South  as  they  are  in  the  North,  the  same  in 
the  free  States  as  they  are  in  the  slave  States.  Whenever  a  man  ad 
vocates  one  set  of  principles  in  one  section,  and  another  set  in  another 
section,  his  opinions  are  in  violation  of  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution 


452          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

which  he  has  sworn  to  support.  When  Mr.  Lincoln  went  to  Congress 
in  1847,  and,  laying  his  hand  upon  the  Holy  Evangelists,  made  a  solemn 
vow  in  the  presence  of  high  Heaven  that  he  would  be  faithful  to  the 
Constitution — what  did  he  mean!  the  Constitution  as  he  expounds 
it  in  Galesburg,  or  the  Constitution  as  he  expounds  it  in  Charleston. 
Mr.  Lincoln  has  devoted  considerable  time  to  the  circumstance 
that  at  Ottawa  I  read  a  series  of  resolutions  as  having  been  adopted 
at  Springfield,  in  this  State,  on  the  4th  or  5th  of  October,  1854,  which 
happened  not  to  have  been  adopted  there.  He  has  used  hard  names ; 
has  dared  to  talk  about  fraud,  about  forgery,  and  has  insinuated 
that  there  was  a  conspiracy  between  Mr.  Lanphier,  Mr.  Harris,  and 
myself  to  perpetrate  a  forgery.  Now,  bear  in  mind  that  he  does  not 
deny  that  these  resolutions  were  adopted  in  a  majority  of  all  the 
Republican  counties  of  this  State  in  that  year ;  he  does  not  deny  that 
they  were  declared  to  be  the  platform  of  this  Republican  party  in 
the  first  congressional  district,  in  the  second,  in  the  third,  and 
in  many  counties  of  the  fourth,  and  that  they  thus  became  the 
platform  of  his  party  in  a  majority  of  the  counties  upon  which  he 
now  relies  for  support  j  he  does  not  deny  the  truthfulness  of  the  res 
olutions,  but  takes  exception  to  the  spot  on  which  they  were  adopted. 
He  takes  to  himself  great  merit  because  he  thinks  they  were  not 
adopted  on  the  right  spot  for  me  to  use  them  against  him,  just  as  he 
was  very  severe  in  Congress  upon  the  government  of  his  country, 
when  he  thought  that  he  had  discovered  that  the  Mexican  war  was 
not  begun  in  the  right  spot,  and  was  therefore  unjust.  He  tries 
very  hard  to  make  out  that  there  is  something  very  extraordinary  in 
the  place  where  the  thing  was  done,  and  not  in  the  thing  itself.  I 
never  believed  before  that  Abraham  Lincoln  would  be  guilty  of  what 
he  has  done  this  day  in  regard  to  those  resolutions.  In  the  first 
place,  the  moment  it  was  intimated  to  me  that  they  had  been  adopted 
at  Aurora  and  Rockf ord  instead  of  Springfield,  I  did  not  wait  for 
him  to  call  my  attention  to  the  fact,  but  led  off  and  explained  in  my 
first  meeting  after  the  Ottawa  debate,  what  the  mistake  was  and  how 
it  had  been  made.  I  supposed  that  for  an  honest  man,  conscious  of 
his  own  rectitude,  that  explanation  would  be  sufficient.  I  did  not 
wait  for  him,  after  the  mistake  was  made,  to  call  my  attention  to  it, 
but  frankly  explained  it  at  once  as  an  honest  man  would.  I  also 
gave  the  authority  on  which  I  had  stated  that  these  resolutions  were 
adopted  by  the  Springfield  Republican  convention ;  that  I  had  seen 
them  quoted  by  Major  Harris  in  a  debate  in  Congress,  as  having 
been  adopted  by  the  first  Republican  State  convention  in  Illinois, 
and  that  I  had  written  to  him  and  asked  him  for  the  authority  as  to 
the  time  and  place  of  their  adoption ;  that  Major  Harris  being  ex 
tremely  ill,  Charles  H.  Lanphier  had  written  to  me  for  him  that  they 
were  adopted  at  Springfield,  on  the  5th  of  October,  1854,  and  had 
sent  me  a  copy  of  the  Springfield  paper  containing  them.  I  read 
them  from  the  newspaper  just  as  Mr.  Lincoln  reads  the  proceedings 
of  meetings  held  years  ago  from  the  newspapers.  After  giving  that 
explanation,  I  did  not  think  there  was  an  honest  man  in  the  State  of 
Illinois  who  doubted  that  I  had  been  led  into  the  error,  if  it  was  such, 
innocently,  in  the  way  I  detailed ;  and  I  will  now  say  that  I  do  not 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          453 

now  believe  that  there  is  an  honest  man  on  the  face  of  the  globe  who 
will  not  regard  with  abhorrence  and  disgust  Mr.  Lincoln's  insinua 
tions  of  my  complicity  in  that  forgery,  if  it  was  a  forgery.  Does  Mr. 
Lincoln  wish  to  push  "these  things  to  the  point  of  personal  difficulties 
here  ?  I  commenced  this  contest  by  treating  him  courteously  and 
kindly  j  I  always  spoke  of  him  in  words  of  respect,  and  in  return  he 
has  sought,  and  is  now  seeking,  to  divert  public  attention  from  the 
enormity  of  his  revolutionary  principles  by  impeaching  men's  sin 
cerity  and  integrity,  and  inviting  personal  quarrels. 

I  desired  to  conduct  this  contest  with  him  like  a  gentleman,  but  I 
spurn  the  insinuation  of  complicity  and  fraud  made  upon  the  simple 
circumstance  of  an  editor  of  a  newspaper  having  made  a  mistake  as 
to  the  place  where  a  thing  was  done,  but  not  as  to  the  thing  itself. 
These  resolutions  were  the  platform  of  this  Republican  party  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  of  that  year.  They  were  adopted  in  a  majority  of  the  Repub 
lican  counties  in  the  State ;  and  when  I  asked  him  at  Ottawa  whether 
they  formed  the  platform  upon  which  he  stood,  he  did  not  answer, 
and  I  could  not  get  an  answer  out  of  him.  He  then  thought,  as  I 
thought,  that  those  resolutions  were  adopted  at  the  Springfield  con 
vention,  but  excused  himself  by  saying  that  he  was  not  there  when 
they  were  adopted,  but  had  gone  to  Tazewell  court  in  order  to  avoid 
being  present  at  the  convention.  He  saw  them  published  as  having 
been  adopted  at  Springfield,  and  so  did  I,  and  he  knew  that  if  there 
was  a  mistake  in  regard  to  them,  that  I  had  nothing  under  heaven  to 
do  with  it.  Besides,  you  find  that  in  all  these  northern  counties 
where  the  Republican  candidates  are  running  pledged  to  him,  that 
the  conventions  which  nominated  them  adopted  that  identical  plat 
form.  One  cardinal  point  in  that  platform  which  he  shrinks  from  is 
this  —  that  there  shall  be  no  more  slave  States  admitted  into  the 
Union,  even  if  the  people  want  them.  Love  joy  stands  pledged  against 
the  admission  of  any  more  slave  States.  ["Right;  so  do  we."]  So 
do  you,  you  say.  Farnsworth  stands  pledged  against  the  admission 
of  any  more  slave  States.  Washburne  stands  pledged  the  same  way. 
The  candidate  for  the  legislature  who  is  running  on  Lincoln's  ticket 
in  Henderson  and  Warren  stands  committed  by  his  vote  in  the  legis 
lature  to  the  same  thing,  and  I  am  informed,  but  do  not  know  of 
the  fact,  that  your  candidate  here  is  also  so  pledged.  ["  Hurrah  for 
him  !  Good ! "]  Now,  you  Republicans  all  hurrah  for  him,  and  for  the 
doctrine  of  "  no  more  slave  States,"  and  yet  Lincoln  tells  you  that  his 
conscience  will  not  permit  him  to  sanction  that  doctrine,  and  com 
plains  because  the  resolutions  I  read  at  Ottawa  made  him,  as  a  mem 
ber  of  the  party,  responsible  for  sanctioning  the  doctrine  of  no  more 
slave  States.  You  are  one  way,  you  confess,  and  he  is  or  pretends  to 
be  the  other,  and  yet  you  are  both  governed  by  principle  in  support 
ing  one  another.  If  it  be  true,  as  I  have  shown  it  is,  that  the  whole 
Republican  party  in  the  northern  part  of  the  State  stands  committed 
to  the  doctrine  of  no  more  slave  States,  and  that  this  same  doctrine 
is  repudiated  by  the  Republicans  in  the  other  part  of  the  State,  I 
wonder  whether  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  party  do  not  present  the  case 
which  he  cited  from  the  Scriptures,  of  a  house  divided  against  itself 
which  cannot  stand  !  I  desire  to  know  what  are  Mr.  Lincoln's  princi- 


454         ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

pies  and  the  principles  of  his  party.  I  hold,  and  the  party  with 
which  I  am  identified  holds,  that  the  people  of  each  State,  old  and 
new,  have  the  right  to  decide  the  slavery  question  for  themselves, 
and  when  I  used  the  remark  that  I  did  not  care  whether  slavery  was 
voted  up  or  down,  I  used  it  in  the  connection  that  I  was  for  allowing 
Kansas  to  do  just  as  she  pleased  on  the  slavery  question.  I  said  that 
I  did  not  care  whether  they  voted  slavery  up  or  down,  because  they 
had  the  right  to  do  as  they  pleased  on  the  question,  and  therefore  my 
action  would  not  be  controlled  by  any  such  consideration.  Why  can 
not  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  the  party  with  which  he  acts,  speak  out 
their  principles  so  that  they  may  be  understood  ?  Why  do  they  claim 
to  be  one  thing  in  one  part  of  the  State  and  another  in  the  other  part? 
Whenever  I  allude  to  the  Abolition  doctrines,  which  he  considers  a 
slander  to  be  charged  with  being  in  favor  of,  you  all  indorse  them, 
and  hurrah  for  them,  not  knowing  that  your  candidate  is  ashamed  to 
acknowledge  them. 

I  have  a  few  words  to  say  upon  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  which 
has  troubled  the  brain  of  Mr.  Lincoln  so  much.  He  insists  that  that 
decision  would  carry  slavery  into  the  free  States,  notwithstanding 
that  the  decision  says  directly  the  opposite  j  and  goes  into  a  long 
argument  to  make  you  believe  that  I  am  in  favor  of,  and  would  sanc 
tion,  the  doctrine  that  would  allow  slaves  to  be  brought  here  and  held 
as  slaves  contrary  to  our  constitution  and  laws.  Mr.  Lincoln  knew 
better  when  he  asserted  this  ;  he  knew  that  one  newspaper,  and  so 
far  as  is  within  my  knowledge  but  one,  ever  asserted  that  doctrine, 
and  that  I  was  the  first  man  in  either  House  of  Congress  that  read 
that  article  in  debate,  and  denounced  it  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  as 
revolutionary.  When  the  Washington  "  Union,"  on  the  17th  of  last 
November,  published  an  article  to  that  effect,  I  branded  it  at  once, 
and  denounced  it,  and  hence  the  " Union"  has  been  pursuing  me  ever 
since.  Mr.  Toombs,  of  Georgia,  replied  to  me,  and  said  that  there 
was  not  a  man  in  any  of  the  slave  States  south  of  the  Potomac  River 
that  held  any  such  doctrine.  Mr.  Lincoln  knows  that  there  is  not  a 
member  of  the  Supreme  Court  who  holds  that  doctrine ;  he  knows 
that  every  one  of  them,  as  shown  by  their  opinions,  holds  the  reverse. 
Why  this  attempt,  then,  to  bring  the  Supreme  Court  into  disrepute 
among  the  people  ?  It  looks  as  if  there  was  an  effort  being  made  to  de 
stroy  public  confidence  in  the  highest  judicial  tribunal  on  earth.  Sup 
pose  he  succeeds  in  destroying  public  confidence  in  the  court,  so  that 
the  people  will  not  respect* its  decisions,  but  will  feel  at  liberty  to  dis 
regard  them,  and  resist  the  laws  of  the  land,  what  will  he  have'gained? 
He  will  have  changed  the  government  from  one  of  laws  into  that  of 
a  mob,  in  which  the  strong  arm  of  violence  will  be  substituted  for  the 
decisions  of  the  courts  of  justice.  He  complains  because  I  did  not  go 
into  an  argument  reviewing  Chief  Justice  Taney's  opinion,  and  the 
other  opinions  of  the  different  judges,  to  determine  whether  their 
reasoning  is  right  or  wrong  on  the  questions  of  law.  What  use  would 
that  be  ?  He  wants  to  take  an  appeal  from  the  Supreme  Court  to  this 
meeting  to  determine  whether  the  questions  of  law  were  decided 
properly.  He  is  going  to  appeal  from  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  to  every  town  meeting,  in  the  hope  that  he  can  excite 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          455 

a  prejudice  against  that  court,  and  on  the  wave  of  that  prejudice  ride 
into  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  when  he  could  not  get  there  on 
his  own  principles,  or  his  own  merits.  Suppose  he  should  succeed 
in  getting  into  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  what  then  will  he 
have  to  do  with  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  Dred  Scott 
case  ?  Can  he  reverse  that  decision  when  he  gets  there  ?  Can  he  act 
upon  it?  Has  the  Senate  any  right  to  reverse  it  or  revise  it?  He 
will  not  pretend  that  it  has.  Then  why  drag  the  matter  into  this  con 
test,  unless  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  false  issue,  by  which  he  can 
divert  public  attention  from  the  real  issue. 

He  has  cited  General  Jackson  in  justification  of  the  war  he  is 
making  on  the  decision  of  the  court.  Mr.  Lincoln  misunderstands 
the  history  of  the  country  if  he  believes  there  is  any  parallel  in  the 
two  cases.  It  is  true  that  the  Supreme  Court  once  decided  that  if  a 
bank  of  the  United  States  was  a  necessary  fiscal  agent  of  the  govern 
ment  it  was  constitutional,  and  if  not,  that  it  was  unconstitutional, 
and  also,  that  whether  or  not  it  was  necessary  for  that  purpose  was 
a  political  question  for  Congress,  and  not  a  judicial  one  for  the  courts 
to  determine.  Hence  the  court  would  not  determine  the  bank  uncon 
stitutional.  Jackson  respected  the  decision,  obeyed  the  law,  executed 
it,  and  carried  it  into  effect  during  its  existence ;  but  after  the  char 
ter  of  the  bank  expired,  and  a  proposition  was  made  to  create  a  new 
bank,  General  Jackson  said:  "It  is  unnecessary  and  improper,  and 
therefore  I  am  against  it  on  constitutional  grounds  as  well  as  those 
of  expediency."  Is  Congress  bound  to  pass  every  act  that  is  con 
stitutional  ?  Why,  there  are  a  thousand  things  that  are  constitu 
tional,  but  yet  are  inexpedient  and  unnecessary,  and  you  surely  would 
not  vote  for  them  merely  because  you  had  the  right  to  ?  And  because 
General  Jackson  would  not  do  a  thing  which  he  had  a  right  to  do,  but 
did  not  deem  expedient  or  proper,  Mr.  Lincoln  is  going  to  justify 
himself  in  doing  that  which  he  has  no  right  to  do.  I  ask  him  whether 
he  is  not  bound  to  respect  and  obey  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme 
Court  as  well  as  I?  The  Constitution  has  created  that  court  to 
decide  all  constitutional  questions  in  the  last  resort,  and  when  such 
decisions  have  been  made  they  become  the  law  of  the  land,  and  you, 
and  he,  and  myself,  and  every  other  good  citizen  are  bound  by  them. 
Yet  he  argues  that  I  am  bound  by  their  decisions,  and  he  is  not.  He 
says  that  their  decisions  are  binding  on  Democrats,  but  not  on  Re 
publicans.  Are  not  Republicans  bound  by  the  laws  of  the  land  as 
well  as  Democrats  ?  And  when  the  court  has  fixed  the  construction 
of  the  Constitution  on  the  validity  of  a  given  law,  is  not  their  deci 
sion  binding  upon  Republicans  as  well  as  upon  Democrats  ?  Is  it  pos 
sible  that  you  Republicans  have  the  right  to  raise  your  mobs  and 
oppose  the  laws  of  the  land  and  the  constituted  authorities,  and  yet 
hold  us  Democrats  bound  to  obey  them  ?  My  time  is  within  half  a 
minute  of  expiring,  and  all  I  have  to  say  is  that  I  stand  by  the  laws 
of  the  land.  I  stand  by  the  Constitution  as  our  fathers  made  it,  by 
the  laws  as  they  are  enacted,  and  by  the  decisions  of  the  court  upon 
all  points  within  their  jurisdiction  as  they  are  pronounced  by  the 
highest  tribunal  on  earth  •  and  any  man  who  resists  these  must  re 
sort  to  mob-law  and  violence  to  overturn  the  government  of  laws. 


456          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

October  13,  1858. —  SIXTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  QUINCY,  ILLINOIS. 
Mr.  Lincoln's  Opening  Speech. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen :  I  have  had  no  immediate  conference  with 
Judge  Douglas,  but  I  will  venture  to  say  that  he  and  I  will  perfectly 
agree  that  your  entire  silence,  both  when  I  speak  and  when  he  speaks,, 
will  be  most  agreeable  to  us. 

In  the  month  of  May,  1856,  the  elements  in  the  State  of  Illinois 
which  have  since  been  consolidated  into  the  Republican  party  assem 
bled  together  in  a  State  convention  at  Bloomington.  They  adopted 
at  that  time  what,  in  political  language,  is  called  a  platform.  In 
June  of  the  same  year,  the  elements  of  the  Republican  party  in  the 
nation  assembled  together  in  a  national  convention  at  Philadelphia. 
They  adopted  what  is  called  the  national  platform.  In  June,  1858, — 
the  present  year, — the  Republicans  of  Illinois  reassembled  at  Spring 
field  in  State  convention,  and  adopted  again  their  platform,  as  I 
suppose,  not  differing  in  any  essential  particular  from  either  of  the 
former  ones,  but  perhaps  adding  something  in  relation  to  the  new 
developments  of  political  progress  in  the  country. 

The  convention  that  assembled  in  June  last  did  me  the  honor,  if  it 
be  one,  and  I  esteem  it  such,  to  nominate  me  as  their  candidate  for 
the  United  States  Senate.  I  have  supposed  that,  in  entering  upon 
this  canvass,  I  stood  generally  upon  these  platforms.  We  are  now 
met  together  on  the  13th  of  October  of  the  same  year,  only  four 
months  from  the  adoption  of  the  last  platform,  and  I  am  unaware 
that  in  this  canvass,  from  the  beginning  until  to-day,  any  one  of  our 
adversaries  has  taken  hold  of  our  platforms,  or  laid  his  finger  upon 
anything  he  calls  wrong  in  them. 

In  the  very  first  one  of  these  joint  discussions  between  Senator 
Douglas  and  myself,  Senator  Douglas,  without  alluding  at  all  to 
these  platforms,  or  to  any  one  of  them,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  at 
tempted  to  hold  me  responsible  for  a  set  of  resolutions  passed  long 
before  the  meeting  of  either  one  of  these  conventions  of  which  I  have 
spoken.  And  as  a  ground  for  holding  me  responsible  for  these  res 
olutions,  he  assumed  that  they  had  been  passed  at  a  State  conven 
tion  of  the  Republican  party,  and  that  I  took  part  in  that  convention. 
It  was  discovered  afterward  that  this  was  erroneous,  that  the  resolu 
tions  which  he  endeavored  to  hold  me  responsible  for  had  not  been 
passed  by  any  State  convention  anywhere,  had  not  been  passed 
at  Springfield,  where  he  supposed  they  had,  or  assumed  that  they 
had,  and  that  they  had  been  passed  in  no  convention  in  which  I  had 
taken  part.  The  judge,  nevertheless,  was  not  willing  to  give  up  the 
point  that  he  was  endeavoring  to  make  upon  me,  and  he  therefore 
thought  to  still  hold  me  to  the  point  that  he  was  endeavoring  to 
make,  by  showing  that  the  resolutions  that  he  read  had  been  passed 
at  a  local  convention  in  the  northern  part  of  the  State,  although  it 
was  not  a  local  convention  that  embraced  my  residence  at  all,  nor 
one  that  reached,  as  I  suppose,  nearer  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  or 
two  hundred  miles  of  where  I  was  when  it  met,  nor  one  in  which  I 
took  any  part  at  all.  He  also  introduced  other  resolutions,  passed 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          457 

at  other  meetings,  and  by  combining  the  whole,  although  they  were 
all  antecedent  to  the  two  State  conventions,  and  the  one  national 
convention  I  have  mentioned,  still  he  insisted  and  now  insists,  as  I 
understand,  that  I  am  in  some  way  responsible  for  them. 

At  Jonesboro,  on  our  third  meeting,  I  insisted  to  the  judge  that  I 
was  in  no  way  rightfully  held  responsible  for  the  proceedings  of  this 
local  meeting  or  convention  in  which  I  had  taken  no  part,  and  in 
which  I  was  in  no  way  embraced ;  but  I  insisted  to  him  that  if  he 
thought  I  was  responsible  for  every  man  or  eveiy  set  of  men  every 
where,  who  happen  to  be  my  friends,  the  rule  ought  to  work  both 
ways,  and  he  ought  to  be  responsible  for  the  acts  and  resolutions  of 
all  men  or  sets  of  men  who  were  or  are  now  his  supporters  and 
friends,  and  gave  him  a  pretty  long  string  of  resolutions,  passed  by 
men  who  are  now  his  friends,  and  announcing  doctrines  for  which 
he  does  not  desire  to  be  held  responsible. 

This  still  does  not  satisfy  Judge  Douglas.  He  still  adheres  to  his 
proposition,  that  I  am  responsible  for  what  some  of  my  friends  in 
different  parts  of  the  State  have  done ;  but  that  he  is  not  responsible 
for  what  his  have  done.  At  least,  so  I  understand  him.  But,  in  ad 
dition  to  that,  the  judge,  at  our  meeting  in  Galesburg  last  week, 
undertakes  to  establish  that  I  am  guilty  of  a  species  of  double-deal 
ing  with  the  public — that  I  make  speeches  of  a  certain  sort  in  the 
North,  among  the  Abolitionists,  which  I  would  not  make  in  the  South, 
and  that  I  make  speeches  of  a  certain  sort  in  the  South  which  I  would 
not  make  in  the  North.  I  apprehend,  in  the  course  I  have  marked 
out  for  myself,  that  I  shall  not  have  to  dwell  at  very  great  length  upon 
this  subject. 

As  this  was  done  in  the  judge's  opening  speech  at  Galesburg,  I 
had  an  opportunity,  as  I  had  the  middle  speech  then,  of  saying  some 
thing  in  answer  to  it.  He  brought  forward  a  quotation  or  two  from 
a  speech  of  mine,  delivered  at  Chicago,  and  then,  to  contrast  with  it, 
he  brought  forward  an  extract  from  a  speech  of  mine  at  Charleston, 
in  which  he  insisted  that  I  was  greatly  inconsistent,  and  insisted  that 
his  conclusion  followed  that  I  was  playing  a  double  part,  and  speak 
ing  in  one  region  one  way,  and  in  another  region  another  way.  I  have 
not  time  now  to  dwell  on  this  as  long  as  I  would  like,  and  wish  only 
now  to  requote  that  portion  of  my  speech  at  Charleston,  which  the 
judge  quoted,  and  then  make  some  comments  upon  it.  This  he  quotes 
from  me  as  being  delivered  at  Charleston,  and  I  believe  correctly : 

I  will  say,  then,  that  I  am  not,  nor  ever  have  been,  in  favor  of  bringing 
about  in  any  way  the  social  and  political  equality  of  the  white  and  black 
races  —  that  I  am  not  nor  ever  have  been  in  favor  of  making  voters  or  jurors 
of  negroes,  nor  of  qualifying  them  to  hold  office,  nor  to  intermarry  with 
white  people  ;  and  I  will  say  in  addition  to  this  that  there  is  a  physical  differ 
ence  between  the  white  and  black  races  which  will  ever  forbid  the  two  races 
living  together  on  terms  of  social  and  political  equality.  And  inasmuch  as 
they  cannot  so  live,  while  they  do  remain  together,  there  must  be  the  posi 
tion  of  superior  and  inferior,  and  I,  as  much  as  any  other  man,  am  in  favor 
of  having  the  superior  position  assigned  to  the  white  race. 

This,  I  believe,  is  the  entire  quotation  from  the  Charleston  speech, 
as  Judge  Douglas  made  it.  His  comments  are  as  follows : 


458          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Yes,  here  you  find  men  who  hurrah  for  Lincoln,  and  say  he  is  right  when 
he  discards  all  distinction  between  races,  or  when  he  declares  that  he  discards 
the  doctrine  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  superior  and  inferior  race  j  and 
Abolitionists  are  required  and  expected  to  vote  for  Mr.  Lincoln  because  he 
goes  for  the  equality  of  races,  holding  that  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
the  white  man  and  negro  were  declared  equal,  and  endowed  by  divine  law 
with  equality.  And  down  South  with  the  old-line  Whigs,  wi'th  the  Ken- 
tuckians,  the  Virginians,  and  the  Tennesseeans,  he  tells  you  that  there  is 
a  physical  difference  between  the  races,  making  the  one  superior,  the  other 
inferior,  and  he  is  in  favor  of  maintaining  the  superiority  of  the  white  race 
over  the  negro. 

Those  are  the  judge's  comments.  Now  I  wish  to  show  you,  that  a 
month,  or  only  lacking  three  days  of  a  month,  before  I  made  the 
speech  at  Charleston  which  the  judge  quotes  from,  he  had  himself 
heard  me  say  substantially  the  same  thing.  It  was  in  our  first  meet 
ing,  at  Ottawa,  and  I  will  say  a  word  about  where  it  was,  and  the 
atmosphere  it  was  in,  after  a  while — but  at  our  first  meeting,  at  Ot 
tawa,  I  read  an  extract  from  an  old  speech  of  mine,  made  nearly  four 
years  ago,  not  merely  to  show  my  sentiments,  but  to  show  that  my 
sentiments  were  long  entertained  and  openly  expressed;  in  which 
extract  I  expressly  declared  that  my  own  feelings  would  not  admit 
of  a  social  and  political  equality  between  the  white  and  black  races, 
and  that  even  if  my  own  feelings  would  admit  of  it,  I  still  knew  that 
the  public  sentiment  of  the  country  would  not,  and  that  such  a  thing 
was  an  utter  impossibility,  or  substantially  that.  That  extract  from 
my  old  speech,  the  reporters,  by  some  sort  of  accident,  passed  over, 
and  it  was  not  reported.  I  lay  no  blame  upon  anybody.  I  suppose 
they  thought  that  I  would  hand  it  over  to  them,  and  dropped  report 
ing  while  I  was  reading  it,  but  afterward  went  away  without  getting 
it  from  me.  At  the  end  of  that  quotation  from  my  old  speech,  which 
I  read  at  Ottawa,  I  made  the  comments  which  were  reported  at  that 
time,  and  which  I  will  now  read,  and  ask  you  to  notice  how  very 
nearly  they  are  the  same  as  Judge  Douglas  says  were  delivered  by 
me,  down  in  Egypt.  After  reading  I  added  these  words : 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  don't  want  to  read  at  any  greater  length,  but  this  is 
the  true  complexion  of  all  I  have  ever  said  in  regard  to  the  institution  of 
slavery,  or  the  black  race,  and  this  is  the  whole^  of  it ;  and  anything  that  ar 
gues  me  into  his  idea  of  perfect  social  and  political  equality  with  the  negro  is 
but  a  specious  and  fantastical  arrangement  of  words  by  which  a  man  can 
prove  a  horse-chestnut  to  be  a  chestnut  horse.  I  will  say  here,  while  upon 
this  subject,  that  I  have  no  purpose,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  interfere  with 
the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists.  I  believe  I  have  no 
lawful  right  to  do  so,  and  I  have  no  inclination  to  do  so.  I  have  no  purpose 
to  introduce  political  and  social  equality  between  the  white  and  black  races. 
There  is  a  physical  difference  between  the  two,  which,  in  my  judgment,  will 
probably  forever  forbid  their  living  together  on  the  footing  of  perfect  equal 
ity,  and,  inasmuch  as  it  becomes  a  necessity  that  there  must  be  a  difference, 
I,  as  well  as  Judge  Douglas,  am  in  favor  of  the  race  to  which  I  belong  hav 
ing  the  superior  position.  I  have  never  said  anything  to  the  contrary,  but  I 
hold  that,  notwithstanding  all  this,  there  is  no  reason  in  the  world  why  the 
negro  is  not  entitled  to  all  the  natural  rights  enumerated  in  the  Declaration 
of  Independence — the  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  I 
hold  that  he  is  as  much  entitled  to  these  as  the  white  man.  I  agree  with 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          459 

Judge  Douglas  that  he  is  not  my  equal  in  many  respects,  certainly  not  in 
color — perhaps  not  in  intellectual  and  moral  endowments  j  but  in  the  right 
to  eat  the  bread,  without  the  leave  of  anybody  else,  which  his  own  hand 
earns,  he  is  my  equal,  and  the  equal  of  Judge  Douglas,  and  the  equal  of 
every  living  man. 

I  have  chiefly  introduced  this  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  the  judge's 
charge  that  the  quotation  he  took  from  my  Charleston  speech  was 
what  I  would  say  down  south  among  the  Kentuckians,  the  Virginians, 
etc.,  but  would  not  say  in  the  regions  in  which  was  supposed  to  be 
more  of  the  Abolition  element.  I  now  make  this  comment :  that 
speech  from  which  I  have  now  read  the  quotation,  and  which  is  there 
given  correctly,  perhaps  too  much  so  for  good  taste,  was  made  away 
up  north  in  the  Abolition  district  of  this  State  par  excellence  —  in 
the  Lovejoy  district  —  in  the  personal  presence  of  Lovejoy ;  for  he 
was  on  the  stand  with  us  when  I  made  it.  It  had  been  made  and 
put  in  print  in  that  region  only  three  days  less  than  a  month  before 
the  speech  made  at  Charleston,  the  like  of  which  Judge  Douglas 
thinks  I  would  not  make  where  there  was  any  Abolition  element. 
I  only  refer  to  this  matter  to  say  that  I  am  altogether  unconscious 
of  having  attempted  any  double-dealing  anywhere;  that  upon  one 
occasion  I  may  say  one  thing  and  leave  other  things  unsaid,  and  vice 
versa;  but  that  I  have  said  anything  on  one  occasion  that  is  incon 
sistent  with  what  I  have  said  elsewhere,  I  deny  —  at  least,  I  deny  it 
so  far  as  the  intention  is  concerned.  I  find  that  I  have  devoted  to 
this  topic  a  larger  portion  of  my  time  than  I  had  intended.  I  wished 
to  show — but  I  will  pass  it  upon  this  occasion — that  in  the  sentiment 
I  have  occasionally  advanced  upon  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
I  am  entirely  borne  out  by  the  sentiments  advanced  by  our  old  Whig- 
leader,  Henry  Clay,  and  I  have  the  book  here  to  show  it  from ;  but 
because  I  have  already  occupied  more  time  than  I  intended  to  do  on 
that  topic,  I  pass  over  it. 

At  Gralesburg  I  tried  to  show  that  by  the  Dred  Scott  decision, 
pushed  to  its  legitimate  consequences,  slavery  would  be  established 
in  all  the  States  as  well  as  in  the  Territories.  I  did  this  because, 
upon  a  former  occasion,  I  had  asked  Judge  Douglas  whether,  if  the 
Supreme  Court  should  make  a  decision  declaring  that  the  States  had 
not  the  power  to  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits,  he  would  adopt 
and  follow  that  decision  as  a  rule  of  political  action ;  and  because  he 
had  not  directly  answered  that  question,  but  had  merely  contented 
himself  with  sneering  at  it,  I  again  introduced  it,  and  tried  to  show 
that  the  conclusion  that  I  stated  followed  inevitably  and  logically 
from  the  proposition  already  decided  by  the  court.  Judge  Douglas 
had  the  privilege  of  replying  to  me  at  Gralesburg,  and  again  he 
gave  me  no  direct  answer  as  to  whether  he  would  or  would  not  sus 
tain  such  decision  if  made.  I  give  him  this  third  chance  to  say 
yes  or  no.  He  is  not  obliged  to  do  either, — probably  he  will  not  do 
either, —  but  I  give  him  the  third  chance.  I  tried  to  show  then  that 
this  result,  this  conclusion,  inevitably  followed  from  the  point  already 
decided  by  the  court.  The  judge,  in  his  reply,  again  sneers  at  the 
thought  of  the  court  making  any  such  decision,  and  in  the  course  of 
his  remarks  upon  this  subject,  uses  the  language  which  I  will  now 


460          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

read.  Speaking  of  me,  the  judge  says:  "He  goes  on  and  insists 
that  the  Dred  Scott  decision  would  carry  slavery  into  the  free 
States,  notwithstanding  the  decision  itself  says  the  contrary."  And 
he  adds :  "  Mr.  Lincoln  knows  that  there  is  no  member  of  the  Su 
preme  Court  that  holds  that  doctrine.  He  knows  that  every  one  of 
them  in  their  opinions  held  the  reverse." 

I  especially  introduce  this  subject  again  for  the  purpose  of  saying 
that  I  have  the  Dred  Scott  decision  here,  and  I  will  thank  Judge 
Douglas  to  lay  his  finger  upon  the  place  in  the  entire  opinions  of  the 
court  where  any  one  of  them  "  says  the  contrary."  It  is  very  hard  to 
affirm  a  negative  with  entire  confidence.  I  say,  however,  that  I  have 
examined  that  decision  with  a  good  deal  of  care,  as  a  lawyer  ex 
amines  a  decision,  and  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  do  so,  the  court 
has  nowhere  in  its  opinions  said  that  the  States  have  the  power  to 
exclude  slavery,  nor  have  they  used  other  language  substantially  that. 
I  also  say,  so  far  as  I  can  find,  not  one  of  the  concurring  judges  has 
said  that  the  States  can  exclude  slavery,  nor  said  anything  that  was 
substantially  that.  The  nearest  approach  that  any  one  of  them  has 
made  to  it,  so  far  as  I  can  find,  was  by  Judge  Nelson,  and  the  approach 
he  made  to  it  was  exactly,  in  substance,  the  Nebraska  bill  —  that 
the  States  had  the  exclusive  power  over  the  question  of  slavery,  so 
far  as  they  are  not  limited  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
I  ask  the  question,  therefore,  if  the  non-concurring  judges,  McLean 
or  Curtis,  had  asked  to  get  an  express  declaration  that  the  States 
could  absolutely  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits,  what  reason 
have  we  to  believe  that  it  would  not  have  been  voted  down  by  the 
majority  of  the  judges,  just  as  Chase's  amendment  was  voted  down 
by  Judge  Douglas  and  his  compeers  when  it  was  offered  to  the 
Nebraska  bill? 

Also  at  G-alesburg  I  said  something  in  regard  to  those  Springfield 
resolutions  that  Judge  Douglas  had  attempted  to  use  upon  me  at 
Ottawa,  and  commented  at  some  length  upon  the  fact  that  they  were, 
as  presented,  not  genuine.  Judge  Douglas  in  his  reply  to  me  seemed 
to  be  somewhat  exasperated.  He  said  he  never  would  have  believed 
that  Abraham  Lincoln,  as  he  kindly  called  me,  would  have  attempted 
such  a  thing  as  I  had  attempted  upon  that  occasion;  and  among 
other  expressions  which  he  used  toward  me,  was  that  I  dared  to  say 
forgery  —  that  I  had  dared  to  say  forgery  [turning  to  Judge  Doug 
las].  Yes,  judge,  I  did  dare  to  say  forgery.  But  in  this  political 
canvass  the  judge  ought  to  remember  that  I  was  not  the  first  who 
dared  to  say  forgery.  At  Jacksonville  Judge  Douglas  made  a  speech 
in  answer  to  something  said  by  Judge  Trumbull,  and  at  the  close  of 
what  he  said  upon  that  subject,  he  dared  to  say  that  Trumbull  had 
forged  his  evidence.  He  said,  too,  that  he  should  not  concern  him 
self  with  Trumbull  any  more,  but  thereafter  he  should  hold  Lincoln 
responsible  for  the  slanders  upon  him.  When  I  met  him  at  Charles 
ton  after  that,  although  I  think  that  I  should  not  have  noticed  the 
subject  if  he  had  not  said  he  would  hold  me  responsible  for  it,  I 
spread  out  before  him  the  statements  of  the  evidence  that  Judge 
Trumbull  had  used,  and  I  asked  Judge  Douglas,  piece  by  piece,  to  put 
his  finger  upon  one  piece  of  all  that  evidence  that  he  would  say  was 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          461 

a  forgery.  When  I  went  through  with  each  and  every  piece,  Judge 
Douglas  did  not  dare  then  to  say  that  any  piece  of  it  was  a  forgery. 
So  it  seems  that  there  are  some  things  that  Judge  Douglas  dares  to 
do,  and  some  that  he  dares  not  to  do.  [A  voice :  "  It 's  the  same  thing 
with  you."]  Yes,  sir,  it  7s  the  same  thing  with  me. 

I  do  dare  to  say  forgery  when  it  7s  true,  and  don't  dare  to  say  for 
gery  when  it 's  false.  Now,  I  will  say  here  to  this  audience  and  to 
Judge  Douglas,  I  have  not  dared  to  say  he  committed  a  forgery,  and 
I  never  shall  until  I  know  it  j  but  I  did  dare  to  say  —  just  to  suggest 
to  the  judge — that  a  forgery  had  been  committed,  which  by  his  own 
showing  had  been  traced  to  him  and  two  of  his  friends.  I  dared  to 
suggest  to  him  that  he  had  expressly  promised  in  one  of  his  public 
speeches  to  investigate  that  matter,  and  I  dared  to  suggest  to  him 
that  there  was  an  implied  promise  that  when  he  investigated  it  he 
would  make  known  the  result.  I  dared  to  suggest  to  the  judge  that 
he  could  not  expect  to  be  quite  clear  of  suspicion  of  that  fraud,  for 
since  the  time  that  promise  was  made  he  had  been  with  those  friends, 
and  had  not  kept  his  promise  in  regard  to  the  investigation  and  the 
report  upon  it.  I  am  not  a  very  daring  man,  but  I  dared  that  much, 
judge,  and  I  am  not  much  scared  about  it  yet.  When  the  judge  says 
he  would  n't  have  believed  of  Abraham  Lincoln  that  he  would  have 
made  such  an  attempt  as  that,  he  reminds  me  of  the  fact  that  he  en 
tered  upon  this  canvass  with  the  purpose  to  treat  me  courteously ; 
that  touched  me  somewhat.  It  set  me  to  thinking.  I  was  aware, 
when  it  was  first  agreed  that  Judge  Douglas  and  I  were  to  have 
these  seven  joint  discussions,  that  they  were  the  successive  acts  of  a 
drama  —  perhaps  I  should  say,  to  be  enacted  not  merely  in  the  face 
of  audiences  like  this,  but  in  the  face  of  the  nation,  and  to  some  ex 
tent,  by  my  relation  to  him,  and  not  from  anything  in  myself,  in  the 
face  of  the  world;  and  I  am  anxious  that  they  should  be  conducted 
with  dignity  and  in  the  good  temper  which  would  be  befitting  the 
vast  audience  before  which  it  was  conducted.  But  when  Judge 
Douglas  got  home  from  Washington  and  made  his  first  speech  m 
Chicago,  the  evening  afterward  I  made  some  sort  of  a  reply  to  it. 
His  second  speech  was  made  at  Bloomington,  in  which  he  commented 
upon  my  speech  at  Chicago,  and  said  that  I  had  used  language  in 
geniously  contrived  to  conceal  my  intentions,  or  words  to  that  effect. 
Now  I  understand  that  this  is  an  imputation  upon  my  veracity  and 
my  candor.  I  do  not  know  what  the  judge  understood  by  it,  but  in 
our  first  discussion  at  Ottawa,  he  led  off  by  charging  a  bargain, 
somewhat  corrupt  in  its  character,  upon  Trumbull  and  myself  —  that 
we  had  entered  into  a  bargain,  one  of  the  terms  of  which  was  that 
Trumbull  was  to  Abolitionize  the  old  Democratic  party,  and  I,  Lin 
coln,  was  to  Abolitionize  the  Old  Whig  party  —  I  pretending  to  be 
as  good  an  old-line  Whig  as  ever.  Judge  Douglas  may  not  under 
stand  that  he  implicated  my  truthfulness  and  my  honor  when  he  said 
I  was  doing  one  thing  and  pretending  another ;  and  I  misunderstood 
him  if  he  thought  he  was  treating  me  in  a  dignified  way,  as  a  man  of 
honor  and  truth,  as  he  now  claims  he  was  disposed  to  treat  me.  Even 
after  that  time,  at  Galesburg,  when  he  brings  forward  an  extract 
from  a  speech  made  at  Chicago,  and  an  extract  from  a  speech  made 


462          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

at  Charleston,  to  prove  that  I  was  trying  to  play  a  double  part, —  that 
I  was  trying  to  cheat  the  public,  and  get  votes  upon  one  set  of  prin 
ciples  at  one  place  and  upon  another  set  of  principles  at  another 
place, —  I  do  not  understand  but  what  he  impeaches  my  honor,  my 
veracity,  and  my  candor ;  and  because  he  does  this,  I  do  not  under 
stand  that  I  am  bound,  if  I  see  a  truthful  ground  for  it,  to  keep  my 
hands  off  of  him.  As  soon  as  I  learned  that  Judge  Douglas  was  dis 
posed  to  treat  me  in  this  way,  I  signified  in  one  of  my  speeches  that 
I  should  be  driven  to  draw  upon  whatever  of  humble  resources  I 
might  have  —  to  adopt  a  new  course  with  him.  I  was  not  entirely 
sure  that  I  should  be  able  to  hold  my  own  with  him,  but  I  at  least  had 
the  purpose  made  to  do  as  well  as  I  could  upon  him ;  and  now  I  say 
that  I  will  not  be  the  first  to  cry  "  Hold ! "  I  think  it  originated  with 
the  judge,  and  when  he  quits,  I  probably  will.  But  I  shall  not  ask 
any  favors  at  all.  He  asks  me,  or  he  asks  the  audience,  if  I  wish  to 
push  this  matter  to  the  point  of  personal  difficulty.  I  tell  him,  No. 
He  did  not  make  a  mistake,  in  one  of  his  early  speeches,  when  he 
called  me  an  "  amiable  "  man,  though  perhaps  he  did  when  he  called 
me  an  "  intelligent "  man.  It  really  hurts  me  very  much  to  suppose 
that  I  have  wronged  anybody  on  earth.  I  again  tell  him,  No !  I 
very  much  prefer,  when  this  canvass  shall  be  over,  however  it  may 
result,  that  we  at  least  part  without  any  bitter  recollections  of  per 
sonal  difficulties. 

The  judge,  in  his  concluding  speech  at  Gralesburg,  says  that  I 
was  pushing  this  matter  to  a  personal  difficulty  to  avoid  the  respon 
sibility  for  the  enormity  of  my  principles.  I  say  to  the  judge  and  this 
audience  now,  that  I  will  again  state  our  principles  as  well  as  I  hastily 
can  in  all  their  enormity,  and  if  the  judge  hereafter  chooses  to  con 
fine  himself  to  a  war  upon  these  principles,  he  will  probably  not  find 
me  departing  from  the  same  course. 

We  have  in  this  nation  the  element  of  domestic  slavery.  It  is  a 
matter  of  absolute  certainty  that  it  is  a  disturbing  element.  It  is  the 
opinion  of  all  the  great  men  who  have  expressed  an  opinion  upon  it, 
that  it  is  a  dangerous  element.  We  keep  up  a  controversy  in  regard 
to  it.  That  controversy  necessarily  springs  from  difference  of  opinion, 
and  if  we  can  learn  exactly — can  reduce  to  the  lowest  elements — 
what  that  difference  of  opinion  is,  we  perhaps  shall  be  better  pre 
pared  for  discussing  the  different  systems  of  policy  that  we  would 
propose  in  regard  to  that  disturbing  element.  I  suggest  that  the 
difference  of  opinion,  reduced  to  its  lowest  terms,  is  no  other  than 
the  difference  between  the  men  who  think  slavery  a  wrong  and  those 
who  do  not  think  it.  wrong.  The  Republican  party  think  it  wrong 
— we  think  it  is  a  moral,  a  social,  and  a  political  wrong.  We  think 
it  is  a  wrong  not  confining  itself  merely  to  the  persons  or  the  States 
where  it  exists,  but  that  it  is  a  wrong  which  in  its  tendency,  to 
say  the  least,  affects  the  existence  of  the  whole  nation.  Because  we 
think  it  wrong,  we  propose  a  course  of  policy  that  shall  deal  with  it 
as  a  wrong.  We  deal  with  it  as  with  any  other  wrong,  in  so  far  as 
we  can  prevent  its  growing  any  larger,  and  so  deal  with  it  that  in 
the  run  of  time  there  may  be  some  promise  of  an  end  to  it.  We  have 
a  due  regard  to  the  actual  presence  of  it  amongst  us,  and  the  difficul- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          463 

ties  of  getting  rid  of  it  in  any  satisfactory  way,  and  all  the  consti 
tutional  obligations  thrown  about  it.  I  suppose  that  in  reference 
both  to  its  actual  existence  in  the  nation,  and  to  our  constitutional 
obligations,  we  have  no  right  at  all  to  disturb  it  in  the  States  where 
it  exists,  and  we  profess  that  we  have  no  more  inclination  to  disturb 
it  than  we  have  the  right  to  do  it.  We  go  further  than  that :  we 
don't  propose  to  disturb  it  where,  in  one  instance,  we  think  the  Con 
stitution  would  permit  us.  We  think  the  Constitution  would  permit 
us  to  disturb  it  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  Still  we  do  not  propose 
to  do  that,  unless  it  should  be  in  terms  which  I  don't  suppose  the 
nation  is  very  likely  soon  to  agree  to — the  terms  of  making  the 
emancipation  gradual  and  compensating  the  unwilling  owners. 
Where  we  suppose  we  have  the  constitutional  right,  we  restrain  our 
selves  in  reference  to  the  actual  existence  of  the  institution  and 
the  difficulties  thrown  about  it.  We  also  oppose  it  as  an  evil  so  far  as 
it  seeks  to  spread  itself.  We  insist  on  the  policy  that  shall  restrict 
it  to  its  present  limits.  We  don't  suppose  that  in  doing  this  we  vio 
late  anything  due  to  the  actual  presence  of  the  institution,  or  any 
thing  due  to  the  constitutional  guaranties  thrown  around  it. 

We  oppose  the  Dred  Scott  decision  in  a  certain  way,  upon  which 
I  ought  perhaps  to  address  you  a  few  words.  We  do  not  propose  that 
when  Dred  Scott  has  been  decided  to  be  a  slave  by  the  court,  we,  as 
a  mob,  will  decide  him  to  be  free.  We  do  not  propose  that,  when 
any  other  one,  or  one  thousand,  shall  be  decided  by  that  court  to  be 
slaves,  we  will  in  any  violent  way  disturb  the  rights  of  property  thus 
settled ;  but  we  nevertheless  do  oppose  that  decision  as  a  political 
rule,  which  shall  be  binding  on  the  voter  to  vote  for  nobody  who 
thinks  it  wrong,  which  shall  be  binding  on  the  members  of  Con 
gress  or  the  President  to  favor  no  measure  that  does  not  actually 
concur  with  the  principles  of  that  decision.  We  do  not  propose  to 
be  bound  by  it  as  a  political  rule  in  that  way,  because  we  think 
it  lays  the  foundation  not  merely  of  enlarging  and  spreading  out 
what  we  consider  an  evil,  but  it  lays  the  foundation  for  spreading 
that  evil  into  the  States  themselves.  We  propose  so  resisting  it  as 
to  have  it  reversed  if  we  can,  and  a  new  judicial  rule  established 
upon  this  subject. 

I  will  add  this,  that  if  there  be  any  man  who  does  not  believe  that 
slavery  is  wrong  in  the  three  aspects  which  I  have  mentioned,  or  in 
any  one  of  them,  that  man  is  misplaced  and  ought  to  leave  us. 
While,  on  the  other  hand,  if  there  be  any  man  in  the  Republican 
party  who  is  impatient  over  the  necessity  springing  from  its  actual 
presence,  and  is  impatient  of  the  constitutional  guaranties  thrown 
around  it,  and  would  act  in  disregard  of  these,  he  too  is  misplaced, 
standing  with  us.  He  will  find  his  place  somewhere  else ;  for  we 
have  a  due  regard,  so  far  as  we  are  capable  of  understanding  them, 
for  all  these  things.  This,  gentlemen,  as  well  as  I  can  give  it,  is  a 
plain  statement  of  our  principles  in  all  their  enormity. 

I  will  say  now  that  there  is  a  sentiment  in  the  country  contrary  to 
me — a  sentiment  which  holds  that  slavery  is  not  wrong,  and  there 
fore  it  goes  for  the  policy  that  does  not  propose  dealing  with  it  as  a 
wrong.  That  policy  is  the  Democratic  policy,  and  that  sentiment  is 


464         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

the  Democratic  sentiment.  If  there  be  a  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any 
one  of  this  vast  audience  that  this  is  really  the  central  idea  of  the 
Democratic  party,  in  relation  to  this  subject,  I  ask  him  to  bear  with 
me  while  I  state  a  few  things  tending,  as  I  think,  to  prove  that  prop 
osition.  In  the  first  place,  the  leading  man — I  think  I  may  do  my 
friend  Judge  Douglas  the  honor  of  calling  him  such — advocating  the 
present  Democratic  policy  never  himself  says  it  is  wrong.  He  has 
the  high  distinction,  so  far  as  I  know,  of  never  having  said  slavery  is 
either  right  or  wrong.  Almost  everybody  else  says  one  or  the  other, 
but  the  judge  never  does.  If  there  be  a  man  in  the  Democratic  party 
who  thinks  it  is  wrong,  and  yet  clings  to  that  party,  I  suggest  to  him 
in  the  first  place  that  his  leader  don't  talk  as  he  does,  for  he  never 
says  that  it  is  wrong.  In  the  second  place,  I  suggest  to  him  that  if  he 
will  examine  the  policy  proposed  to  be  carried  forward,  he  will  find 
that  he  carefully  excludes  the  idea  that  there  is  anything  wrong  in 
it.  If  you  will  examine  the  arguments  that  are  made  on  it,  you  will 
find  that  every  one  carefully  excludes  the  idea  that  there  is  anything 
wrong  in  slavery.  Perhaps  that  Democrat  who  says  he  is  as  much 
opposed  to  slavery  as  I  am,  will  tell  me  that  I  am  wrong  about  this. 
I  wish  him  to  examine  his  own  course  in  regard  to  this  matter  a 
moment,  and  then  see  if  his  opinion  will  not  be  changed  a  little. 
You  say  it  is  wrong ;  but  don't  you  constantly  object  to  anybody  else 
saying  so  ?  Do  you  not  constantly  argue  that  this  is  not  the  right 
place  to  oppose  it?  You  say  it  must  not  be  opposed  in  the  free 
States,  because  slavery  is  not  there  •  it  must  not  be  opposed  in  the 
slave  States,  because  it  is  there ;  it  must  not  be  opposed  in  politics, 
because  that  will  make  a  fuss ;  it  must  not  be  opposed  in  the  pulpit, 
because  it  is  not  religion.  Then  where  is  the  place  to  oppose  it  ? 
There  is  no  suitable  place  to  oppose  it.  There  is  no  plan  in  the 
country  to  oppose  this  evil  overspreading  the  continent,  which  you 
say  yourself  is  coining.  Frank  Blair  and  Gratz  Brown  tried  to  get 
up  a  system  of  gradual  emancipation  in  Missouri,  had  an  election  in 
August,  and  got  beat ;  and  you,  Mr.  Democrat,  threw  up  your  hat 
and  hallooed,  "  Hurrah  for  Democracy ! " 

So  I  say  again,  that  in  regard  to  the  arguments  that  are  made, 
when  Judge  Douglas  says  he  "  don't  care  whether  slavery  is  voted 
up  or  voted  down,"  whether  he  means  that  as  an  individual  ex 
pression  of  sentiment,  or  only  as  a  sort  of  statement  of  his  views 
on  national  policy,  it  is  alike  true  to  say  that  he  can  thus  argue 
logically  if  he  don't  see  anything  wrong  in  it  ;  but  he  cannot  say  so 
logically  if  he  admits  that  slavery  is  wrong.  He  cannot  say  that  he 
would  as  soon  see  a  wrong  voted  up  as  voted  down.  When  Judge 
Douglas  says  that  whoever  or  whatever  community  wants  slaves, 
they  have  a  rig-lit  to  have  them,  he  is  perfectly  logical  if  there  is 
nothing  wrong  in  the  institution ;  but  if  you  admit  that  it  is  wrong, 
he  cannot  logically  say  that  anybody  has  a  right  to  do  wrong.  When 
he  says  that  slave  property  and  horse  and  hog  property  are  alike  to 
be  allowed  to  go  into  the  Territories,  upon  the  principles  of  equality,  he 
is  reasoning  truly  if  there  is  no  difference  between  them  as  property ; 
but  if  the  one  is  property,  held  rightfully,  and  the  other  is  wrong, 
then  there  is  no  equality  between  the  right  and  wrong ;  so  that,  turn 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          465 

it  in  any  way  you  can,  in  all  the  arguments  sustaining  the  Dem 
ocratic  policy,  and  in  that  policy  itself,  there  is  a  careful,  studied 
exclusion  of  the  idea  that  there  is  anything  wrong  in  slavery.  Let 
us  understand  this.  I  am  not,  just  here,  trying  to  prove  that  we  are 
right  and  they  are  wrong.  I  have  been  stating  where  we  and  they 
stand,  and  trying  to  show  what  is  the  real  difference  between  us ; 
and  I  now  say  that  whenever  we  can  get  the  question  distinctly 
stated, —  can  get  all  these  men  who  believe  that  slavery  is  in  some  of 
these  respects  wrong,  to  stand  and  act  with  us  in  treating  it  as  a 
wrong, —  then,  and  not  till  then,  I  think,  will  we  in  some  way  come 
to  an  end  of  this  slavery  agitation. 

Mr.  Douglas's  Reply  in  the  Quincy  Joint  Debate. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  Permit  me  to  say  that  unless  silence  is 
observed  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  be  heard  by  this  immense 
crowd,  and  my  friends  can  confer  no  higher  favor  upon  me  than  by 
omitting  all  expressions  of  applause  or  approbation.  I  desire  to  be 
heard  rather  than  to  be  applauded.  I  wish  to  address  myself  to 
your  reason,  your  judgment,  your  sense  of  justice,  and  not  to  your 
passions. 

I  regret  that  Mr.  Lincoln  should  have  deemed  it  proper  for  him  to 
again  indulge  in  gross  personalities  and  base  insinuations  in  regard 
to  the  Springfield  resolutions.  It  has  imposed  upon  me  the  necessity 
of  using  some  portion  of  my  time  for  the  purpose  of  calling  your  at 
tention  to  the  facts  of  the  case,  and  it  will  then  be  for  you  to  say 
what  you  think  of  a  man  who  can  predicate  such  a  charge  upon  the 
circumstances  he  has  in  this.  I  had  seen  the  platform  adopted  by 
a  Republican  congressional  convention  held  in  Aurora,  the  second 
congressional  district,  in  September,  1854,  published  as  purporting  to 
be  the  platform  of  the  Republican  party.  That  platform  declared  that 
the  Republican  party  was  pledged  never  to  admit  another  slave  State 
into  the  Union,  and  also  that  it  was  pledged  to  prohibit  slavery  in  all 
the  Territories  of  the  United  States, — not  only  all  that  we  then  had, 
but  all  that  we  should  thereafter  acquire, —  and  to  repeal  uncondition 
ally  the  fugitive-slave  law,  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
and  prohibit  the  slave-trade  between  the  different  States.  These  and 
other  articles  against  slavery  were  contained  in  this  platform,  and 
unanimously  adopted  by  the  Republican  congressional  convention 
in  that  district.  I  had  also  seen  that  the  Republican  congressional 
conventions  at  Rockford,  in  the  first  district,  and  at  Bloomington,  in 
the  third,  had  adopted  the  same  platform  that  year,  nearly  word  for 
word,  and  had  declared  it  to  be  the  platform  of  the  Republican  party. 
I  had  noticed  that  Major  Thomas  L.  Harris,  a  member  of  Congress 
from  the  Springfield  district,  had  referred  to  that  platform  in  a  speech 
in  Congress,  as  having  been  adopted  by  the  first  Republican  State 
convention  which  assembled  in  Illinois.  When  I  had  occasion  to  use 
the  fact  in  this  canvass,  I  wrote  to  Major  Harris  to  know  on  what 
day  that  convention  was  held,  and  to  ask  him  to  send  me  its  proceed 
ings.  He  being  sick,  Charles  H.  Lanphier  answered  my  letter  by 
sending  me  the  published  proceedings  of  the  convention  held  at 
VOL.  I— 30. 


466          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Springfield  on  the  5th  of  October,  1854,  as  they  appeared  in  the  re 
port  of  the  "  State  Register."  I  read  those  resolutions  from  that 
newspaper  the  same  as  any  of  you  would  refer  back  and  quote  any 
fact  from  the  files  of  a  newspaper  which  had  published  it.  Mr.  Lin 
coln  pretends  that  after  I  had  so  quoted  those  resolutions  he  discov 
ered  that  they  had  never  been  adopted  at  Springfield.  He  does  not 
deny  their  adoption  by  the  Republican  party  at  Aurora,  at  Bloom- 
ington,  and  at  Rockford,  and  by  nearly  all  the  Republican  county 
conventions  in  northern  Illinois  where  his  party  is  in  a  majority;  but 
merely  because  they  were  not  adopted  on  the  "  spot "  on  which  I  said 
they  were,  he  chooses  to  quibble  about  the  place  rather  than  meet  and 
discuss  the  merits  of  the  resolutions  themselves.  I  stated  when  I  quoted 
them  that  I  did  so  from  the  "  State  Register."  I  gave  my  authority. 
Lincoln  believed  at  the  time,  as  he  has  since  admitted,  that  they  had 
been  adopted  at  Springfield,  as  published.  Does  he  believe  now  that 
I  did  not  tell  the  truth  when  I  quoted  those  resolutions?  He  knows 
in  his  heart  that  I  quoted  them  in  good  faith,  believing  at  the  time 
that  they  had  been  adopted  at  Springfield.  I  would  consider  myself 
an  infamous  wretch  if,  under  such  circumstances,  I  could  charge  any 
man  with  being  a  party  to  a  trick  or  a  fraud.  And  I  will  tell  him, 
too,  that  it  will  not  do  to  charge  a  forgery  on  Charles  H.  Lanphier  or 
Thomas  L.  Harris.  No  man  on  earth,  who  knows  them,  and  knows 
Lincoln,  would  take  his  oath  against  their  word.  There  are  not  two 
men  in  the  State  of  Illinois  who  have  higher  characters  for  truth,  for 
integrity,  for  moral  character,  and  for  elevation  of  tone,  as  gentle 
men,  than  Mr.  Lanphier  and  Mr.  Harris.  Any  man  who  attempts  to 
make  such  charges  as  Mr.  Lincoln  has  indulged  in  against  them,  only 
proclaims  himself  a  slanderer. 

I  will  now  show  you  that  I  stated  with  entire  fairness,  as  soon  as 
it  was  made  known  to  me,  that  there  was  a  mistake  about  the  spot 
where  the  resolutions  had  been  adopted,  although  their  truthfulness,, 
as  a  declaration  of  the  principles  of  the  Republican  party,  had  not 
and  could  not  be  questioned.  I  did  not  wait  for  Lincoln  to  point  out 
the  mistake ;  but  the  moment  I  discovered  it,  I  made  a  speech,  and 
published  it  to  the  world,  correcting  the  error.  I  corrected  it  my 
self,  as  a  gentleman  and  an  honest  man,  and  as  I  always  feel  proud 
to  do  when  I  have  made  a  mistake.  I  wish  Mr.  Lincoln  could  show 
that  he  has  acted  with  equal  fairness  and  truthfulness  when  I  have 
convinced  him  that  he  has  been  mistaken.  I  will  give  you  an  illus 
tration  to  show  you  how  he  acts  in  a  similar  case :  In  a  speech  at 
Springfield  he  charged  Chief  Justice  Taney  and  his  associates,  Presi 
dent  Pierce,  President  Buchanan,  and  myself,  with  having  entered 
into  a  conspiracy  at  the  time  the  Nebraska  bill  was  introduced,  by 
which  the  Dred  Scott  decision  was  to  be  made  by  the  Supreme  Courtr 
in  order  to  carry  slavery  everywhere  under  the  Constitution.  I  called 
his  attention  to  the  fact  that  at  the  time  alluded  to — to  wit,  the  intro 
duction  of  the  Nebraska  bill — it  was  not  possible  that  such  a  conspir 
acy  could  have  been  entered  into,  for  the  reason  that  the  Dred  Scott 
case  had  never  been  taken  before  the  Supreme  Court,  and  was  not 
taken  before  it  for  a  year  after;  and  I  asked  him  to  take  back  that 
charge.  Did  he  do  it  ?  I  showed  him  that  it  was  impossible  that 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          467 

the  charge  could  be  true ;  I  proved  it  by  the  record,  and  I  then  called 
upon  him  to  retract  his  false  charge.  What  was  his  answer!  Instead 
of  coming  out  like  an  honest  man  and  doing  so,  he  reiterated  the 
charge,  and  said  that  if  the  case  had  not  gone  up  to  the  Supreme 
Court  from  the  courts  of  Missouri  at  the  time  he  charged  that  the 
judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  entered  into  the  conspiracy,  yet  that 
there  was  an  understanding  with  the  Democratic  owners  of  Dred 
Scott  that  they  would  take  it  up.  I  have  since  asked  him  who  the 
Democratic  owners  of  Dred  Scott  were,  but  he  could  not  tell.  And 
why?  Because  there  were  no  such  Democratic  owners  in  existence. 
Dred  Scott  at  the  time  was  owned  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Chaffee,  an  Aboli 
tion  member  of  Congress,  of  Springfield,  Massachusetts,  in  right  of 
his  wife.  He  was  owned  by  one  of  Lincoln's  friends,  and  not  by 
Democrats  at  all ;  his  case  was  conducted  in  court  by  Abolition 
lawyers,  so  that  both  the  prosecution  and  the  defense  were  in  the 
hands  of  the  Abolition  political  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 

Notwithstanding  I  thus  proved  by  the  record  that  his  charge 
against  the  Supreme  Court  was  false,  instead  of  taking  it  back,  he 
resorted  to  another  false  charge  to  sustain  the  infamy  of  it.  He  also 
charged  President  Buchanan  with  having  been  a  party  to  the  con 
spiracy.  I  directed  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  charge  could 
not  possibly  be  true,  for  the  reason  that  at  the  time  specified  Mr. 
Buchanan  was  not  in  America,  but  was  three  thousand  miles  off, 
representing  the  United  States  at  the  Court  of  St.  James,  and  had 
been  there  for  a  year  previous,  and  did  not  return  till  three  years 
afterward.  Yet  I  never  could  get  Mr.  Lincoln  to  take  back  his  false 
charge,  although  I  have  called  upon  him  over  and  over  again.  He 
refuses  to  do  it,  and  either  remains  silent  or  resorts  to  other  tricks 
to  try  and  palm  his  slander  off  on  the  country.  Therein  you  will 
find  the  difference  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  myself.  When  I  make 
a  mistake,  as  an  honest  man  I  correct  it  without  being  asked  to  do  so  ; 
but  when  he  makes  a  false  charge,  he  sticks  to  it  and  never  corrects  it. 
One  word  more  in  regard  to  these  resolutions :  I  quoted  them  at  Ottawa 
merely  to  ask  Mr.  Lincoln  whether  he  stood  on  that  platform.  That 
was  the  purpose  for  which  I  quoted  them.  I  did  not  think  that  I  had  a 
right  to  put  idle  questions  to  him,  and  I  first  laid  a  foundation  for  my 
questions  by  showing  that  the  principles  which  I  wished  him  either 
to  affirm  or  deny  had  been  adopted  by  some  portion  of  his  friends, 
at  least,  as  their  creed.  Hence  I  read  the  resolutions,  and  put  the 
questions  to  him,  and  he  then  refused  to  answer  them.  Subse 
quently —  one  week  afterward — he  did  answer  a  part  of  them,  but 
the  others  he  has  not  answered  up  to  this  day. 

Now  let  me  call  your  attention  for  a  moment  to  the  answers 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  made  at  Freeport  to  the  questions  which  I  pro 
pounded  to  him  at  Ottawa,  based  upon  the  platform  adopted  by  a  ma 
jority  of  the  Abolition  counties  of  the  State,  which  now,  as  then, 
supported  him.  In  answer  to  my  question  whether  he  indorsed  the 
Black  Republican  principle  of  "  no  more  slave  States,"  he  answered 
that  he  was  not  pledged  against  the  admission  of  any  more  slave 
States,  but  that  he  would  be  very  sorry  if  he  should  ever  be  placed 
in  a  position  where  he  would  have  to  vote  on  the  question ;  that  he 


468          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF    ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

would  rejoice  to  know  that  no  more  slave  States  would  be  admitted 
into  the  Union;  "but,"  he  added,  "if  slavery  shall  be  kept  out  of  the 
Territories  during  the  territorial  existence  of  any  one  given  Ter 
ritory,  and  then  the  people  shall,  having  a  fair  chance  and  a  clear 
field  when  they  come  to  adopt  the  constitution,  do  such  an  extraordi 
nary  thing  as  to  adopt  a  slave  constitution,  uninfluenced  by  the  actual 
presence  of  the  institution  among  them,  I  see  no  alternative,  if  we 
own  the  country,  but  to  admit  them  into  the  Union."  The  point  I 
wish  him  to  answer  is  this  :  Suppose  Congress  should  not  prohibit 
slavery  in  the  Territory,  and  it  applied  for  admission  with  a  consti 
tution  recognizing  slavery,  then  how  would  he  vote  ?  His  answer  at 
Freeport  does  not  apply  to  any  Territory  in  America.  I  ask  you 
[turning  to  Lincoln],  will  you  vote  to  admit  Kansas  into  the  Union, 
with  just  such  a  constitution  as  her  people  want,  with  slavery  or 
without,  as  they  shall  determine  ?  He  will  not  answer.  I  have  put 
that  question  to  him  time  and  time  again,  and  have  not  been  able  to 
get  an  answer  out  of  him.  I  ask  you  again,  Lincoln,  will  you  vote 
to  admit  New  Mexico,  when  she  has  the  requisite  population,  with 
such  a  constitution  as  her  people  adopt,  either  recognizing  slavery 
or  not,  as  they  shall  determine  ?  He  will  not  answer.  I  put  the 
same  question  to  him  in  reference  to  Oregon  and  the  new  States  to 
be  carved  out  of  Texas  in  pursuance  of  the  contract  between  Texas 
and  the  United  States,  and  he  will  not  answer.  He  will  not  answer 
these  questions  in  reference  to  any  Territory  now  in  existence,  but 
says  that  if  Congress  should  prohibit  slavery  in  a  Territory,  and 
when  its  people  asked  for  admission  as  a  State  they  should  adopt 
slavery  as  one  of  their  institutions,  that  he  supposes  he  would  have 
to  let  it  come  in.  I  submit  to  you  whether  that  answer  of  his  to  my 
question  does  not  justify  me  in  saying  that  he  has  a  fertile  genius  iii 
devising  language  to  conceal  his  thoughts.  I  ask  you  whether  there 
is  an  intelligent  man  in  America  who  does  not  believe  that  that  an 
swer  was  made  for  the  purpose  of  concealing  what  he  intended  to  do. 
He  wished  to  make  the  old-line  Whigs  believe  that  he  would  stand 
by  the  compromise  measures  of  1850,  which  declared  that  the  States 
might  come  into  the  Union  with  slavery,  or  without,  as  they  pleased, 
while  Lovejoy  and  his  Abolition  allies  up  north  explained  to  the 
Abolitionists  that  in  taking  this  ground  he  preached  good  Abolition 
doctrine,  because  his  proviso  would  not  apply  to  any  Territory  in 
America,  and  therefore  there  was  no  chance  of  his  being  governed 
by  it.  It  would  have  been  quite  easy  for  him  to  have  said  that  he 
would  let  the  people  of  a  State  do  just  as  they  pleased,  if  he  desired 
to  convey  such  an  idea.  Why  did  he  not  do  it  ?  He  would  not  an 
swer  my  question  directly  because,  up  north,  the  Abolition  creed 
declares  that  there  shall  be  no  more  slave  States,  while  down  south, 
in  Adams  County,  in  Coles,  and  in  Sangamon,  he  and  his  friends  are 
afraid  to  advance  that  doctrine.  Therefore  he  gives  an  evasive  and 
equivocal  answer,  to  be  construed  one  way  in  the  south  and  another 
way  in  the  north,  which,  when  analyzed,  it  is  apparent  is  not  an 
answer  at  all  with  reference  to  any  Territory  now  in  existence. 

Mr.  Lincoln  complains  that,  in  my  speech  the  other  day  at  Gales- 
burg,  I  read  an  extract  from  a  speech  delivered  by  him  at  Chicago, 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          469 

and  then  another  from  his  speech  at  Charleston,  and  compared 
them,  thus  showing  the  people  that  he  had  one  set  of  principles  in 
one  part  of  the  State  and  another  in  the  other  part.  And  how  does 
he  answer  that  charge  ?  Why,  he  quotes  from  his  Charleston  speech 
as  I  quoted  from  it,  and  then  quotes  another  extract  from  a  speech 
which  he  made  at  another  place,  which  he  says  is  the  same  as  the 
extract  from  his  speech  at  Charleston;  but  he  does  not  quote  the 
extract  from  his  Chicago  speech,  upon  which  I  convicted  him  of 
double-dealing.  I  quoted  from  his  Chicago  speech  to  prove  that  he 
held  one  set  of  principles  up  north  among  the  Abolitionists,  and 
from  his  Charleston  speech  to  prove  that  he  held  another  set  down 
at  Charleston  and  in  southern  Illinois.  In  his  answer  to  this  charge, 
he  ignores  entirely  his  Chicago  speech,  and  merely  argues  that  he 
said  the  same  thing  which  he  said  at  Charleston  at  another  place. 
If  he  did,  it  follows  that  he  has  twice,  instead  of  once,  held  one  creed 
in  one  part  of  the  State,  and  a  different  creed  in  another  part.  Up 
at  Chicago,  in  the  opening  of  the  campaign,  he  reviewed  my  reception 
speech,  and  undertook  to  answer  my  argument  attacking  his  favorite 
doctrine  of  negro  equality.  I  had  shown  that  it  was  a  falsification 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  to  pretend  that  that  instrument 
applied  to  and  included  negroes  in  the  clause  declaring  that  all  men 
are  created  equal.  What  was  Lincoln's  reply?  I  will  read  from 
his  Chicago  speech,  and  the  one  which  he  did  not  quote,  and  dare  not 
quote,  in  this  part  of  the  State.  He  said : 

I  should  like  to  know  if,  taking  this  old  Declaration  of  Independence, 
which  declares  that  all  men  are  equal  upon  principle,  and  making  excep 
tions  to  it,  where  will  it  stop  ?  If  one  man  says  it  does  not  mean  a  negro, 
why  may  not  another  man  say  it  does  not  mean  another  man  ?  If  that 
declaration  is  not  the  trutb,  let  us  get  this  statute-book  in  which  we  find  it 
and  tear  it  out. 

There  you  find  that  Mr.  Lincoln  told  the  Abolitionists  of  Chicago 
that  if  the  Declaration  of  Independence  did  not  declare  that  the 
negro  was  created  by  the  Almighty  the  equal  of  the  white  man,  that 
you  ought  to  take  that  instrument  and  tear  out  the  clause  which  says 
that  all  men  are  created  equal.  But  let  me  call  your  attention  to 
another  part  of  the  same  speech.  You  know  that  in  his  Charleston 
speech,  an  extract  from  which  he  has  read,  he  declared  that  the  negro 
belongs  to  an  inferior  race,  is  physically  inferior  to  the  white  man, 
and  should  always  be  kept  in  an  inferior  position.  I  will  now  read 
to  you  what  he  said  at  Chicago  on  that  point.  In  concluding  his 
speech  at  that  place,  he  remarked: 

My  friends,  I  have  detained  you  about  as  long  as  I  desire  to  do,  and  I 
have  only  to  say,  let  us  discard  all  this  quibbling  about  this  man  and  the 
other  man  —  this  race  and  that  race  and  the  other  race  being  inferior,  and 
therefore  they  must  be  placed  in  an  inferior  position,  discarding  our  stan 
dard  that  we  have  left  us.  Let  us  discard  all  these  things,  and  unite  as  one 
people  throughout  this  land  until  we  shall  once  more  stand  up  declaring 
that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

Thus  you  see  that  when  addressing  the  Chicago  Abolitionists  he 
declared  that  all  distinctions  of  race  must  be  discarded  and  blotted 


470          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

out,  because  the  negro  stood  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  white  man  • 
that  if  one  man  said  the  Declaration  of  Independence  did  not  mean 
a  negro  when  it  declared  all  men  created  equal,  that  another  man 
would  say  that  it  did  not  mean  another  man  •  and  hence  we  ought  to 
discard  all  difference  between  the  negro  race  and  all  other  races,  and 
declare  them  all  created  equal.  Did  old  Griddings,  when  he  came 
down  among  you  four  years  ago,  preach  more  radical  Abolitionism 
than  this?  Did  Lovejoy,  or  Lloyd  Garrison,  or  Wendell  Phillips,  or 
Fred  Douglass,  ever  take  higher  Abolition  grounds  than  that  ?  Lin 
coln  told  you  that  I  had  charged  him  with  getting  up  these  personal 
attacks  to  conceal  the  enormity  of  his  principles,  and  then  com 
menced  talking  about  something  else,  omitting  to  quote  this  part 
of  his  Chicago  speech  which  contained  the  enormity  of  his  principles 
to  which  I  alluded.  He  knew  that  I  alluded  to  his  negro-equality 
doctrines  when  I  spoke  of  the  enormity  of  his  principles,  yet  he  did 
not  find  it  convenient  to  answer  on  that  point.  Having  shown  you 
what  he  said  in  his  Chicago  speech  in  reference  to  negroes  being 
created  equal  to  white  men,  and  about  discarding  all  distinctions 
between  the  two  races,  I  will  again  read  to  you  what  he  said  at 
Charleston : 

I  will  say,  then,  that  I  am  not,  nor  ever  have  been,  in  favor  of  bringing 
about  in  any  way  the  social  and  political  equality  of  the  white  and  black 
races;  that  I  am  not,  nor  ever  have  been,  in  favor  of  making  voters  of  the 
free  negroes,  or  jurors,  or  qualifying  them  to  hold  office,  or  having  them  to 
marry  with  white  people.  I  will  say,  in  addition,  that  there  is  a  physical 
difference  between  the  white  and  black  races  which,  I  suppose,  will  forever 
forbid  the  two  races  living1  together  upon  terms  of  social  and  political 
equality  ;  and  inasmuch  as  they  cannot  so  live,  while  they  do  remain  to 
gether,  there  must  be  the  position  of  superior  and  inferior,  and  I,  as  much 
as  any  other  man,  am  in  favor  of  the  superior  position  being  assigned  to  the 
white  man. 

A  voice :  "  That  ?s  the  doctrine." 

Mr.  Douglas :  Yes,  sir,  that  is  good  doctrine  j  but  Mr.  Lincoln  is 
afraid  to  advocate  it  in  the  latitude  of  Chicago,  where  he  hopes  to  get 
his  votes.  It  is  good  doctrine  in  the  anti- Abolition  counties  for  him, 
and  his  Chicago  speech  is  good  doctrine  in  the  Abolition  counties. 
I  assert,  on  the  authority  of  these  two  speeches  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  that 
he  holds  one  set  of  principles  in  the  Abolition  counties,  and  a  diff er- 
ent  and  contradictory  set  in  the  other  counties.  I  do  not  question 
that  he  said  at  Ottawa  what  he  quoted,  but  that  only  convicts  him 
further,  by  proving  that  he  has  twice  contradicted  himself  instead  of 
once.  Let  me  ask  him  why  he  cannot  avow  his  principles  the  same 
in  the  north  as  in  the  south — the  same  in  every  county,  if  he  has  a 
conviction  that  they  are  just  ?  But  I  forgot  —  he  would  not  be  a  Re 
publican  if  his  principles  would  apply  alike  to  every  part  of  the 
country.  The  party  to  which  he  belongs  is  bounded  and  limited  by  geo 
graphical  lines.  With  their  principles  they  cannot  even  cross  the  Mis 
sissippi  River  on  your  ferry-boats.  They  cannot  cross  over  the  Ohio 
into  Kentucky.  Lincoln  himself  cannot  visit  the  land  of  his  fathers, 
the  scenes  of  his  childhood,  the  graves  of  his  ancestors,  and  carry 
his  Abolition  principles,  as  he  declared  them  at  Chicago,  with  him. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          471 

This  Republican  organization  appeals  to  the  North  against  the 
South;  it  appeals  to  Northern  passion,  Northern  prejudice,  and 
Northern  ambition,  against  Southern  people,  Southern  States,  and 
Southern  institutions,  and  its  only  hope  of  success  is  by  that  appeal. 
Mr.  Lincoln  goes  on  to  justify  himself  in  making  a  war  upon  slavery 
upon  the  ground  that  Frank  Blair  and  Gratz  Brown  did  not  succeed 
in  their  warfare  upon  the  institutions  in  Missouri.  Frank  Blair  was 
elected  to  Congress,  in  1856,  from  the  State  of  Missouri,  as  a  Bu 
chanan  Democrat,  and  he  turned  Fremonter  after  the  people  elected 
him,  thus  belonging  to  one  party  before  his  election,  and  another 
afterward.  What  right,  then,  had  he  to  expect,  after  having  thus 
cheated  his  constituency,  that  they  would  support  him  at  another 
election?  Mr.  Lincoln  thinks  that  it  is  his  duty  to  preach  a  crusade 
in  the  free  States  against  slavery,  because  it  is  a  crime,  as  he  believes, 
and  ought  to  be  extinguished,  and  because  the  people  of  the  slave 
States  will  never  abolish  it.  How  is  he  going  to  abolish  if?  Down 
in  the  southern  part  of  the  State  he  takes  the  ground  openly  that 
he  will  not  interfere  with  slavery  where  it  exists,  and  says  that  he 
is  not  now  and  never  was  in  favor  of  interfering  with  slavery  where 
it  exists  in  the  States.  Well,  if  he  is  not  in  favor  of  that,  how  does 
he  expect  to  bring  slavery  into  a  course  of  ultimate  extinction  ?  How 
can  he  extinguish  it  in  Kentucky,  in  Virginia,  in  all  the  slave  States, 
by  his  policy,  if  he  will  not  pursue  a  policy  which  will  interfere  with 
it  in  the  States  where  it  exists  ?  In  his  speech  at  Springfield  before 
the  Abolition  or  Republican  convention,  he  declared  his  hostility  to 
any  more  slave  States  in  this  language : 

Under  the  operation  of  that  policy  the  agitation  has  not  only  not  ceased, 
but  has  constantly  augmented.  In  my  opinion  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis 
shall  have  been  reached  and  passed.  "A  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand."  I  believe  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently 
haK  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved, —  I 
d.o  not  expect  the  house  to  fall, —  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided. 
It  will  become  all  one  thing,  or  all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  sla 
very  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind 
shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its 
advocates  will  push  it  forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the 
States  —  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South. 

Mr.  Lincoln  there  told  his  Abolition  friends  that  this  government 
could  not  endure  permanently  divided  into  free  and  slave  States  as 
our  fathers  made  it,  and  that  it  must  become  all  free  or  all  slave ; 
otherwise,  that  the  government  could  not  exist.  How  then  does  Lin 
coln  propose  to  save  the  Union,  unless  by  compelling  all  the  States  to 
become  free,  so  that  the  house  shall  not  be  divided  against  itself? 
He  intends  making  them  all  free  ;  he  will  preserve  the  Union  in  that 
way ;  and  yet  he  is  not  going  to  interfere  with  slavery  anywhere  it 
now  exists.  How  is  he  going  to  bring  it  about?  Why,  he  will 
agitate ;  he  will  induce  the  North  to  agitate  until  the  South  shall  be 
worried  out,  and  forced  to  abolish  slavery.  Let  us  examine  the  pol 
icy  by  which  that  is  to  be  done.  He  first  tells  you  that  he  would 
prohibit  slavery  everywhere  in  the  Territories.  He  would  thus  con 
fine  slavery  within  its  present  limits.  When  he  thus  gets  it  confined, 


472          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

and  surrounded,  so  that  it  cannot  spread,  the  natural  laws  of  increase 
will  go  on  until  the  negroes  will  be  so  plenty  that  they  cannot  live 
on  the  soil.  He  will  hem  them  in  until  starvation  seizes  them,  and 
by  starving  them  to  death  he  will  put  slavery  in  the  course  of  ulti 
mate  extinction.  If  he  is  not  going  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the 
States,  but  intends  to  interfere  and  prohibit  it  in  the  Territories^ 
and  thus  smother  slavery  out,  it  naturally  follows  that  he  can  ex 
tinguish  it  only  by  extinguishing  the  negro  race;  for  his  policy 
would  drive  them  to  starvation.  This  is  the  humane  and  Christian 
remedy  that  he  proposes  for  the  great  crime  of  slavery. 

He  tells  you  that  I  will  not  argue  the  question  whether  slavery  is 
right  or  wrong.  I  tell  you  why  I  will  not  do  it.  I  hold  that,  under 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  each  State  of  this  Union  has 
a  right  to  do  as  it  pleases  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  In  Illinois  we 
have  exercised  that  sovereign  right  by  prohibiting  slavery  within 
our  own  limits.  I  approve  of  that  line  of  policy.  We  have  per 
formed  our  whole  duty  in  Illinois.  We  have  gone  as  far  as  we  have 
a  right  to  go  under  the  Constitution  of  our  common  country.  It  is 
none  of  our  business  whether  slavery  exists  in  Missouri  or  not. 
Missouri  is  a  sovereign  State  of  this  Union,  and  has  the  same  right 
to  decide  the  slavery  question  for  herself  that  Illinois  has  to  decide 
it  for  herself.  Hence  I  do  not  choose  to  occupy  the  time  allotted  to 
me  in  discussing  a  question  that  we  have  no  right  to  act  upon.  I 
thought  that  you  desired  to  hear  us  upon  those  questions  coming 
within  our  constitutional  power  of  action.  Lincoln  will  not  discuss 
these.  What  one  question  has  he  discussed  that  comes  within  the 
power  or  calls  for  the  action  or  interference  of  a  United  States 
senator  ?  He  is  going  to  discuss  the  rightf ulness  of  slavery  when 
Congress  cannot  act  upon  it  either  way.  He  wishes  to  discuss  the 
merits  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision  when,  under  the  Constitution,  a 
senator  has  no  right  to  interfere  with  the  decision  of  judicial  tribu 
nals.  He  wants  your  exclusive  attention  to  two  questions  that  he 
has  no  power  to  act  upon  •  to  two  questions  that  he  could  not  vote 
upon  if  he  was  in  Congress ;  to  two  questions  that  are  not  practical, 
in  order  to  conceal  from  your  attention  other  questions  which  he 
might  be  required  to  vote  upon  should  he  ever  become  a  member  of 
Congress.  He  tells  you  that  he  does  not  like  the  Dred  Scott  decision. 
Suppose  he  does  not,  how  is  he  going  to  help  himself  ?  He  says  that 
he  will  reverse  it.  How  will  he  reverse  it  f  I  know  of  but  one  mode 
of  reversing  judicial  decisions,  and  that  is  by  appealing  from  the  in 
ferior  to  the  superior  court.  But  I  have  never  yet  learned  how  or 
where  an  appeal  could  be  taken  from  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States.  The  Dred  Scott  decision  was  pronounced  by  the 
highest  tribunal  on  earth.  From  that  decision  there  is  no  appeal 
this  side  of  heaven.  Yet  Mr.  Lincoln  says  he  is  going  to  reverse 
that  decision.  By  what  tribunal  will  he  reverse  it  1  Will  he  appeal 
to  a  mob?  Does  he  intend  to  appeal  to  violence,  to  lynch-law? 
Will  he  stir  up  strife  and  rebellion  in  the  land,  and  overthrow  the 
court  by  violence?  He  does  not  deign  to  tell  you  how  he  will 
reverse  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  but  keeps  appealing  each  day  from 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  to  political  meetings  in  the 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          473 

country.  He  wants  me  to  argue  with  you  the  merits  of  each  point 
of  that  decision  before  this  political  meeting.  I  say  to  you,  with  all 
due  respect,  that  I  choose  to  abide  by  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme 
Court  as  they  are  pronounced.  It  is  not  for  me  to  inquire,  after  a 
decision  is  made,  whether  I  like  it  in  all  the  points  or  not.  When  I 
used  to  practise  law  with  Lincoln,  I  never  knew  him  to  be  beat  in  a 
case  that  he  did  not  get  mad  at  the  judge  and  talk  about  appealing; 
and  when  I  got  beat  I  generally  thought  the  court  was  wrong,  but  I 
never  dreamed  of  going  out  of  the  court-house  and  making  a  stump 
speech  to  the  people  against  the  judge,  merely  because  I  had  found 
out  that  I  did  not  know  the  law  as  well  as  he  did.  If  the  decision 
did  not  suit  me,  I  appealed  until  I  got  to  the  Supreme  Court,  and 
then  if  that  court,  the  highest  tribunal  in  the  world,  decided  against 
me,  I  was  satisfied,  because  it  is  the  duty  of  every  law-abiding  man 
to  obey  the  Constitution,  the  laws,  and  the  constituted  authorities. 
He  who  attempts  to  stir  up  odium  and  rebellion  in  the  country 
against  the  constituted  authorities,  is  stimulating  the  passions  of 
men  to  resort  to  violence  and  to  mobs  instead  of  to  the  law.  Hence 
I  tell  you  that  I  take  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  as  the  law 
of  the  land,  and  I  intend  to  obey  them  as  such. 

But  Mr.  Lincoln  says  that  I  will  not  answer  his  question  as  to  what 
I  would  do  in  the  event  of  the  court  making  so  ridiculous  a  decision 
as  he  imagines  they  would  by  deciding  that  the  free  State  of  Illinois 
could  not  prohibit  slavery  within  her  own  limits.  I  told  him  at 
Freeport  why  I  would  not  answer  such  a  question.  I  told  him  that 
there  was  not  a  man  possessing  any  brains  in  America,  lawyer  or 
not,  who  ever  dreamed  that  such  a  thing  could  be  done.  I  told  him 
then,  as  I  do  now,  that  by  all  the  principles  set  forth  in  the  Dred  Scott 
decision,  it  is  impossible.  I  told  him  then,  as  I  do  now,  that  it  is  an 
insult  to  men's  understanding,  and  a  gross  calumny  on  the  court,  to 
presume  in  advance  that  it  was  going  to  degrade  itself  so  low  as  to 
make  a  decision  known  to  be  in  direct  violation  of  the  Constitution. 
[A  voice :  "  The  same  thing  was  said  about  the  Dred  Scott  decision 
before  it  passed.7']  Perhaps  you  think  that  the  court  did  the  same 
thing  in  reference  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  I  have  heard  a  man 
talk  that  way  before.  The  principles  contained  in  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  had  been  affirmed  previously  in  various  other  decisions. 
What  court  or  judge  ever  held  that  a  negro  was  a  citizen  ?  The  State 
courts  had  decided  that  question  over  and  over  again,  and  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  on  that  point  only  affirmed  what  every  court  in  the 
land  knew  to  be  the  law. 

But  I  will  not  be  drawn  off  into  an  argument  upon  the  merits  of 
the  Dred  Scott  decision.  It  is  enough  for  me  to  know  that  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States  created  the  Supreme  Court  for  the  pur 
pose  of  deciding  all  disputed  questions  touching  the  true  construction 
of  that  instrument,  and  when  such  decisions  are  pronounced,  they  are 
the  law  of  the  land,  binding  on  every  good  citizen.  Mr.  Lincoln  has 
a  very  convenient  mode  of  arguing  upon  the  subject.  He  holds  that 
because  he  is  a  Republican  he  is  not  bound  by  the  decisions  of 
the  court,  but  that  I,  being  a  Democrat,  am  so  bound.  It  may  be  that 
Republicans  do  not  hold  themselves  bound  by  the  laws  of  the  land 


474         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

and  the  Constitution  of  the  country  as  expounded  by  the  courts ;  it 
may  be  an  article  in  the  Republican  creed  that  men  who  do  not  like 
a  decision  have  a  right  to  rebel  against  it  j  but  when  Mr.  Lincoln 
preaches  that  doctrine,  I  think  he  will  find  some  honest  Republican 
—  some  law-abiding  man  in  that  party  —  who  will  repudiate  such  a 
monstrous  doctrine.  The  decision  in  the  Dred  Scott  case  is  binding 
on  every  American  citizen  alike  j  and  yet  Mr.  Lincoln  argues  that 
the  Republicans  are  not  bound  by  it  because  they  are  opposed  to  it, 
whilst  Democrats  are  bound  by  it  because  we  will  not  resist  it.  A 
Democrat  cannot  resist  the  constituted  authorities  of  this  country ; 
a  Democrat  is  a  law-abiding  man;  a  Democrat  stands  by  the  Consti 
tution  and  the  laws,  and  relies  upon  liberty  as  protected  by  law,  and 
not  upon  mob  or  political  violence. 

I  have  never  yet  been  able  to  make  Mr.  Lincoln  understand,  nor  can 
I  make  any  man  who  is  determined  to  support  him,  right  or  wrong, 
understand,  how  it  is  that  under  the  Dred  Scott  decision  the  people  of 
a  Territory,  as  well  as  a  State,  can  have  slavery  or  not,  just  as  they 
please.  I  believe  that  I  can  explain  that  proposition  to  all  constitu 
tion-loving,  law-abiding  men  in  a  way  that  they  cannot  fail  to  under 
stand.  Chief  Justice  Taney,  in  his  opinion  in  the  Dred  Scott  case, 
said  that  slaves  being  property,  the  owner  of  them  has  a  right  to  take 
them  into  a  Territory  the  same  as  he  would  any  other  property ;  in 
other  words,  that  slave  property,  so  far  as  the  right  to  enter  into  a 
Territory  is  concerned,  stands  on  the  same  footing  with  other  prop 
erty.  Suppose  we  grant  that  proposition.  Then  any  man  has  a  right 
to  go  to  Kansas  and  take  his  property  with  him,  but  when  he  gets 
there  he  must  rely  upon  the  local  law  to  protect  his  property,  what 
ever  it  may  be.  In  order  to  illustrate  this,  imagine  that  three  of 
you  conclude  to  go  to  Kansas.  One  takes  $10,000  worth  of  slaves, 
another  $10,000  worth  of  liquors,  and  the  third  $10,000  worth  of  dry- 
goods.  When  the  man  who  owns  the  dry -goods  arrives  out  there 
and  commences  selling  them,  he  finds  that  he  is  stopped  and  pro 
hibited  from  selling  until  he  gets  a  license,  which  will  destroy  all 
the  profits  he  can  make  on  his  goods  to  pay  for.  When  the  man 
with  the  liquors  gets  there  and  tries  to  sell,  he  finds  a  Maine  liquor- 
law  in  force  which  prevents  him.  Now  of  what  use  is  his  right  to 
go  there  with  his  property  unless  he  is  protected  in  the  enjoyment 
of  that  right  after  he  gets  there?  The  man  who  goes  there  with  his 
slaves  finds  that  there  is  no  law  to  protect  him  when  he  arrives  there. 
He  has  no  remedy  if  his  slaves  run  away  to  another  country:  there 
is  no  slave  code  or  police  regulations,  and  the  absence  of  them  ex 
cludes  his  slaves  from  the  Territory  just  as  effectually  and  as  posi 
tively  as  a  constitutional  prohibition  could. 

Such  was  the  understanding  when  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill 
was  pending  in  Congress.  Read  the  speech  of  Speaker  Orr,  of  South 
Carolina,  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  in  1856,  on  the  Kansas 
question,  and  you  will  find  that  he  takes  the  ground  that  while  the 
owner  of  a  slave  has  a  right  to  go  into  a  Territory  and  carry  his 
slaves  with  him,  that  he  cannot  hold  them  one  day  or  hour  unless 
there  is  a  slave  code  to  protect  him.  He  tells  you  that  slavery  would 
not  exist  a  day  in  South  Carolina,  or  any  other  State,  unless  there 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABEAHAM  LINCOLN          475 

was  a  friendly  people  and  friendly  legislation.  Read  the  speeches  of 
that  giant  in  intellect,  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  of  Georgia,  and  you 
will  find  them  to  the  same  effect.  Read  the  speeches  of  Sam  Smith, 
of  Tennessee,  and  of  all  Southern  men,  and  you  will  find  that  they 
all  understood  this  doctrine  then  as  we  understand  it  now.  Mr. 
Lincoln  cannot  be  made  to  understand  it,  however.  Down  at  Jones- 
boro,  he  went  on  to  argue  that  if  it  be  the  law  that  a  man  has  a  right 
to  take  his  slaves  into  territory  of  the  United  States  under  the  Con 
stitution,  that  then  a  member  of  Congress  was  perjured  if  he  did 
not  vote  for  a  slave  code.  I  ask  him  whether  the  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  is  not  binding  upon  him  as  well  as  on  me?  If  so, 
and  he  holds  that  he  would  be  perjured  if  he  did  not  vote  for  a  slave 
code  under  it,  I  ask  him  whether,  if  elected  to  Congress,  he  will  so 
vote  ?  I  have  a  right  to  his  answer,  and  I  will  tell  you  why.  He 
put  that  question  to  me  down  in  Egypt,  and  did  it  with  an  air  of 
triumph.  This  was  about  the  form  of  it:  "In  the  event  a  slave- 
holding  citizen  of  one  of  the  Territories  should  need  and  demand  a 
slave  code  to  protect  his  slaves,  would  you  vote  for  it  T7  I  answered 
him  that  a  fundamental  article  in  the  Democratic  creed,  as  put  forth 
in  the  Nebraska  bill  and  the  Cincinnati  platform,  was  non-interven 
tion  by  Congress  with  slavery  in  the  btates  and  Territories,  and 
hence  that  I  would  not  vote  in  Congress  for  any  code  of  laws  either 
for  or  against  slavery  in  any  Territory.  I  will  leave  the  people  per 
fectly  free  to  decide  that  question  for  themselves. 

Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  Washington  "  Union  "  both  think  this  a  mon 
strous  bad  doctrine.  Neither  Mr.  Lincoln  nor  the  Washington 
" Union"  likes  my  Freeport  speech  on  that  subject.  The  "Union," 
in  a  late  number,  has  been  reading  me  out  of  the  Democratic  party 
because  I  hold  that  the  people  of  a  Territory,  like  those  of  a  State, 
have  the  right  to  have  slavery  or  not,  as  they  please.  It  has  devoted 
three  and  a  half  columns  to  prove  certain  propositions,  one  of  which 
I  will  read.  It  says : 

We  propose  to  show  that  Judge  Douglas's  action  in  1850  and  1854  was 
taken  with  especial  reference  to  the  announcement  of  doctrine  and  pro 
gramme  which  was  made  at  Freeport.  The  declaration  at  Freeport  was 
that  "  in  his  opinion  the  people  can,  by  lawful  means,  exclude  slavery  from  a 
Territory  before  it  comes  in  as  a  State  " ;  and  he  declared  that  his  competitor 
had  "heard  him  argue  the  Nebraska  bill  on  that  principle  all  over  Illinois 
in  1854, 1855,  and  1856,  and  had  no  excuse  to  pretend  to  have  any  doubt  upon 
that  subject. 

The  Washington  "  Union  "  there  charges  me  with  the  monstrous 
crime  of  now  proclaiming  on  the  stump  the  same  doctrine  that  I  car 
ried  out  in  1850,  by  supporting  Clay's  compromise  measures.  The 
"  Union  "  also  charges  that  I  am  now  proclaiming  the  same  doctrine 
that  I  did  in  1854  in  support  of  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill.  It  is 
shocked  that  I  should  now  stand  where  I  stood  in  1850,  when  I  was 
supported  by  Clay, Webster,  Cass,  and  the  great  men  of  that  day,  and 
where  I  stood  in  1854,  and  in  1856,  when  Mr.  Buchanan  was  elected 
President.  It  goes  on  to  prove,  and  succeeds  in  proving,  from  my 
speeches  in  Congress  on  Clay's  compromise  measures,  that  I  held  the 
same  doctrines  at  that  time  that  I  do  now,  and  then  proves  that  by 


476          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill  I  advanced  the  same  doctrine  that  I 
now  advance.     It  remarks: 

So  much  for  the  course  taken  by  Judge  Douglas  on  the  compromises  of 
1850.  The  record  shows,  beyond  the  possibility  of  cavil  or  dispute,  that  he 
expressly  intended  in  those  bills  to  give  the  territorial  legislatures  power  to 
exclude  slavery.  How  stands  his  record  in  the  memorable  session  of  1854, 
with  reference  to  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  itself?  We  shall  not  overhaul 
the  votes  that  were  given  on  that  notable  measure.  Our  space  will  not  af 
ford  it.  We  have  his  own  words,  however,  delivered  in  his  speech  closing 
the  great  debate  on  that  bill  on  the  night  of  March  3, 1854,  to  show  that  he 
meant  to  do  in  1854  precisely  what  he  had  meant  to  do  in  1858.  The  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill  being  upon  its  passage,  he  said : 

It  then  quotes  my  remarks  upon  the  passage  of  the  bill  as  follows : 

The  principle  which  we  propose  to  carry  into  effect  by  this  bill  is  this : 
That  Congress  shall  neither  legislate  slavery  into  any  Territory  or  State, 
nor  out  of  the  same  j  but  the  people  shall  be  left  free  to  regulate  their  do 
mestic  concerns  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  In  order  to  carry  this  principle  into  practical  operation,  it 
becomes  necessary  to  remove  whatever  legal  obstacles  might  be  found  in  the 
way  of  its  free  exercise.  It  is  only  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  this 
great  fundamental  principle  of  self-government  that  the  bill  renders  the 
eighth  section  of  the  Missouri  act  inoperative  and  void. 

Now,  let  me  ask,  will  those  senators  who  have  arraigned  me,  or  any  one 
of  them,  have  the  assurance  to  rise  in  his  place  and  declare  that  this  great 
principle  was  never  thought  of  or  advocated  as  applicable  to  territorial  bills 
in  1850  j  that  from  that  session  until  the  present,  nobody  ever  thought  of 
incorporating  this  principle  in  all  new  territorial  organizations,  etc.,  etc.?  I 
will  begin  with  the  compromises  of  1850.  Any  senator  who  will  take  the 
trouble  to  examine  our  journals  will  find  that  on  the  25th  of  March  of  that 
year  I  reported  from  the  Committee  on  Territories  two  bills,  including  the 
following  measures  :  the  admission  of  California^  a  territorial  government 
for  Utah,  a  territorial  government  for  New  Mexico,  and  the  adjustment  of 
the  Texas  boundary.  These  bills  proposed  to  leave  the  people  of  Utah  and 
New  Mexico  free  to  decide  the  slavery  question  for  themselves,  in  the 
precise  language  of  the  *Nebraska  bill  now  under  discussion.  A  few  weeks, 
afterward  the  committee  of  thirteen  took  those  bills  and  put  a  wafer  be 
tween  them  and  reported  them  back  to  the  Senate  as  one  bill,  with  some 
slight  amendments.  One  of  these  amendments  was  that  the  territorial 
legislatures  should  not  legislate  upon  the  subject  of  African  slavery.  I 
objected  to  this  provision,  upon  the  ground  that  it  subverted  the  great 
principle  of  self-government,  upon  which  the  bill  had  been  originally 
framed  by  the  territorial  committee.  On  the  first  trial  the  Senate  refused 
to  strike  it  out,  but  subsequently  did  so,  upon  full  debate,  in  order  to- 
establish  that  principle  as  the  rule  of  action  in  territorial  organizations. 

The  "Union"  comments  thus  on  my  speech  on  that  occasion : 

Thus  it  is  seen  that,  in  framing  the  Nebraska-Kansas  bill,  Judge  Doug 
las  framed  it  in  the  terms  and  upon  the  model  of  those  of  Utah  and  New 
Mexico,  and  that  in  the  debate  he  took  pains  expressly  to  revive  the  recol 
lection  of  the  voting  which  had  taken  place  upon  amendments  affecting  the 
powers  of  the  territorial  legislatures  over  the  subject  of  slavery  in  the  bill& 
of  1850,  in  order  to  give  the  same  meaning,  force,  and  effect  to  the  Ne 
braska-Kansas  bill  on  this  subject  as  had  been  given  to  those  of  Utah  and 
New  Mexico. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          477 

The  "  Union  "  proves  the  following  propositions :  First,  that  I 
sustained  Clay's  compromise  measures  on  the  ground  that  they 
established  the  principle  of  self-government  in  the  Territories.  Sec 
ondly,  that  I  brought  in  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill,  founded  upon 
the  same  principles  as  Clay's  compromise  measures  of  1850 ;  and 
thirdly,  that  my  Freeport  speech  is  in  exact  accordance  with  those 
principles.  And  what  do  you  think  is  the  imputation  that  the 
"Union"  casts  upon  me  for  all  this?  It  says  that  my  Freeport 
speech  is  not  Democratic,  and  that  I  was  not  a  Democrat  in  1854  or 
in  1850 !  Now,  is  not  that  funny  ?  Think  that  the  author  of  the 
Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill  was  not  a  Democrat  when  he  intro 
duced  it !  The  "  Union  "  says  I  was  not  a  sound  Democrat  in  1850, 
nor  in  1854,  nor  in  1856,  nor  am  I  in  1858,  because  I  have  always 
taken  and  now  occupy  the  ground  that  the  people  of  a  Territory,  like 
those  of  a  State,  have  the  right  to  decide  for  themselves  whether  sla 
very  shall  or  shall  not  exist  in  a  Territory.  I  wish  to  cite,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Washington  "  Union  "  and  the  followers  of  that  sheet, 
one  authority  on  that  point,  and  I  hope  the  authority  will  be  deemed 
satisfactory  to  that  class  of  politicians.  I  will  read  from  Mr.  Bu 
chanan's  letter  accepting  the  nomination  of  the  Democratic  conven 
tion  for  the  presidency.  You  know  that  Mr.  Buchanan,  after  he  was 
nominated,  declared  to  the  Keystone  Club,  in  a  public  speech,  that 
he  was  no  longer  James  Buchanan,  but  the  embodiment  of  the  Dem 
ocratic  platform.  In  his  letter  to  the  committee  which  informed  him 
of  his  nomination,  accepting  it,  he  defined  the  meaning  of  the  Kan 
sas  and  Nebraska  bill  and  the  Cincinnati  platform  in  these  words : 

The  recent  legislation  of  Congress  respecting  domestic  slavery,  derived 
as  it  has  been  from  the  original  and  pure  fountain  of  legitimate  political 
power,  the  will  of  the  majority,  promises  ere  long  to  allay  the  dangerous 
excitement.  This  legislation  is  founded  upon  principles  as  ancient  as  free 
government  itself,  and  in  accordance  with  them  has  simply  declared  that 
the  people  of  a  Territory,  like  those  of  a  State,  shall  decide" for  themselves 
whether  slavery  shall  or  shall  not  exist  within  their  limits. 

Thus  you  see  that  James  Buchanan  accepted  the  nomination  at 
Cincinnati  on  the  condition  that  the  people  of  a  Territory,  like 
those  of  a  State,  should  be  left  to  decide  for  themselves  whether 
slavery  should  or  should  not  exist  within  their  limits.  I  sustained 
James  Buchanan  for  the  presidency  on  that  platform  as  adopted 
at  Cincinnati  and  expounded  by  himself.  He  was  elected  presi 
dent  on  that  platform,  and  now  we  are  told  by  the  Washington 
"Union"  that  no  man  is  a  true  Democrat  who  stands  on  the  platform 
on  which  Mr.  Buchanan  was  nominated,  and  which  he  has  explained 
and  expounded  himself.  We  are  told  that  a  man  is  not  a  Democrat 
who  stands  by  Clay,  Webster,  and  Cass,  and  the  compromise  mea 
sures  of  1850,  and  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill  of  1854.  Whether 
a  man  be  a  Democrat  or  not  on  that  platform,  I  intend  to  stand 
there  as  long  as  I  have  life.  I  intend  to  cling  firmly  to  that  great 
principle  which  declares  the  right  of  each  State  and  each  Terri 
tory  to  settle  the  question  of  slavery,  and  every  other  domestic  ques 
tion,  for  themselves.  I  hold  that  if  they  want  a  slave  State,  they 


478          ADDEESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

have  a  right,  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  to  make 
it  so,  and  if  they  want  a  free  State,  it  is  their  right  to  have  it.  But 
the  "  Union,"  in  advocating  the  claims  of  Lincoln  over  me  to  the 
Senate,  lays  down  two  unpardonable  heresies  which  it  says  I  ad 
vocate.  The  first  is  the  right  of  the  people  of  a  Territory,  the  same 
as  a  State,  to  decide  for  themselves  the  question  whether  slavery 
shall  exist  within  their  limits,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Buchanan  j 
and  the  second  is  that  a  constitution  shall  be  submitted  to  the  peo 
ple  of  a  Territory  for  its  adoption  or  rejection  before  their  admission 
as  a  State  under  it.  It  so  happens  that  Mr.  Buchanan  is  pledged  to 
both  these  heresies,  for  supporting  which  the  Washington  " Union"1 
has  read  me  out  of  the  Democratic  church.  In  his  annual  message 
he  said  he  trusted  that  the  example  of  the  Minnesota  case  would  be 
followed  in  all  future  cases  requiring  a  submission  of  the  constitu 
tion;  and  in  his  letter  of  acceptance  he  said  that  the  people  of  a 
Territory,  the  same  as  a  State,  had  the  right  to  decide  for  themselves 
whether  slavery  should  exist  within  their  limits.  Thus  you  find  that 
this  little  corrupt  gang  who  control  the  "Union,"  and  wish  to  elect 
Lincoln  in  preference  to  me, —  because,  as  they  say,  of  these  two 
heresies  which  I  support, —  denounce  President  Buchanan  when  they 
denounce  me,  if  he  stands  now  by  the  principles  upon  which  he  was 
elected.  Will  they  pretend  that  he  does  not  now  stand  by  the  prin 
ciples  on  which  he  was  elected?  Do  they  hold  that  he  has  aban 
doned  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  the  Cincinnati  platform,  and  his 
own  letter  accepting  his  nomination,  all  of  which  declare  the  right 
of  the  people  of  a  Territory,  the  same  as  a  State,  to  decide  the  sla 
very  question  for  themselves?  I  will  not  believe  that  he  has  betrayed 
or  intends  to  betray  the  platform  which  elected  him  5  but  if  he  does, 
I  will  not  follow  him.  I  will  stand  by  that  great  principle,  no  mat 
ter  who  may  desert  it.  I  intend  to  stand  by  it  for  the  purpose  of 
preserving  peace  between  the  North  and  the  South,  the  free  and  the 
slave  States. 

If  each  State  will  only  agree  to  mind  its  own  business,  and  let  its 
neighbors  alone,  there  will  be  peace  forever  between  us.  We  in 
Illinois  tried  slavery  when  a  Territory,  and  found  it  was  not  good  for 
us  in  this  climate,  and  with  our  surroundings,  and  hence  we  abol 
ished  it.  We  then  adopted  a  free- State  constitution,  as  we  had  a 
right  to  do.  In  this  State  we  have  declared  that  a  negro  shall  not 
be  a  citizen,  and  we  have  also  declared  that  he  shall  not  be  a  slave. 
We  had  a  right  to  adopt  that  policy.  Missouri  has  just  as  good  a 
right  to  adopt  the  other  policy.  I  am  now  speaking  of  rights  under 
the  Constitution,  and  not  of  moral  or  religious  rights.  I  do  not  dis 
cuss  the  morals  of  the  people  of  Missouri,  but  let  them  settle  that 
matter  for  themselves.  I  hold  that  the  people  of  the  slaveholding 
States  are  civilized  men  as  well  as  ourselves;  that  they  bear  con 
sciences  as  well  as  we,  and  that  they  are  accountable  to  God  and 
their  posterity,  and  not  to  us.  It  is  for  them  to  decide,  therefore, 
the  moral  and  religious  right  of  the  slavery  question  for  themselves 
within  their  own  limits.  I  assert  that  they  had  as  much  right  under 
the  Constitution  to  adopt  the  system  of  policy  which  they  have  as  we 
had  to  adopt  ours.  So  it  is  with  every  other  State  in  this  Union.  Let 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN         479 

each  State  stand  firmly  by  that  great  constitutional  right,  let  each 
State  mind  its  own  business  and  let  its  neighbors  alone,  and  there  will 
be  no  trouble  on  this  question.  If  we  will  stand  by  that  principle, 
then  Mr.  Lincoln  will  find  that  this  republic  can  exist  forever 
divided  into  free  and  slave  States,  as  our  fathers  made  it,  and  the 
people  of  each  State  have  decided.  Stand  by  that  great  principle, 
and  we  can  go  on  as  we  have  done,  increasing  in  wealth,  in  popula 
tion,  in  power,  and  in  all  the  elements  of  greatness,  until  we  shall  be 
the  admiration  and  terror  of  the  world.  We  can  go  on  and  enlarge 
as  our  population  increases  and  requires  more  room,  until  we  make 
this  continent  one  ocean-bound  republic.  Under  that  principle  the 
United  States  can  perform  that  great  mission,  that  destiny,  which 
Providence  has  marked  out  for  us.  Under  that  principle  we  can 
receive  with  entire  safety  that  stream  of  intelligence  which  is  con 
stantly  flowing  from  the  Old  World  to  the  New,  filling  up  our 
prairies,  clearing  pur  wildernesses,  and  building  cities,  towns,  rail 
roads,  and  other  internal  improvements,  and  thus  make  this  the 
asylum  of  the  oppressed  of  the  whole  earth.  We  have  this  great 
mission  to  perform,  and  it  can  only  be  performed  by  adhering 
faithfully  to  that  principle  of  self-government  on  which  our  institu 
tions  were  all  established.  I  repeat  that  the  principle  is  the  right 
of  each  State,  each  Territory,  to  decide  this  slavery  question  for 
itself,  to  have  slavery  or  not,  as  it  chooses,  and  it  does  not  become 
Mr.  Lincoln,  or  anybody  else,  to  tell  the  people  of  Kentucky  that  they 
have  no  consciences,  that  they  are  living  in  a  state  of  iniquity,  and 
that  they  are  cherishing  an  institution  to  their  bosoms  in  violation 
of  the  law  of  God.  Better  for  him  to  adopt  the  doctrine  of  "Judge 
not,  lest  ye  shall  be  judged."  Let  him  perform  his  own  duty  at  home, 
and  he  will  have  a  better  fate  in  the  future.  I  think  there  are  objects 
of  charity  enough  in  the  free  States  to  excite  the  sympathies  and  open 
the  pockets  of  all  the  benevolence  we  have  amongst  us,  without 
going  abroad  in  search  of  negroes,  of  whose  condition  we  know 
nothing.  We  have  enough  objects  of  charity  at  home,  and  it  is  our 
duty  to  take  care  of  our  own  poor,  and  our  own  suffering,  before  we 
go  abroad  to  intermeddle  with  other  people's  business. 

My  friends,  I  am  told  that  my  time  is  within  two  minutes  of  ex 
piring.  I  have  omitted  many  topics  that  I  would  like  to  have  dis 
cussed  before  you  at  length.  There  were  many  points  touched  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  take  up  for  the  want  of  time. 
I  have  hurried  over  each  subject  that  I  have  discussed  as  rapidly  as 
possible,  so  as  to  omit  but  few;  but  one  hour  and  a  half  is  not  time 
sufficient  for  a  man  to  discuss  at  length  one  half  of  the  great  ques 
tions  which  are  now  dividing  the  public  mind. 

In  conclusion,  I  desire  to  return  to  you  my  grateful  acknowledg 
ments  for  the  kindness  and  the  courtesy  with  which  you  have  listened 
to  me.  It  is  something  remarkable  that  in  an  audience  as  vast  as 
this,  composed  of  men  of  opposite  politics  and  views,  with  their  pas 
sions  highly  excited,  there  should  be  so  much  courtesy,  kindness,  and 
respect  exhibited  not  only  toward  one  another,  but  toward  the  speak 
ers,  and  I  feel  that  it  is  due  to  you  that  I  should  thus  express  my 
gratitude  for  the  kindness  with  which  you  have  treated  me. 


480          ADDBESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Mr.  Lincoln's  Rejoinder  in  the  Quincy  Joint  Debate. 

My  Friends :  Since  Judge  Douglas  has  said  to  you  in  his  conclu 
sion  that  he  had  not  time  in  an  hour  and  a  half  to  answer  all  I  had 
said  in  an  hour,  it  follows  of  course  that  I  will  not  be  able  to  answer 
in  half  an  hour  all  that  he  said  in  an  hour  and  a  half. 

I  wish  to  return  to  Judge  Douglas  my  profound  thanks  for  his 
public  annunciation  here  to-day  to  be  put  on  record,  that  his  system 
of  policy  in  regard  to  the  institution  of  slavery  contemplates  that  it 
shall  last  forever.  We  are  getting  a  little  nearer  the  true  issue  of 
this  controversy,  and  I  am  profoundly  grateful  for  this  one  sentence. 
Judge  Douglas  asks  you,  "  Why  cannot  the  institution  of  slavery,  or 
rather,  why  cannot  the  nation,  part  slave  and  part  free,  continue  as 
our  fathers  made  it  forever?"  In  the  first  place,  I  insist  that  our 
fathers  did  not  make  this  nation  half  slave  and  half  free,  or  part 
slave  and  part  free.  I  insist  that  they  found  the  institution  of 
slavery  existing  here.  They  did  not  make  it  so,  but  they  left  it  so 
because  they  knew  of  no  way  to  get  rid  of  it  at  that  time.  When 
Judge  Douglas  undertakes  to  say  that,  as  a  matter  of  choice,  the 
fathers  of  the  government  made  this  nation  part  slave  and  part  free, 
he  assumes  what  is  historically  a  falsehood.  More  than  that:  when 
the  fathers  of  the  government  cut  off  the  source  of  slavery  by  the 
abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  and  adopted  a  system  of  restricting  it 
from  the  new  Territories  where  it  had  not  existed,  I  maintain  that 
they  placed  it  where  they  understood,  and  all  sensible  men  under 
stood,  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction  j  and  when  Judge 
Douglas  asks  me  why  it  cannot  continue  as  our  fathers  made  it,  I  ask 
him  why  he  and  his  friends  could  not  let  it  remain  as  our  fathers 
made  it? 

It  is  precisely  all  I  ask  of  him  in  relation  to  the  institution  of 
slavery,  that  it  shall  be  placed  upon  the  basis  that  pur  fathers  placed 
it  upon.  Mr.  Brooks,  of  South  Carolina,  once  said,  and  truly  said, 
that  when  this  government  was  established,  no  one  expected  the  in 
stitution  of  slavery  to  last  until  this  day ;  and  that  the  men  who 
formed  this  government  were  wiser  and  better  than  the  men  of 
these  days ;  but  the  men  of  these  days  had  experience  which  the 
fathers  had  not,  and  that  experience  had  taught  them  the  invention 
of  the  cotton-gin,  and  this  had  made  the  perpetuation  of  the  institu 
tion  of  slavery  a  necessity  in  this  country.  Judge  Douglas  could 
not  let  it  stand  upon  the  basis  where  our  fathers  placed  it,  but  re 
moved  it,  and  put  it  upon  the  cotton-gin  basis.  It  is  a  question, 
therefore,  for  him  and  his  friends  to  answer — why  they  could  not  let 
it  remain  where  the  fathers  of  the  government  originally  placed  it. 

I  hope  nobody  has  understood  me  as  trying  to  sustain  the  doctrine 
that  we  have  a  right  to  quarrel  with  Kentucky  or  Virginia,  or  any 
of  the  slave  States,  about  the  institution  of  slavery — thus  giving  the 
judge  an  opportunity  to  make  himself  eloquent  and  valiant  against 
us  in  fighting  for  their  rights.  I  expressly  declared  in  my  opening 
speech  that  I  had  neither  the  inclination  to  exercise,  nor  the  belief  in 
the  existence  of,  the  right  to  interfere  with  the  States  of  Kentucky  or 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF  ABEAHAM   LINCOLN         481 

Virginia  in  doing  as  they  pleased  with  slavery  or  any  other  existing 
institution.  Then  what  becomes  of  all  his  eloquence  in  behalf  of  the 
rights  of  States,  which  are  assailed  by  no  living  man  ? 

But  I  have  to  hurry  on,  for  I  have  but  a  half -hour.  The  judge 
has  informed  me,  or  informed  this  audience,  that  the  Washington 
"  Union "  is  laboring  for  my  election  to  the  United  States  Senate. 
This  is  news  to  me  —  not  very  ungrateful  news  either.  [Turning  to 
Mr.  W.  H.  Carlin,  who  was  on  the  stand:  ]  I  hope  that  Carlin  will  be 
elected  to  the  State  Senate  and  will  vote  for  me.  [Mr.  Carlin  shook 
his  head.]  Carlin  don't  fall  in,  I  perceive,  and  I  suppose  he  will  not 
do  much  for  me  j  but  I  am  glad  of  all  the  support  I  can  get  anywhere, 
if  I  can  get  it  without  practising  any  deception  to  obtain  it.  In  re 
spect  to  this  large  portion  of  Judge  Douglas's  speech,  in  which  he 
tries  to  show  that  in  the  controversy  between  himself  and  the  ad 
ministration  party  he  is  in  the  right,  I  do  not  feel  myself  at  all  com 
petent  or  inclined  to  answer  him.  I  say  to  him,  Give  it  to  them  — 
give  it  to  them  just  all  you  can ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  I  say  to  Car 
lin,  and  Jake  Davis,  and  to  this  man  Waglev  up  here  in  Hancock, 
Give  it  to  Douglas — just  pour  it  into  him. 

Now  in  regard  to  this  matter  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  I  wish  to 
say  a  word  or  two.  After  all,  the  judge  will  not  say  whether,  if  a 
decision  is  made  holding  that  the  people  of  the  States  cannot  ex 
clude  slavery,  he  will  support  it  or  not.  He  obstinately  refuses  to 
say  what  he  will  do  in  that  case.  The  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court 
as  obstinately  refused  to  say  what  they  would  do  on  this  subject. 
Before  this  I  reminded  him  that  at  Galesburg  he  said  the  judges 
had  expressly  declared  the  contrary,  and  you  remember  that  in  my 
opening  speech  I  told  him  I  had  the  book  containing  that  de 
cision  here,  and  I  would  thank  him  to  lay  his  finger  on  the  place 
where  any  such  thing  was  said.  He  has  occupied  his  hour  and  a 
half,  and  he  has  not  ventured  to  try  to  sustain  his  assertion.  He 
never  will.  But  he  is  desirous  of  knowing  how  we  are  going  to  re 
verse  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Judge  Douglas  ought  to  know  how. 
Did  not  he  and  his  political  friends  find  a  way  to  reverse  the  deci 
sion  of  that  same  court  in  favor  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  national 
hank  ?  Did  n't  they  find  a  way  to  do  it  so  effectually  that  they  have 
reversed  it  as  completely  as  any  decision  ever  was  reversed,  so  far  as 
its  practical  operation  is  concerned  ?  And,  let  me  ask  you,  did  n't 
Judge  Douglas  find  a  way  to  reverse  the  decision  of  our  Supreme 
Court,  when  it  decided  that  Carlin's  father  —  old  Governor  Carlin 
—  had  not  the  constitutional  power  to  remove  a  secretary  of  state? 
Did  he  not  appeal  to  the  u  mobs,"  as  he  calls  them  ?  Did  he  not  make 
speeches  in  the  lobby  to  show  how  villainous  that  decision  was,  and 
how  it  ought  to  be  overthrown  ?  Did  he  not  succeed,  too,  in  getting 
an  act  passed  by  the  legislature  to  have  it  overthrown  ?  And  did  n't 
he  himself  sit  down  on  that  bench  as  one  of  the  five  added  judges 
who  were  to  overslaugh  the  four  old  ones  —  getting  his  name  of 
"  judge  "  in  that  way  and  in  no  other  ?  If  there  is  a  villainy  in  using 
disrespect  or  making  opposition  to  Supreme  Court  decisions,  I  com 
mend  it  to  Judge  Douglas's  earnest  consideration.  I  know  of  no  man 
in  the  State  of  Illinois  who  ought  to  know  so  well  about  how  much 
VOL.  L— 31. 


482         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

villainy  it  takes  to  oppose  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  as  our 
honorable  friend,  Stephen  A.  Douglas. 

Judge  Douglas  also  makes  the  declaration  that  I  say  the  Demo 
crats  are  bound  by  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  while  the  Republicans 
are  not.  In  the  sense  in  which  he  argues,  I  never  said  it ;  but  I  will 
tell  you  what  I  have  said  and  what  I  do  not  hesitate  to  repeat  to-day. 
I  have  said  that,  as  the  Democrats  believe  that  decision  to  be  correct, 
and  that  the  extension  of  slavery  is  affirmed  in  the  National  Consti 
tution,  they  are  bound  to  support  it  as  such ;  and  I  will  tell  you  here 
that  G-eneral  Jackson  once  said  each  man  was  bound  to  support  the 
Constitution,  "  as  he  understood  it."  Now,  Judge  Douglas  under 
stands  the  Constitution  according  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and 
he  is  bound  to  support  it  as  he  understands  it.  I  understand  it  an 
other  way,  and  therefore  I  am  bound  to  support  it  in  the  way  in 
which  I  understand  it.  And  as  Judge  Douglas  believes  that  decision 
to  be  correct,  I  will  remake  that  argument  if  I  have  time  to  do  so. 
Let  me  talk  to  some  gentleman  down  there  among  you  who  looks 
me  in  the  face.  We  will  say  you  are  a  member  of  the  territorial 
legislature,  and,  like  Judge  Douglas,  you  believe  that  the  right  to 
take  and  hold  slaves  there  is  a  constitutional  right.  The  first  thing 
you  do  is  to  swear  you  will  support  the  Constitution  and  all  rights 
guaranteed  therein ;  that  you  will,  whenever  your  neighbor  needs 
your  legislation  to  support  his  constitutional  rights,  not  withhold 
that  legislation.  If  you  withhold  that  necessary  legislation  for 
the  support  of  the  Constitution  and  constitutional  rights,  do  you 
not  commit  perjury?  I  ask  every  sensible  man  if  that  is  not 
so  ?  That  is  undoubtedly  just  so,  say  what  you  please.  Now,  that 
is  precisely  what  Judge  Douglas  says — that  this  is  a  constitutional 
right.  Does  the  judge  mean  to  say  that  the  territorial  legislature  in 
legislating  may,  by  withholding  necessary  laws  or  by  passing  un 
friendly  laws,  nullify  that  constitutional  right  ?  Does  lie  mean  to  say 
that?  Does  he  mean  to  ignore  the  proposition,  so  long  and  well  estab 
lished  in  law,  that  what  you  cannot  do  directly,  you  cannot  do  indi 
rectly  ?  Does  he  mean  that  ?  The  truth  about  the  matter  is  this :  Judge 
Douglas  has  sung  paeans  to  his  "  popular  sovereignty  "  doctrine  until 
his  Supreme  Court,  cooperating  with  him,  has  squatted  his  squatter 
sovereignty  out.  But  he  will  keep  up  this  species  of  humbuggeiy 
about  squatter  sovereignty.  He  has  at  last  invented  this  sort  of  do- 
nothing  sovereignty  —  that  the  people  may  exclude  slavery  by  a 
sort  of  " sovereignty"  that  is  exercised  by  doing  nothing  at  all.  Is 
not  that  running  his  popular  sovereignty  down  awfully?  Has  it 
not  got  down  as  thin  as  the  homeopathic  soup  that  was  made  by  boil 
ing  the  shadow  of  a  pigeon  that  had  starved  to  death  ?  But  at  last, 
when  it  is  brought  to  the  test  of  close  reasoning,  there  is  not  even 
that  thin  decoction  of  it  left.  It  is  a  presumption  impossible  in  the 
domain  of  thought.  It  is  precisely  no  other  than  the  putting  of  that 
most  unphilosophical  proposition,  that  two  bodies  can  occupy  the 
same  space  at  the  same  time.  The  Dred  Scott  decision  covers  the 
whole  ground,  and  while  it  occupies  it,  there  is  no  room  even  for 
the  shadow  of  a  starved  pigeon  to  occupy  the  same  ground. 

Judge  Douglas,  in  reply  to  what  I  have  said  about  having  upon  a 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          483 

previous  occasion  made  the  same  speech  at  Ottawa  as  the  one  he  took 
an  extract  from  at  Charleston,  says  it  only  shows  that  I  practised 
the  deception  twice.  Now,  my  friends,  are  any  of  you  obtuse 
enough  to  swallow  that?  Judge  Douglas  had  said  I  had  made 
a  speech  at  Charleston  that  I  would  not  make  up  north,  and  I  turned 
around  and  answered  him  by  showing  I  had  made  that  same  speech 
up  north — had  made  it  at  Ottawa — made  it  in  his  hearing — made  it 
in  the  Abolition  district — in  Love  joy's  district — in  the  personal 
presence  of  Lovejoy  himself — in  the  same  atmosphere  exactly  in 
which  I  had  made  my  Chicago  speech,  of  which  he  complains  so  much. 
Now,  in  relation  to  my  not  having  said  anything  about  the  quo 
tation  from  the  Chicago  speech.  He  thinks  that  is  a  terrible  sub 
ject  for  me  to  handle.  Why,  gentlemen,  I  can  show  you  that  the 
substance  of  the  Chicago  speech  I  delivered  two  years  ago  in 
"Egypt,"  as  he  calls  it.  It  was  down  at  Springfield.  That  speech 
is  here  in  this  book,  and  I  could  turn  to  it  and  read  it  to  you  but 
for  the  lack  of  time.  I  have  not  now  the  time  to  read  it.  ["  Read 
it,  read  it."]  No,  gentlemen,  I  am  obliged  to  use  discretion  in  dis 
posing  most  advantageously  of  my  brief  time.  The  judge  has  taken 
great  exception  to  my  adopting  the  heretical  statement  in  the  Declar 
ation  of  Independence,  that  "all  men  are  created  equal,"  and  he  has  a 
great  deal  to  say  about  negro  equality.  I  want  to  say  that  in  some 
times  alluding  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  I  have  only  uttered 
the  sentiments  that  Henry  Clay  used  to  hold.  Allow  me  to  occupy 
your  time  a  moment  with  what  he  said.  Mr.  Clay  was  at  one  time 
called  upon  in  Indiana,  and  in  a  way  that  I  suppose  was  very  insult 
ing,  to  liberate  his  slaves,  and  he  made  a  written  reply  to  that  appli 
cation,  and  one  portion  of  it  is  in  these  words : 

What  is  the  foundation  of  this  appeal  to  me  in  Indiana  to  liberate  the 
slaves  under  my  care  in  Kentucky  ?  It  is  a  general  declaration  in  the  act 
announcing  to  the  world  the  independence  of  the  thirteen  American 
colonies,  that  "  men  are  created  equal."  Now,  as  an  abstract  principle, 
there  is  no  doubt  of  the  truth  of  that  declaration,  and  it  is  desirable  in  the 
original  construction  of  society,  and  in  organized  societies,  to  keep  it  in 
view  as  a  great  fundamental  principle. 

When  I  sometimes,  in  relation  to  the  organization  of  new  societies 
in  new  countries,  where  the  soil  is  clean  and  clear,  insist  that  we 
should  keep  that  principle  in  view,  Judge  Douglas  will  have  it  that 
I  want  a  negro  wife.  He  never  can  be  brought  to  understand  that 
there  is  any  middle  ground  on  this  subject.  I  have  lived  until  my 
fiftieth  year,  and  have  never  had  a  negro  woman  either  for  a  slave 
or  a  wife,  and  I  think  I  can  live  fifty  centuries,  for  that  matter,  with 
out  having  had  one  for  either.  I  maintain  that  you  may  take  Judge 
Douglas's  quotations  from  my  Chicago  speech,  and  from  my  Charles 
ton  speech,  and  the  Galesburg  speech, — in  his  speech  of  to-day, —  and 
compare  them  over,  and  I  am  willing  to  trust  them  with  you  upon 
his  proposition  that  they  show  rascality  or  double-dealing.  I  deny 
that  they  do. 

The  judge  does  not  seem  disposed  to  have  peace,  but  I  find  he  is 
disposed  to  have  a  personal  warfare  with  me.  He  says  that  my  oath 
would  not  be  taken  against  the  bare  word  of  Charles  H.  Lanphier 


484          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN 

or  Thomas  L.  Harris.  Well,  that  is  altogether  a  matter  of  opinion. 
It  is  certainly  not  for  me  to  vaunt  my  word  against  the  oaths  of 
these  gentlemen,  but  I  will  tell  Judge  Douglas  again  the  facts  upon 
which  I  " dared"  to  say  they  proved  a  forgery.  I  pointed  out  at 
Galesburg  that  the  publication  of  these  resolutions  in  the  Illinois 
"  State  Register"  could  not  have  been  the  result  of  accident,  as  the 
proceedings  of  that  meeting  bore  unmistakable  evidence  of  being 
done  by  a  man  who  knew  it  was  a  forgery;  that  it  was  a  publication 
partly  taken  from  the  real  proceedings  of  the  convention,  and  partly 
from  the  proceedings  of  a  convention  at  another  place  ;  which  showed 
that  he  had  the  real  proceedings  before  him,  and,  taking  one  part  of 
the  resolutions,  he  threw  out  another  part,  and  substituted  false  and 
fraudulent  ones  in  their  stead.  I  pointed  that  out  to  him,  and  also 
that  his  friend  Lanphier,  who  was  editor  of  the  "  Register  n  at  that 
time  and  now  is,  must  have  known  how  it  was  done.  Now  whether 
he  did  it,  or  got  some  friend  to  do  it  for  him,  I  could  not  tell,  but  he 
certainly  knew  all  about  it.  I  pointed  out  to  Judge  Douglas  that  in 
his  Freeport  speech  he  had  promised  to  investigate  that  matter. 
Does  he  now  say  he  did  not  make  that  promise!  I  have  a  right  to 
ask  why  he  did  not  keep  it?  I  call  upon  him  to  tell  here  to-day  why 
he  did  not  keep  that  promise  ?  That  fraud  has  been  traced  up  so  that 
it  lies  between  him,  Harris,  and  Lanphier.  There  is  little  room  for 
escape  for  Lanphier.  Lanphier  is  doing  the  judge  good  service,  and 
Douglas  desires  his  word  to  be  taken  for  the  truth.  He  desires  Lan 
phier  to  be  taken  as  authority  in  what  he  states  in  his  newspaper. 
He  desires  Harris  to  be  taken  as  a  man  of  vast  credibility,  and  when 
this  thing  lies  among  them,  they  will  not  press  it  to  show  where  the 
guilt  really  belongs.  Now,  as  he  has  said  that  he  would  investigate 
it,  and  implied  that  he  would  tell  us  the  result  of  his  investigation,  I 
demand  of  him  to  tell  why  he  did  not  investigate  it,  if  he  did  not; 
and  if  he  did,  why  he  won't  tell  the  result.  I  call  upon  him  for  that. 

This  is  the  third  time  that  Judge  Douglas  has  assumed  that  he 
learned  about  these  resolutions  by  Harris's  attempting  to  use  them 
against  Norton  on  the  floor  of  Congress.  I  tell  Judge  Douglas  the 
public  records  of  the  country  show  that  he  himself  attempted  it 
upon  Trumbull  a  month  before  Harris  tried  them  on  Norton — tha,t 
Harris  had  the  opportunity  of  learning  it  from  him,  rather  than  he 
from  Harris.  I  now  ask  his  attention  to  that  part  of  the  record  on 
the  case.  My  friends,  I  am  not  disposed  to  detain  you  longer  in 
regard  to  that  matter. 

I  am  told  that  I  still  have  five  minutes  left.  There  is  another 
matter  I  wish  to  call  attention  to.  He  says,  when  he  discovered  there 
was  a  mistake  in  that  case,  he  came  forward  magnanimously,  with 
out  my  calling  his  attention  to  it,  and  explained  it.  I  will  tell  you 
how  he  became  so  magnanimous.  When  the  newspapers  of  our  side 
had  discovered  and  published  it,  and  put  it  beyond  his  power  to 
deny  it,  then  he  came  forward  and  made  a  virtue  of  necessity  by 
acknowledging  it.  Now  he  argues  that  all  the  point  there  was  in 
those  resolutions,  although  never  passed  at  Springfield,  is  retained 
by  their  being  passed  at  other  localities.  Is  that  true?  He  said 
I  had  a  hand  in  passing  them,  in  his  opening  speech;  that  I  was  in 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          485 

the  convention,  and  helped  to  pass  them.  Do  the  resolutions  touch 
me  at  all  ?  It  strikes  me  there  is  some  difference  between  holding 
a  man  responsible  for  an  act  which  he  has  not  done,  and  holding1  him 
responsible  for  an  act  that  he  has  done.  You  will  judge  whether 
there  is  any  difference  in  the  "  spots."  And  he  has  taken  credit  for 
great  magnanimity  in  coming  forward  and  acknowledging  what  is 
proved  on  him  beyond  even  the  capacity  of  Judge  Douglas  to  deny, 
and  he  has  more  capacity  in  that  way  than  any  other  living  man. 

Then  he  wants  to  know  why  I  won't  withdraw  the  charge  in  re 
gard  to  a  conspiracy  to  make  slavery  national,  as  he  had  withdrawn 
the  one  he  made.  May  it  please  his  worship,  I  will  withdraw  it  when 
it  is  proven  false  on  me  as  that  was  proven  false  on  him.  I  will  add 
a  little  more  than  that.  I  will  withdraw  it  whenever  a  reasonable 
man  shall  be  brought  to  believe  that  the  charge  is  not  true.  I  have 
asked  Judge  Douglas's  attention  to  certain  matters  of  fact  tending 
to  prove  the  charge  of  a  conspiracy  to  nationalize  slavery,  and  he 
says  he  convinces  me  that  this  is  all  untrue,  because  Buchanan  was 
not  in  the  country  at  that  time,  and  because  the  Dred  Scott  case  had 
not  then  got  into  the  Supreme  Court  5  and  he  says  that  I  say  the 
Democratic  owners  of  Dred  Scott  got  up  the  case.  I  never  did  say 
that.  I  defy  Judge  Douglas  to  show  that  I  ever  said  so,  for  I  never 
uttered  it.  [One  of  Mr.  Douglas's  reporters  gesticulated  affirma 
tively  at  Mr.  Lincoln.]  I  don't  care  if  your  hireling  does  say  I  did. 
I  tell  you  myself  that  I  never  said  the  "  Democratic  "  owners  of  Dred 
Scott  got  up  the  case.  I  have  never  pretended  to  know  whether 
Dred  Scott's  owners  were  Democrats  or  Abolitionists,  Free-soilers  or 
Border  Ruffians.  I  have  said  that  there  is  evidence  about  the  case 
tending  to  show  that  it  was  a  made-up  case  for  the  purpose  of  get 
ting  that  decision.  I  have  said  that  that  evidence  was  very  strong  in 
the  fact  that  when  Dred  Scott  was  declared  to  be  a  slave,  the  owner 
of  him  made  him  free,  showing  that  he  had  had  the  case  tried,  and 
the  question  settled,  for  such  use  as  could  be  made  of  that  decision  ; 
he  cared  nothing  about  the  property  thus  declared  to  be  his  by  that 
decision.  But  my  time  is  out,  and  I  can  say  no  more. 

October  15, 1858.—  THE  SEVENTH  AND  LAST  JOINT  DEBATE, 
AT  ALTON,  ILLINOIS. 

Senator  Douglas's  Opening  Speech. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  It  is  now  nearly  four  months  since  the 
canvass  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  myself  commenced.  On  the  16th 
of  June  the  Republican  convention  assembled  at  Springfield,  and 
nominated  Mr.  Lincoln  as  their  candidate  for  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  he,  on  that  occasion,  delivered  a  speech  in  which  he  laid 
down  what  he  understood  to  be  the  Republican  creed,  and  the  plat 
form  on  which  he  proposed  to  stand  during  the  contest.  The  prin 
cipal  points  in  that  speech  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  were:  First,  that  this 
government  could  not  endure  permanently  divided  into  free  and 
slave  States,  as  our  fathers  made  it;  that  they  must  all  become  free 
or  all  become  slave;  all  become  one  thing  or  all  become  the  other, 


486          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

otherwise  this  Union  could  not  continue  to  exist.  I  give  you  his 
opinions  almost  in  the  identical  language  he  used.  His  second  prop 
osition  was  a  crusade  against  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  because  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision;  urging  as  an  especial 
reason  for  his  opposition  to  that  decision  that  it  deprived  the  negroes 
of  the  rights  and  benefits  of  that  clause  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  which  guarantees  to  the  citizens  of  each  State  all  the 
rights,  privileges,  and  immunities  of  the  citizens  of  the  several  States. 
On  the  10th  of  July  I  returned  home,  and  delivered  a  speech  to  the 
people  of  Chicago,  in  which  I  announced  it  to  be  my  purpose  to  ap 
peal  to  the  people  of  Illinois  to  sustain  the  course  I  had  pursued  in 
Congress.  In  that  speech  I  joined  issue  with  Mr.  Lincoln  on  the 
points  which  he  had  presented.  Thus  there  was  an  issue  clear  and 
distinct  made  up  between  us  on  these  two  propositions  laid  down  in 
the  speech  of  Mr.  Lincoln  at  Springfield,  and  controverted  by  me  in 
my  reply  to  him  at  Chicago.  On  the  next  day,  the  llth  of  July,  Mr. 
Lincoln  replied  to  me  at  Chicago,  explaining  at  some  length,  and  re 
affirming  the  positions  which  he  had  taken  in  his  Springfield  speech. 
In  that  Chicago  speech  he  even  went  further  than  he  had  before,  and 
uttered  sentiments  in  regard  to  the  negro  being  on  an  equality  with 
the  white  man.  He  adopted  in  support  of  this  position  the  argument 
which  Love  joy,  and  Codding,  and  other  Abolition  lecturers  had  made 
familiar  in  the  northern  and  central  portions  of  the  State,  to  wit: 
that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  having  declared  all  men  free 
and  equal  by  Divine  law,  negro  equality  was  also  an  inalienable 
right,  of  which  they  could  not  be  deprived.  He  insisted,  in  that 
speech,  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  included  the  negro  in 
the  clause  asserting  that  all  men  were  created  equal,  and  went  so  far 
as  to  say  that  if  one  man  was  allowed  to  take  the  position  that  it  did 
not  include  the  negro,  others  might  take  the  position  that  it  did  not 
include  other  men.  He  said  that  all  these  distinctions  between  this 
man  and  that  man,  this  race  and  the  other  race,  must  be  discarded, 
and  we  must  all  stand  by  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  declaring 
that  all  men  were  created  equal. 

The  issue  thus  being  made  up  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  myself 
on  three  points,  we  went  before  the  people  of  the  State.  During 
the  following  seven  weeks,  between  the  Chicago  speeches  and  our 
first  meeting  at  Ottawa,  he  and  I  addressed  large  assemblages  of  the 
people  in  many  of  the  central  counties.  In  my  speeches  I  confined 
myself  closely  to  those  three  positions  which  he  had  taken,  contro 
verting  his  proposition  that  this  Union  could  not  exist  as  our  fathers 
made  it,  divided  into  free  and  slave  States,  controverting  his  prop 
osition  of  a  crusade  against  the  Supreme  Court  because  of  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  and  controverting  his  proposition  that  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  included  and  meant  the  negroes  as  well  as  the 
white  men,  when  it  declared  all  men  to  be  created  equal.  I  supposed 
at  that  time  that  these  propositions  constituted  a  distinct  issue  be 
tween  us,  and  that  the  opposite  positions  we  had  taken  upon  them 
we  would  be  willing  to  be  held  to  in  every  part  of  the  State.  I  never 
intended  to  waver  one  hair's  breadth  from  that  issue  either  in  the 
north  or  the  south,  or  wherever  I  should  address  the  people  of  Illi- 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          487 

nois.  I  hold  that  when  the  time  arrives  that  I  cannot  proclaim  my 
political  creed  in  the  same  terms  not  only  in  the  northern  but  the 
southern  part  of  Illinois,  not  only  in  the  Northern  but  the  Southern 
States,  and  wherever  the  American  flag  waves  over  American  soil, 
that  then  there  must  be  something  wrong  in  that  creed — so  long  as 
we  live  under  a  common  Constitution,  so  long  as  we  live  in  a  con 
federacy  of  sovereign  and  equal  States,  joined  together  as  one  for 
certain  purposes,  that  any  political  creed  is  radically  wrong  which 
cannot  be  proclaimed  in  every  State  and  every  section  of  that  Union, 
alike.  I  took  up  Mr.  Lincoln's  three  propositions  in  my  several 
speeches,  analyzed  them,  and  pointed  out  what  I  believed  to  be  the 
radical  errors  contained  in  them.  First,  in  regard  to  his  doctrine 
that  this  government  was  in  violation  of  the  law  of  God,  which  says 
that  a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand;  I  repudiated  it  as 
a  slander  upon  the  immortal  framers  of  our  Constitution.  I  then 
said,  I  have  often  repeated,  and  now  again  assert,  that  in  my  opinion 
our  government  can  endure  forever,  divided  into  free  and  slave 
States  as  our  fathers  made  it  —  each  State  having  the  right  to  pro 
hibit,  abolish,  or  sustain  slavery,  just  as  it  pleases.  This  government 
was  made  upon  the  great  basis  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  States,  the 
right  of  eacfi  State  to  regulate  its  own  domestic  institutions  to  suit 
itself,  and  that  right  was  conferred  with  the  understanding  and  ex 
pectation  that  inasmuch  as  each  locality  had  separate  interests,  each 
locality  must  have  different  and  distinct  local  and  domestic  institu 
tions,  corresponding  to  its  wants  and  interests.  Our  fathers  knew, 
when  they  made  the  government,  that  the  laws  and  institutions 
which  were  well  adapted  to  the  green  mountains  of  Vermont  were 
unsuited  to  the  rice  plantations  of  South  Carolina.  They  knew  then, 
as  well  as  we  know  now,  that  the  laws  and  institutions  which  would 
be  well  adapted  to  the  beautiful  prairies  of  Illinois  would  not  be 
suited  to  the  mining  regions  of  California.  They  knew  that  in  a 
republic  as  broad  as  this,  having  such  a  variety  of  soil,  climate,  and 
interest,  there  must  necessarily  be  a  corresponding  varietv  of  local 
laws  —  the  policy  and  institutions  of  each  State  adapted  to  its  condi 
tion  and  wants.  For  this  reason  this  Union  was  established  on  the 
right  of  each  State  to  do  as  it  pleased  on  the  question  of  slavery, 
and  every  other  question,  and  the  various  States  were  not  allowed  to 
complain  of,  much  less  interfere  with,  the  policy  of  their  neighbors. 
Suppose  the  doctrine  advocated  by  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  Aboli 
tionists  of  this  day  had  prevailed  when  the  Constitution  was  made, 
what  would  have  been  the  result?  Imagine  for  a  moment  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  been  a  member  of  the  convention  that  framed  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States,  and  that  when  its  members  were  about 
to  sign  that  wonderful  document,  he  had  arisen  in  that  convention, 
as  he  did  at  Springfield  this  summer,  and  addressing  himself  to  the 
President,  had  said:  "  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand; 
this  government,  divided  into  free  and  slave  States  cannot  endure; 
they  must  all  be  free  or  all  be  slave,  they  must  all  be  one  thing  or  all 
the  other;  otherwise,  it  is  a  violation  of  the  law  of  God,  and  cannot 
continue  to  exist" — suppose  Mr.  Lincoln  had  convinced  that  body 
of  sages  that  that  doctrine  was  sound,  what  would  have  been  the 


488          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEBS   OF  ABKAHAM  LINCOLN 

result?  Remember  that  the  Union  was  then  composed  of  thirteen 
States,  twelve  of  which  were  slave-holding  and  one  free.  Do  you 
think  that  the  one  free  State  would  have  out- voted  the  twelve  slave- 
holding  States,  and  thus  have  secured  the  abolition  of  slavery  ?  On 
the  other  hand,  would  not  the  twelve  slave-holding  States  have  out 
voted  the  one  free  State,  and  thus  have  fastened  slavery,  by  a  consti 
tutional  provision,  on  every  foot  of  the  American  republic  forever? 
You  see  that  if  this  Abolition  doctrine  of  Mr.  Lincoln  had  prevailed 
when  the  government  was  made,  it  would  have  established  slavery 
as  a  permanent  institution,  in  all  the  States,  whether  they  wanted 
it  or  not ;  and  the  question  for  us  to  determine  in  Illinois  now,  as  one 
of  the  free  States,  is  whether  or  not  we  are  willing,  having  become 
the  majority  section,  to  enforce  a  doctrine  on  the  minority  which  we 
would  have  resisted  with  our  hearts'  blood  had  it  been  attempted  on 
us  when  we  were  in  a  minority.  How  has  the  South  lost  her  power 
as  the  majority  section  in  this  Union,  and  how  have  the  free  States 
gained  it,  except  under  the  operation  of  that  principle  which  declares 
the  right  of  the  people  of  each  State  and  each  Territory  to  form  and 
regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way  ?  It  was  under 
that  principle  that  slavery  was  abolished  in  New  Hampshire,  Rhode 
Island,  Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania;  it 
was  under  that  principle  that  one  half  of  the  slave-holding  States 
became  free;  it  was  under  that  principle  that  the  number  of  free 
States  increased  until,  from  being  one  out  of  twelve  States,  we  have 
grown  to  be  the  majority  of  States  of  the  whole  Union,  with  the 
power  to  control  the  House  of  Representatives  and  Senate,  and  the 
power,  consequently,  to  elect  a  President  by  Northern  votes  with 
out  the  aid  of  a  Southern  State.  Having  obtained  this  power  under 
the  operation  of  that  great  principle,  are  you  now  prepared  to  aban 
don  the  principle,  and  declare  that  merely  "because  we  have  the  power 
you  will  wage  a  war  against  the  Southern  States  and  their  institu 
tions  until  you  force  them  to  abolish  slavery  everywhere  ? 

After  having  pressed  these  arguments  home  on  Mr.  Lincoln  for 
seven  weeks,  publishing  a  number  of  my  speeches,  we  met  at  Ot 
tawa  in  joint  discussion,  and  he  then  began  to  crawfish  a  little,  and 
let  himself  down.  I  there  propounded  certain  questions  to  him. 
Amongst  others,  I  asked  him  whether  he  would  vote  for  the  admis 
sion  of  any  more  slave  States  in  the  event  the  people  wanted  them. 
He  would  not  answer.  I  then  told  him  that  if  he  did  not  answer 
the  question  there  I  would  renew  it  at  Freeport,  and  would  then 
trot  him  down  into  Egypt  and  again  put  it  to  him.  Well,  at  Free- 
port,  knowing  that  the  next  joint  discussion  took  place  in  Egypt, 
and  being  in  dread  of  it,  he  did  answer  my  question  in  regard  to 
no  more  slave  States  in  a  mode  which  he  hoped  would  be  satisfac 
tory  to  me,  and  accomplish  the  object  he  had  in  view.  I  will  show 
you  what  his  answer  was.  After  saying  that  he  was  not  pledged  to 
the  Republican  doctrine  of  "  no  more  slave  States,"  he  declared : 

I  state  to  you  freely,  frankly,  that  I  should  be  exceedingly  sorry  to  ever  be 
put  in  the  position  of  having  to  pass  upon  that  question.  I  should  be  ex 
ceedingly  glad  to  know  that  there  never  would  be  another  slave  State 
admitted  into  this  Union. 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN          489 

Here  permit  me  to  remark  that  I  do  not  think  the  people  will  ever 
force  him  into  a  position  against  his  will.  He  went  on  to  say : 

But  I  must  add.  in  regard  to  this,  that  if  slavery  shall  be  kept  put  of  the 
Territory  during  the  territorial  existence  of  any  one  given  Territory,  and 
then  the  people  should  — having  a  fair  chance  and  a  clear  field  when  they 
come  to  adopt  a  constitution — if  they  should  do  the  extraordinary  thing  of 
adopting  a  slave  constitution,  uninfluenced  by  the  actual  presence  of  the 
institution  among  them.  I  see  no  alternative,  if  we  own  the  country,  but  we 
must  admit  it  into  this  Union. 

That  answer  Mr.  Lincoln  supposed  would  satisfy  the  old-line 
Whigs,  composed  of  Kentuckians  and  Virginians,  down  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  State.  Now,  what  does  it  amount  to  ?  I  de 
sired  to  know  whether  he  would  vote  to  allow  Kansas  to  come  into 
the  Union  with  slavery  or  not,  as  her  people  desired.  He  would  not 
answer,  but  in  a  roundabout  way  said  that  if  slavery  should  be  kept 
out  of  a  Territory  during  the  whole  of  its  territorial  existence,  and 
then  the  people,  when  they  adopted  a  State  constitution,  asked  ad 
mission  as  a  slave  State,  he  supposed  he  would  have  to  let  the  State 
come  in.  The  case  I  put  to  him  was  an  entirely  different  one.  I 
desired  to  know  whether  he  would  vote  to  admit  a  State  if  Congress 
had  not  prohibited  slavery  in  it  during  its  territorial  existence,  as 
Congress  never  pretended  to  do  under  Clay's  compromise  measures 
of  1850.  He  would  not  answer,  and  I  have  not  yet  been  able  to  get 
an  answer  from  him.  I  have  asked  him  whether  he  would  vote  to 
admit  Nebraska  if  her  people  asked  to  come  in  as  a  State  with  a 
constitution  recognizing  slavery,  and  he  refused  to  answer.  I  have 
put  the  question  to  him  with  reference  to  New  Mexico,  and  he  has 
not  uttered  a  word  in  answer.  I  have  enumerated  the  Territories, 
one  after  another,  putting  the  same  question  to  him  with  reference 
to  each,  and  he  has  not  said,  and  will  not  say,  whether,  if  elected  to 
Congress,  he  will  vote  to  admit  any  Territory  now  in  existence  with 
such  a  constitution  as  her  people  may  adopt.  He  invents  a  case 
which  does  not  exist,  and  cannot  exist,  under  this  government,  and 
answers  it ;  but  he  will  not  answer  the  question  I  put  to  him  in  con 
nection  with  any  of  the  Territories  now  in  existence.  The  contract 
we  entered  into  with  Texas  when  she  entered  the  Union  obliges  us 
to  allow  four  States  to  be  formed  out  of  the  old  State,  and  admitted 
with  or  without  slavery,  as  the  respective  inhabitants  of  each  may 
determine.  I  have  asked  Mr.  Lincoln  three  times  in  our  joint  dis 
cussions  whether  he  would  vote  to  redeem  that  pledge,  and  he  has 
never  yet  answered.  He  is  as  silent  as  the  grave  on  the  subject. 
He  would  rather  answer  as  to  a  state  of  the  case  which  will  never 
arise  than  commit  himself  by  telling  what  he  would  do  in  a  case 
which  would  come  up  for  his  action  soon  after  his  election  to  Con 
gress.  Why  can  he  not  say  whether  he  is  willing  to  allow  the  peo 
ple  of  each  State  to  have  slavery  or  not,  as  they  please,  and  to  come 
into  the  Union  when  they  have  the  requisite  population  as  a  slave 
or  a  free  State,  as  they  decide  ?  I  have  no  trouble  in  answering  the 
question.  I  have  said  everywhere,  and  now  repeat  it  to  you,  that  if 
the  people  of  Kansas  want  a  slave  State  they  have  a  right,  under 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  to  form  such  a  State,  and  I 


490          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

will  let  them  come  into  the  Union  with  slavery  or  without  it,  as 
they  determine.  If  the  people  of  any  other  Territory  desire  slavery, 
let  them  have  it.  If  they  do  not  want  it,  let  them  prohibit  it.  It 
is  their  business,  not  mine.  It  is  none  of  our  business  in  Illinois 
whether  Kansas  is  a  free  State  or  a  slave  State.  It  is  none  of  your 
business  in  Missouri  whether  Kansas  shall  adopt  slavery  or  reject 
it.  It  is  the  business  of  her  people,  and  none  of  yours.  The  people 
of  Kansas  have  as  much  right  to  decide  that  question  for  themselves 
as  you  have  in  Missouri  to  decide  it  for  yourselves,  or  we  in  Illinois 
to  decide  it  for  ourselves. 

And  here  I  may  repeat  what  I  have  said  in  every  speech  I  have 
made  in  Illinois,  that  I  fought  the  Lecompton  constitution  to  its 
death,  not  because  of  the  slavery  clause  in  it,  but  because  it  was  not 
the  act  and  deed  of  the  people  of  Kansas.  I  said  then  in  Congress, 
and  I  say  now,  that  if  the  people  of  Kansas  want  a  slave  State,  they 
have  a  right  to  have  it.  If  they  wanted  the  Lecompton  constitution, 
they  had  a  right  to  have  it.  I  was  opposed  to  that  constitution  be 
cause  I  did  not  believe  that  it  was  the  act  and  deed  of  the  people, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  the  act  of  a  small,  pitiful  minority,  acting  in  the 
name  of  the  majority.  When  at  last  it  was  determined  to  send  that 
constitution  back  to  the  people,  and  accordingly,  in  August  last,  the 
question  of  admission  under  it  was  submitted  to  a  popular  vote,  the 
citizens  rejected  it  by  nearly  ten  to  one,  thus  showing  conclusively 
that  I  was  right  when  I  said  that  the  Lecompton  constitution  was 
not  the  act  and  deed  of  the  people  of  Kansas,  and  did  not  embody 
their  will. 

I  hold  that  there  is  no  power  on  earth,  under  our  system  of  gov 
ernment,  which  has  the  right  to  force  a  constitution  upon  an  un 
willing  people.  Suppose  that  there  had  been  a  majority  of  ten  to  one 
in  favor  of  slavery  in  Kansas,  and  suppose  there  had  been  an  Aboli 
tion  President,  and  an  Abolition  administration,  and  by  some  means 
the  Abolitionists  succeeded  in  forcing  an  Abolition  constitution  on 
those  slaveholding  people,  would  the  people  of  the  South  have  sub 
mitted  to  that  act  for  one  instant  ?  Well,  if  you  of  the  South  would 
not  have  submitted  to  it  a  day,  how  can  you,  as  fair,  honorable,  and 
honest  men,  insist  on  putting  a  slave  constitution  on  a  people  who 
desire  a  free  State?  Your  safety  and  ours  depend  upon  both  of  us 
acting  in  good  faith,  and  living  up  to  that  great  principle  which  as 
serts  the  right  of  every  people  to  form  and  regulate  their  domestic 
institutions  to  suit  themselves,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States. 

Most  of  the  men  who  denounced  my  course  on  the  Lecompton 
question  objected  to  it  not  because  I  was  not  right,  but  because  they 
thought  it  expedient  at  that  time,  for  the  sake  of  keeping  the  party 
together,  to  do  wrong.  I  never  knew  the  Democratic  party  to  violate 
any  one  of  its  principles  out  of  policy  or  expediency,  that  it  did  not 
pay  the  debt  with  sorrow.  There  is  no  safety  or  success  for  our  party 
unless  we  always  do  right,  and  trust  the  consequences  to  God  and 
the  people.  I  chose  not  to  depart  from  principle  for  the  sake  of  ex 
pediency  in  the  Lecompton  question,  and  I  never  intend  to  do  it  on 
that  or  any  other  question. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          491 

But  I  am  told  that  I  would  have  been  all  right  if  I  had  only  voted 
for  the  English  bill  after  Lecompton  was  killed.  You  know  a  gen 
eral  pardon  was  granted  to  all  political  offenders  on  the  Lecompton 
question,  provided  they  would  only  vote  for  the  English  bill.  I  did 
not  accept  the  benefits  of  that  pardon,  for  the  reason  that  I  had  been 
right  in  the  course  I  had  pursued,  and  hence  did  not  require  any 
forgiveness.  Let  us  see  how  the  result  has  been  worked  out.  Eng 
lish  brought  in  his  bill  referring  the  Lecompton  constitution  back 
to  the  people,  with  the  provision  that  if  it  was  rejected  Kansas 
should  be  kept  out  of  the  Union  until  she  had  the  full  ratio  of  pop 
ulation  required  for  a  member  of  Congress,  thus  in  effect  declaring 
that  if  the  people  of  Kansas  would  only  consent  to  come  into  the 
Union  under  the  Lecompton  constitution,  and  have  a  slave  State 
when  they  did  not  want  it,  they  should  be  admitted  with  a  population 
of  35,000  j  but  that  if  they  were  so  obstinate  as  to  insist  upon  having 
just  such  a  constitution  as  they  thought  best,  and  to  desire  admis 
sion  as  a  free  State,  then  they  should  be  kept  out  until  they  had 
93,420  inhabitants.  I  then  said,  and  I  now  repeat  to  you,  that  when 
ever  Kansas  has  people  enough  for  a  slave  State  she  has  people 
enough  for  a  free  State.  I  was,  and  am,  willing  to  adopt  the  rule  that 
no  State  shall  ever  come  into  the  Union  until  she  has  the  full  ratio 
of  population  for  a  member  of  Congress,  provided  that  rule  is  made 
uniform.  I  made  that  proposition  in  the  Senate  last  winter,  but  a 
majority  of  the  senators  would  not  agree  to  it ;  and  I  then  said  to 
them,  "  If  you  will  not  adopt  the  general  rule,  I  will  not  consent  to 
make  an  exception  of  Kansas." 

I  hold  that  it  is  a  violation  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  this 
government  to  throw  the  weight  of  federal  power  into  the  scale, 
either  in  favor  of  the  free  or  the  slave  States.  Equality  among  all 
the  States  of  this  Union  is  a  fundamental  principle  in  our  political 
system.  We  have  no  more  right  to  throw  the  weight  of  the  Federal 
Government  into  the  scale  in  favor  of  the  slaveholding  than  of  the 
free  States,  and,  least  of  all,  should  our  friends  in  the  South  consent 
for  a  moment  that  Congress  should  withhold  its  powers  either  way 
when  they  know  that  there  is  a  majority  against  them  in  both 
houses  of  Congress. 

Fellow-citizens,  how  have  the  supporters  of  the  English  bill  stood 
up  to  their  pledges  not  to  admit  Kansas  until  she  obtained  a  popu 
lation  of  93,420  in  the  event  she  rejected  the  Lecompton  constitu 
tion  ?  How  ?  The  newspapers  inform  us  that  English  himself,  whilst 
conducting  his  canvass  for  reelection,  and  in  order  to  secure  it, 
pledged  himself  to  his  constituents  that  if  returned  he  would  dis 
regard  his  own  bill  and  vote  to  admit  Kansas  into  the  Union  with 
such  population  as  she  might  have  when  she  made  application.  We 
are  informed  that  every  Democratic  candidate  for  Congress  in  all 
the  States  where  elections  have  recently  been  held  was  pledged 
against  the  English  bill,  with  perhaps  one  or  two  exceptions.  Now, 
if  I  had  only  done  as  these  anti-Lecompton  men  who  voted  for  the 
English  bill  in  Congress,  pledging  themselves  to  refuse  to  admit 
Kansas  if  she  refused  to  become  a  slave  State  until  she  had  a  popu 
lation  of  93,420,  and  then  returned  to  their  people,  forfeited  their 


492          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

pledge,  and  made  a  new  pledge  to  admit  Kansas  any  time  she  applied, 
without  regard  to  population,  I  would  have  had  no  trouble.  You  saw 
the  whole  power  and  patronage  of  the  Federal  Government  wielded  in 
Indiana,  Ohio,  and  Pennsylvania  to  elect  anti-Lecompton  men  to  Con 
gress,  who  voted  against  Lecompton,  then  voted  for  the  English  bill, 
and  then  denounced  the  English  bill,  and  pledged  themselves  to  their 
people  to  disregard  it.  My  sin  consists  in  not  having  given  a  pledge, 
and  then  in  not  having  afterward  forfeited  it.  For  that  reason,  in 
this  State,  every  postmaster,  every  route  agent,  every  collector  of  the 
ports,  and  every  federal  office-holder,  forfeits  his  head  the  moment 
he  expresses  a  preference  for  the  Democratic  candidates  against 
Lincoln  and  his  Abolition  associates.  A  Democratic  administration, 
which  we  helped  to  bring  into  power,  deems  it  consistent  with  its 
fidelity  to  principle,  and  its  regard  to  duty,  to  wield  its  power  in  this 
State  in  behalf  of  the  Republican  Abolition  candidates  in  every 
county  and  every  congressional  district  against  the  Democratic 
party.  All  I  have  to  say  in  reference  to  the  matter  is  that  if  that 
administration  have  not  regard  enough  for  principle,  if  they  are  not 
sufficiently  attached  to  the  creed  of  the  Democratic  party  to  bury 
forever  their  personal  hostilities  in  order  to  succeed  in  carrying  out 
our  glorious  principles,  I  have.  I  have  no  personal  difficulty  with 
Mr.  Buchanan  or  his  cabinet.  He  chose  to  make  certain  recom 
mendations  to  Congress,  as  he  had  a  right  to  do.  on  the  Lecompton 
question.  I  could  not  vote  in  favor  of  them.  I  had  as  much  right  to 
judge  for  myself  how  I  should  vote  as  he  had  how  he  should  recom 
mend.  He  undertook  to  say  to  me,  "If  you  do  not  vote  as  I  tell  you,, 
I  will  take  off  the  heads  of  your  friends."  I  replied  to  him,  "You 
did  not  elect  me;  I  represent  Illinois,  and  I  am  accountable  to  Illinois, 
as  my  constituency,  and  to  God,  but  not  to  the  President  or  to  any 
other  power  on  earth." 

And  now  this  warfare  is  made  on  me  because  I  would  not  sur 
render  my  convictions  of  duty,  because  I  would  not  abandon  my 
constituency,  and  receive  the  orders  of  the  executive  authorities  how 
I  should  vote  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  I  hold  that  an 
attempt  to  control  the  Senate  on  the  part  of  the  executive  is  subver 
sive  of  the  principles  of  our  Constitution.  The  executive  depart 
ment  is  independent  of  the  Senate,  and  the  Senate  is  independent  of 
the  President.  In  matters  of  legislation  the  President  has  a  veto  on 
the  action  of  the  Senate,  and  in  appointments  and  treaties  the  Senate 
has  a  veto  on  the  President.  He  has  no  more  right  to  tell  me  how  I 
shall  vote  on  his  appointments  than  I  have  to  tell  him  whether  he 
shall  veto  or  approve  a  bill  that  the  Senate  has  passed.  Whenever 
you  recognize  the  right  of  the  executive  to  say  to  a  senator,  "  Do 
this,  or  I  will  take  off  the  heads  of  your  friends,"  you  convert  this 
government  from  a  republic  into  a  despotism.  Whenever  you  recog 
nize  the  right  of  a  President  to  say  to  a  member  of  Congress,  "Vote 
as  I  tell  you,  or  I  will  bring  a  power  to  bear  against  you  at  home 
which  will  crush  you,"  you  destroy  the  independence  of  the  repre 
sentative,  and  convert  him  into  a  tool  of  executive  power.  I  re 
sisted  this  invasion  of  the  constitutional  rights  of  a  senator,  and  I 
intend  to  resist  it  as  long  as  I  have  a  voice  to  speak,  or  a  vote  to  give.. 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN          493 

Yet  Mr.  Buchanan  cannot  provoke  me  to  abandon  one  iota  of  Demo 
cratic  principles  out  of  revenge  or  hostility  to  his  course.  I  stand 
by  the  platform  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  by  its  organization, 
and  support  its  nominees.  If  there  are  any  who  choose  to  bolt,  the 
fact  only  shows  that  they  are  not  as  good  Democrats  as  I  am. 

My  friends,  there  never  was  a  time  when  it  was  as  important  for 
the  Democratic  party,  for  all  national  men,  to  rally  and  stand  toge 
ther  as  it  is  to-day.  We  find  all  sectional  men  giving  up  past  dif 
ferences  and  uniting  on  the  one  question  of  slavery,  and  when  we 
find  sectional  men  thus  uniting,  we  should  unite  to  resist  them  and 
their  treasonable  designs.  Such  was  the  case  in  1850,  when  Clay 
left  the  quiet  and  peace  of  his  home,  and  again  entered  upon  public 
life  to  quell  agitation  and  restore  peace  to  a  distracted  Union.  Then 
we  Democrats,  with  Cass  at  our  head,  welcomed  Henry  Clay,  whom 
the  whole  nation  regarded  as  having  been  preserved  by  God  for  the 
times.  He  became  our  leader  in  that  great  fight,  and  we  rallied  around 
him  the  same  as  the  Whigs  rallied  around  Old  Hickory  in  1832  to 
put  down  nullification.  Thus  you  see  that  while  Whigs  and  Demo 
crats  fought  fearlessly  in  old  times  about  banks,  the  tariff,  distribu 
tion,  the  specie  circular,  and  the  subtreasury,  all  united  as  a  band  of 
brothers  when  the  peace,  harmony,  or  integrity  of  the  Union  was  im 
periled.  It  was  so  in  1850,  when  Abolitionism  had  even  so  far  di 
vided  this  country,  North  and  South,  as  to  endanger  the  peace  of  the 
Union.  Whigs  and  Democrats  united  in  establishing  the  compromise 
measures  of  that  year,  and  restoring  tranquillity  and  good  feeling. 
These  measures  passed  on  the  joint  action  of  the  two  parties.  They 
rested  on  the  great  principle  that  the  people  of  each  State  and  each 
Territory  should  be  left  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  do 
mestic  institutions  to  suit  themselves.  You  Whigs  and  we  Democrats 
justified  them  in  that  principle.  In  1854,  when  it  became  necessary 
to  organize  the  Territories  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  I  brought  for 
ward  the  bill  on  the  same  principle.  In  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill 
you  find  it  declared  to  be  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  the  act 
not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  State  or  Territory,  nor  to  exclude 
it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the  people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form 
and  regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way. 

I  stand  on  that  same  platform  in  1858  that  I  did  in  1850,  1854, 
and  1856.  The  Washington  "  Union,"  pretending  to  be  the  organ 
of  the  administration,  in  the  number  of  the  5th  of  this  month, 
devotes  three  columns  and  a  half  to  establish  these  propositions : 
first,  that  Douglas  in  his  Freeport  speech  held  the  same  doctrine 
that  he  did  in  his  Nebraska  bill  in  1854 ;  second,  that  in  1854  Doug 
las  justified  the  Nebraska  bill  upon  the  ground  that  it  was  based 
upon  the  same  principle  as  Clay's  compromise  measures  of  1850. 
The  "Union"  thus  proved  that  Douglas  was  the  same  in  1858  that 
he  was  in  1856,  1854,  and  1850,  and  consequently  argued  that  he  was 
never  a  Democrat.  Is  it  not  funny  that  I  was  never  a  Democrat? 
There  is  no  pretense  that  I  have  changed  a  hair's-breadth.  The 
"  Union  "  proves  by  my  speeches  that  I  explained  the  compromise 
measures  of  1850  just  as  I  do  now,  and  that  I  explained  the  Kansas 
and  Nebraska  bill  in  1854  just  as  I  did  in  my  Freeport  speech,  and 


494         ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

yet  says  that  I  am  not  a  Democrat,  and  cannot  be  trusted,  because 
I  have  not  changed  during  the  whole  of  that  time.  It  has  occurred 
to  me  that  in  1854  the  author  of  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill  was 
considered  a  pretty  good  Democrat.  It  has  occurred  to  me  that  in 
1856,  when  I  was  exerting  every  nerve  and  every  energy  for  James 
Buchanan,  standing  on  the  same  platform  then  that  I  do  now,  that  I 
was  a  pretty  good  Democrat.  They  now  tell  me  that  I  am  not  a 
Democrat,  because  I  assert  that  the  people  of  a  Territory,  as  well  as 
those  of  a  State,  have  the  right  to  decide  for  themselves  whether  sla 
very  can  or  cannot  exist  in  such  Territory.  Let  me  read  what  James 
Buchanan  said  on  that  point  when  he  accepted  the  Democratic  nom 
ination  for  the  presidency  in  1856.  In  his  letter  of  acceptance,  he 
used  the  following  language  : 

The  recent  legislation  of  Congress  respecting  domestic  slavery,  derived 
as  it  has  been  from  the  original  and  pure  fountain  of  legitimate  political 
power,  the  will  of  the  majority,  promises  ere  long  to  allay  the  dangerous 
excitement.  This  legislation  is  founded  upon  principles  as  ancient  as 
free  government  itself,  and  in  accordance  with  them  has  simply  declared 
that  the  people  of  a  Territory,  like  those  of  a  State,  shall  decide  for  them 
selves  whether  slavery  shall  or  shall  not  exist  within  their  limits. 

Dr.  Hope  will  there  find  my  answer  to  the  question  he  propounded 
to  me  before  I  commenced  speaking.  Of  course  no  man  will  consider 
it  an  answer,  who  is  outside  of  the  Democratic  organization,  bolts 
Democratic  nominations,  and  indirectly  aids  to  put  Abolitionists  into 
power  over  Democrats.  But  whether  Dr.  Hope  considers  it  an  answer 
or  not,  every  fair-minded  man  will  see  that  James  Buchanan  has  an 
swered  the  question,  and  has  asserted  that  the  people  of  a  Territory, 
like  those  of  a  State,  shall  decide  for  themselves  whether  slavery  shall 
or  shall  not  exist  within  their  limits.  I  answer  specifically,  if  you  want 
a  further  answer,  and  say  that  while  under  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  as  recorded  in  the  opinion  of  Chief  Justice  Taney,  slaves  are 
property  like  all  other  property,  and  can  be  carried  into  any  Terri 
tory  of  the  United  States  the  same  as  any  other  description  of  prop 
erty,  yet  when  you  get  them  there  they  are  subject  to  the  local  law 
of  the  Territory  just  like  all  other  property.  You  will  find  in  a  re 
cent  speech  delivered  by  that  able  and  eloquent  statesman,  Hon. 
Jefferson  Davis,  at  Bangor,  Maine,  that  he  took  the  same  view  of 
this  subject  that  I  did  in  my  Freeport  speech.  He  there  said: 

If  the  inhabitants  of  any  Territory  should  refuse  to  enact  such  laws  and 
police  regulations  as  would  give  security  to  their  property  or  to  his,  it  would 
be  rendered  more  or  less  valueless  in  proportion  to  the  difficulties  of  holding 
it  without  such  protection.  In  the  case  of  property  in  the  labor  of  man,  or 
what  is  usually  called  slave  property,  the  insecurity  would  be  so  great  that 
the  owner  could  not  ordinarily  retain  it.  Therefore,  though  the  right  would 
remain,  the  remedy  being  withheld,  it  would  follow  that  the  owner  would 
be  practically  debarred,  by  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  from  taking  slave 
property  into  a  Territory  where  the  sense  of  the  inhabitants  was  opposed  to 
its  introduction.  So  much  for  the  oft-repeated  fallacy  of  forcing  slavery 
upon  any  community. 

You  will  also  find  that  the  distinguished  Speaker  of  the  present 
House  of  Representatives,  Hon.  James  L.  Orr,  construed  the  Kansas 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN          495 

and  Nebraska  bill  in  this  same  way  in  1856,  and  also  that  great  intel 
lect  of  the  South,  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  put  the  same  construction 
upon  it  in  Congressxthat  I  did  in  my  Freeport  speech.  The  whole 
South  is  rallying  to  the  support  of  the  doctrine  that  if  the  people 
of  a  Territory  want  slavery  they  have  a  right  to  have  it,  and  if  they 
do  not  want  it  that  no  power  on  earth  can  force  it  upon  them.  I 
hold  that  there  is  no  principle  on  earth  more  sacred  to  all  the  friends 
of  freedom  than  that  which  says  that  no  institution,  no  law,  no  con 
stitution,  should  be  forced  on  an  unwilling  people  contrary  to  their 
wishes;  and  I  assert  that  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill  contains  that 
principle.  It  is  the  great  principle  contained  in  that  bill.  It  is  the 
principle  on  which  James  Buchanan  was  made  President.  Without 
that  principle  he  never  would  have  been  made  President  of  the 
United  States.  I  will  never  violate  or  abandon  that  doctrine,  if  I 
have  to  stand  alone.  I  have  resisted  the  blandishments  and  threats 
of  power  on  the  one  side,  and  seduction  on  the  other,  and  have  stood 
immovably  for  that  principle,  fighting  for  it  when  assailed  by  Nor 
thern  mobs,  or  threatened  by  Southern  hostility.  I  have  defended  it 
against  the  North  and  the  South,  and  I  will  defend  it  against  who 
ever  assails  it,  and  I  will  follow  it  wherever  its  logical  conclusions 
lead  me.  I  say  to  you  that  there  is  but  one  hope,  one  safety  for  this 
country,  and  that  is  to  stand  immovably  bv  that  principle  which  de 
clares  the  right  of  each  State  and  each  Territory  to  decide  these  ques 
tions  for  themselves.  This  government  was  founded  on  that  principle, 
and  must  be  administered  in  the  same  sense  in  which  it  was  founded. 
But  the  Abolition  party  really  think  that  under  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  the  negro  is  equal  to  the  white  man,  and  that  negro 
equality  is  an  inalienable  right  conferred  by  the  Almighty,  and  hence 
that  all  human  laws  in  violation  of  it  are  null  and  void.  With  such 
men  it  is  no  use  for  me  to  argue.  I  hold  that  the  signers  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  had  no  reference  to  negroes  at  all  when 
they  declared  all  men  to  be  created  equal.  They  did  not  mean  negroes, 
nor  the  savage  Indians,  nor  the  Fee jee  Islanders,  nor  any  other  barbar 
ous  race.  They  were  speaking  of  white  men.  They  alluded  to  men  of 
European  birth  and  European  descent  —  to  white  men,  and  to  none 
others,  when  they  declared  that  doctrine.  I  hold  that  this  govern 
ment  was  established  on  the  white  basis.  It  was  established  by  white 
men,  for  the  benefit  of  white  men  and  their  posterity  forever,  and 
should  be  administered  by  white  men,  and  none  others.  But  it  does 
not  follow,  by  any  means,  that  merely  because  the  negro  is  not  a 
citizen,  and  merely  because  he  is  not  our  equal,  that  therefore  he 
should  be  a  slave.  On  the  contrary,  it  does  follow  that  we  ought 
to  extend  to  the  negro  race,  and  to  all  other  dependent  races,  all  the 
rights,  all  the  privileges,  and  all  the  immunities  which  they  can  ex 
ercise  consistently  with  the  safety  of  society.  Humanity  requires 
that  we  should  give  them  all  those  privileges;  Christianity  com 
mands  that  we  should  extend  those  privileges  to  them.  The  ques 
tion  then  arises,  What  are  those  privileges,  and  what  is  the  nature 
and  extent  of  them?  My  answer  is  that  that  is  a  question  which 
each  State  must  answer  for  itself.  We  in  Illinois  have  decided  it  for 
ourselves.  We  tried  slavery,  kept  it  up  for  twelve  years,  and  find- 


496          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

ing  that  it  was  not  profitable,  we  abolished  it  for  that  reason,  and 
became  a  free  State.  We  adopted  in  its  stead  the  policy  that  a  negro 
in  this  State  shall  not  be  a  slave  and  shall  not  be  a  citizen.  We  have 
a  right  to  adopt  that  policy.  For  my  part,  I  think  it  is  a  wise  and 
sound  policy  for  us.  You  in  Missouri  must  judge  for  yourselves 
whether  it  is  a  wise  policy  for  you.  If  you  choose  to  follow  our 
example,  very  good;  if  you  reject  it,  still  well;  it  is  your  business, 
not  ours.  So  with  Kentucky.  Let  Kentucky  adopt  a  policy  to  suit 
herself.  If  we  do  not  like  it,  we  will  keep  away  from  it ;  and  if  she 
does  not  like  ours,  let  her  stay  at  home,  mind  her  own  business,  and 
let  us  alone.  If  the  people  of  all  the  States  will  act  on  that  great 
principle,  and  each  State  mind  its  own  business,  attend  to  its  own 
affairs,  take  care  of  its  own  negroes,  and  not  meddle  with  its  neigh 
bors,  then  there  will  be  peace  between  the  North  and  the  South,  the 
East  and  the  West,  throughout  the  whole  Union.  Why  can  we  not 
thus  have  peace  ?  Why  should  we  thus  allow  a  sectional  party  to 
agitate  this  country,  to  array  the  North  against  the  South,  and  con 
vert  us  into  enemies  instead  of  friends,  merely  that  a  few  ambitious 
men  may  ride  into  power  on  a  sectional  hobby?  How  long  is  it 
since  these  ambitious  Northern  men  wished  for  a  sectional  organ 
ization?  Did  any  one  of  them  dream  of  a  sectional  party  as  long 
as  the  North  was  the  weaker  section  and  the  South  the  stronger? 
Then  all  were  opposed  to  sectional  parties.  But  the  moment  the 
North  obtained  the  majority  in  the  House  and  Senate  by  the  admis 
sion  of  California,  and  could  elect  a  President  without  the  aid  of 
Southern  votes,  that  moment  ambitious  Northern  men  formed  a 
scheme  to  excite  the  North  against  the  South,  and  make  the  people 
be  governed  in  their  votes  by  geographical  lines,  thinking  that  the 
North,  being  the  stronger  section,  would  outvote  the  South,  and  con 
sequently  they,  the  leaders,  would  ride  into  office  on  a  sectional 
hobby.  I  am  told  that  my  hour  is  out.  It  was  very  short. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Reply  in  the  Alton  Joint  Debate. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  I  have  been  somewhat,  in  my  own  mind, 
complimented  by  a  large  portion  of  Judge  Douglas's  speech  —  I 
mean  that  portion  which  he  devotes  to  the  controversy  between  him 
self  and  the  present  administration.  This  is  the  seventh  time  Judge 
Douglas  and  myself  have  met  in  these  joint  discussions,  and  he  has 
been  gradually  improving  in  regard  to  his  war  with  the  administra 
tion.  At  Quincy,  day  before  yesterday,  he  was  a  little  more  severe 
upon  the  administration  than  I  had  heard  him  upon  any  occasion, 
and  I  took  pains  to  compliment  him  for  it.  I  then  told  him  to 
"give  it  to  them  with  all  the  power  he  had";  and  as  some  of  them 
were  present,  I  told  them  I  would  be  very  much  obliged  if  they 
would  give  it  to  him  in  about  the  same  way.  I  take  it  that  he  has 
•  now  vastly  improved  upon  the  attack  he  made  then  upon  the  adminis 
tration.  I  natter  myself  he  has  really  taken  my  advice  on  this  subject. 
All  I  can  say  now  is  to  re-commend  to  him  and  to  them  what  I  then 
commended — to  prosecute  the  war  against  one  another  in  the  most 
vigorous  manner.  I  say  to  them  again, "  Go  it,  husband ;  go  it,  bear ! " 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          497 

There  is  one  other  thing  I  will  mention  before  I  leave  this  branch 
of  the  discussion — although  I  do  not  consider  it  much  of  my  busi 
ness,  anyway.  I  refer  to  that  part  of  the  judge's  remarks  where  he 
undertakes  to  involve  Mr.  Buchanan  in  an  inconsistency.  He  reads 
something  from  Mr.  Buchanan,  from  which  he  undertakes  to  involve 
him  in  an  inconsistency;  and  he  gets  something  of  a  cheer  for 
having  done  so.  I  would  only  remind  the  judge  that  while  he  is 
very  valiantly  fighting  for  the  Nebraska  bill  and  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  it  has  been  but  a  little  while  since  he  was  the 
valiant  advocate  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  I  want  to  know  if 
Buchanan  has  not  as  much  right  to  be  inconsistent  as  Douglas  has? 
Has  Douglas  the  exclusive  right  in  this  country  of  being  on  all 
sides  of  all  questions?  Is  nobody  allowed  that  high  privilege  but 
himself?  Is  he  to  have  an  entire  monopoly  on  that  subject? 

So  far  as  Judge  Douglas  addressed  his  speech  to  me,  or  so  far  as 
it  was  about  me,  it  is  my  business  to  pay  some  attention  to  it.  I 
have  heard  the  judge  state  two  or  three  times  what  he  has  stated 
to-day  —  that  in  a  speech  which  I  made  at  Springfield,  Illinois,  I 
had  in  a  very  especial  manner  complained  that  the  Supreme  Court 
in  the  Dred  Scott  case  had  decided  that  a  negro  could  never  be 
a  citizen  of  the  United  States.  I  have  omitted,  by  some  accident, 
heretofore  to  analyze  this  statement,  and  it  is  required  of  me  to 
notice  it  now.  In  point  of  fact  it  is  untrue.  I  never  have  com 
plained  especially  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision  because  it  held  that  a 
negro  could  not  be  a  citizen,  and  the  judge  is  always  wrong  when 
he  says  I  ever  did  so  complain  of  it.  I  have  the  speech  here,  and 
I  will  thank  him  or  any  of  his  friends  to  show  where  I  said  that  a 
negro  should  be  a  citizen,  and  complained  especially  of  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  because  it  declared  he  could  not  be  one.  I  have  done 
no  such  thing,  and  Judge  Douglas  so  persistently  insisting  that  I 
have  done  so  has  strongly  impressed  me  with  the  belief  of  a  prede 
termination  on  his  part  to  misrepresent  me.  He  could  not  get  his 
foundation  for  insisting  that  I  was  in  favor  of  this  negro  equality 
anywhere  else  as  well  as  he  could  by  assuming  that  untrue  proposi 
tion.  Let  me  tell  this  audience  what  is  true  in  regard  to  that  matter; 
and  the  means  by  which  they  may  correct  me  if  I  do  not  tell  them 
truly  is  by  a  recurrence  to  the  speech  itself.  I  spoke  of  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  in  my  Springfield  speech,  and  I  was  then  endeavoring 
to  prove  that  the  Dred  Scott  decision  was  a  portion  of  a  system  or 
scheme  to  make  slavery  national  in  this  country.  I  pointed  out 
what  things  had  been  decided  by  the  court.  I  mentioned  as  a  fact 
that  they  had  decided  that  a  negro  could  not  be  a  citizen  —  that 
they  had  done  so,  as  I  supposed,  to  deprive  the  negro,  under  all  cir 
cumstances,  of  the  remotest  possibility  of  ever  becoming  a  citizen 
and  claiming  the  rights  of  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  under  a 
certain  clause  of  the  Constitution.  I  stated  that,  without  making 
any  complaint  of  it  at  all.  I  then  went  on  and  stated  the  other 
points  decided  in  the  case, —  namely,  that  the  bringing  of  a  negro 
into  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  holding  him  in  slavery  for  two  years 
here,  was  a  matter  in  regard  to  which  they  would  not  decide  whether 
it  would  make  him  free  or  not  j  that  they  decided  the  further  point 
VOL.  I.— 32. 


498         ADDRESSES   AND  LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  taking  him  into  a  United  States  Territory  where  slavery  was 
prohibited  by  act  of  Congress,  did  not  make  him  free,  because  that 
act  of  Congress,  as  they  held,  was  unconstitutional.  I  mentioned 
these  three  things  as  making  up  the  points  decided  in  that  case.  I 
mentioned  them  in  a  lump  taken  in  connection  with  the  introduction 
of  the  Nebraska  bill,  and  the  amendment  of  Chase,  offered  at  the 
time,  declaratory  of  the  right  of  the  people  of  the  Territories  to 
exclude  slavery,  which  was  voted  down  by  the  friends  of  the  bill.  I 
mentioned  all  these  things  together,  as  evidence  tending  to  prove  a 
combination  and  conspiracy  to  make  the  institution  of  slavery  na 
tional.  In  that  connection  and  in  that  way  I  mentioned  the  decision 
on  the  point  that  a  negro  could  not  be  a  citizen,  and  in  no  other 
connection. 

Out  of  this,  Judge  Douglas  builds  up  his  beautiful  fabrication  — 
of  my  purpose  to  introduce  a  perfect  social  and  political  equality 
between  the  white  and  the  black  races.  His  assertion  that  I  made 
an  "  especial  objection  n  (that  is  his  exact  language)  to  the  decision 
on  this  account,  is  untrue  in  point  of  fact. 

Now,  while  I  am  upon  this  subject,  and  as  Henry  Clay  has  been 
alluded  to,  I  desire  to  place  myself,  in  connection  with  Mr.  Clay,  as 
nearly  right  before  this  people  as  may  be.  I  am  quite  aware  what 
the  judge's  object  is  here  by  all  these  allusions.  He  knows  that  we 
are  before  an  audience  having  strong  sympathies  southward  by  re 
lationship,  place  of  birth,  and  so  on.  He  desires  to  place  me  in  an 
extremely  Abolition  attitude.  He  read  upon  a  former  occasion,  arid 
alludes  without  reading  to-day,  to  a  portion  of  a  speech  which  I  de 
livered  in  Chicago.  In  his  quotations  from  that  speech,  as  he  has 
made  them  upon  former  occasions,  the  extracts  were  taken  in  such 
a  way  as,  I  suppose,  brings  them  within  the  definition  of  what  is 
called  garbling  —  taking  portions  of  a  speech  which,  when  taken  by 
themselves,  do  not  present  the  entire  sense  of  the  speaker  as  ex 
pressed  at  the  time.  I  propose,  therefore,  out  of  that  same  speech,  to 
show  how  one  portion  of  it  which  he  skipped  over  (taking  an  extract 
before  and  an  extract  after)  will  give  a  different  idea,  and  the  true 
idea  I  intended  to  convey.  It  will  take  me  some  little  time  to  read 
it,  but  I  believe  I  will  occupy  the  time  that  way. 

You  have  heard  him  frequently  allude  to  my  controversy  with 
him  in  regard  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  I  confess  that  I 
have  had  a  struggle  with  Judge  Douglas  on  that  matter,  and  I  will 
try  briefly  to  place  myself  right  in  regard  to  it  on  this  occasion.  I 
said — and  it  is  between  the  extracts  Judge  Douglas  has  taken  from 
this  speech,  and  put  in  his  published  speeches : 

It  may  be  argued  that  there  are  certain  conditions  that  make  necessities 
and  impose  them  upon  us,  and  to  the  extent  that  a  necessity  is  imposed 
upon  a  man  he  must  submit  to  it.  I  think  that  was  the  condition  in  which 
we  found  ourselves  when  we  established  this  government.  We  had  slaves 
among  us ;  we  could  not  #et  our  Constitution  unless  we  permitted  them  to 
remain  in  slavery ;  we  could  not  secure  the  good  we  did  secure  if  we  grasped 
for  more :  and  having  by  necessity  submitted  to  that  much,  it  does  not  de 
stroy  the  principle  that  is  the  charter  of  our  liberties.  Let  that  charter 
remain  as  our  standard. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          499 

Now  I  have  upon  all  occasions  declared  as  strongly  as  Judge 
Douglas  against  the  disposition  to  interfere  with  the  existing  insti 
tution  of  slavery.  You  hear  me  read  it  from  the  same  speech  from 
which  he  takes  garbled  extracts  for  the  purpose  of  proving  upon  me 
a  disposition  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery,  and  estab 
lish  a  perfect  social  and  political  equality  between  negroes  and  white 
people. 

Allow  me,  while  upon  this  subject,  briefly  to  present  one  other  ex 
tract  from  a  speech  of  mine,  made  more  than  a  year  ago,  at  Spring 
field,  in  discussing  this  very  same  question,  soon  after  Judge  Douglas 
took  his  ground  that  negroes  were  not  included  in  the  Declaration 
of  Independence : 

I  think  the  authors  of  that  notable  instrument  intended  to  include  all 
men,  but  they  did  not  intend  to  declare  all  men  equal  in  all  respects.  They 
did  not  mean  to  say  that  all  men  were  equal  in  color,  size,  intellect,  moral 
development,  or  social  capacity.  They  defined  with  tolerable  distinctness 
in  what  respects  they  did  consider  all  men  created  equal  —  equal  in  certain  in 
alienable  rights,  among  which  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 
This  they  said,  and  this  they  meant.  They  did  not  mean  to  assert  the 
obvious  untruth,  that  all  were  then  actually  enjoying  that  equality,  nor  yet 
that  they  were  about  to  confer  it  immediately  upon  them.  In  fact,  they  had 
no  power  to  confer  such  a  boon.  They  meant  simply  to  declare  the  right, 
so  that  the  enforcement  of  it  might  follow  as  fast  as  circumstances  should 
permit. 

They  meant  to  set  up  a  standard  maxim  for  free  society  which  should  be 
familiar  to  all  and  revered  by  all  —  constantly  looked  to,  constantly  labored 
for,  and  even,  though  never  perfectly  attained,  constantly  approximated ; 
and  thereby  constantly  spreading  and  deepening  its  influence  and  augment 
ing  the  happiness  and  value  of  life  to  all  people,  of  all  colors,  everywhere. 

There,  again,  are  the  sentiments  I  have  expressed  in  regard  to  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  upon  a  former  occasion  —  sentiments 
which  have  been  put  in  print  and  read  wherever  anybody  cared  to 
know  what  so  humble  an  individual  as  myself  chose  to  say  in  regard 
to  it. 

At  Galesburg  the  other  day,  I  said,  in  answer  to  Judge  Douglas, 
that  three  years  ago  there  never  had  been  a  man,  so  far  as  I  knew 
or  believed,  in  the  whole  world,  who  had  said  that  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  did  not  include  negroes  in  the  term  "all  men."  I  re 
assert  it  to-day.  I  assert  that  Judge  Douglas  and  all  his  friends 
may  search  the  whole  records  of  the  country,  and  it  will  be  a  matter 
of  great  astonishment  to  me  if  they  shall  be  able  to  find  that  one 
human  being  three  years  ago  had  ever  uttered  the  astounding  sen 
timent  that  the  term  "all  men"  in  the  Declaration  did  not  include 
the  negro.  Do  not  let  me  be  misunderstood.  I  know  that  more  than 
three  years  ago  there  were  men  who,  finding  this  assertion  constantly 
in  the  way  of  their  schemes  to  bring  about  the  ascendancy  and  per 
petuation  of  slavery,  denied  the  truth  of  it.  I  know  that  Mr.  Cal- 
houn  and  all  the  politicians  of  his  school  denied  the  truth  of  the 
Declaration.  I  know  that  it  ran  along  in  the  mouth  of  some  South 
ern  men  for  a  period  of  years,  ending  at  last  in  that  shameful  though 
rather  forcible  declaration  of  Pettit  of  Indiana,  upon  the  floor  of  the 


500          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

United  States  Senate,  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  in 
that  respect  "a  self-evident  lie/7  rather  than  a  self-evident  truth. 
But  I  say,  with  a  perfect  knowledge  of  all  this  hawking  at  the  Dec 
laration  without  directly  attacking  it,  that  three  years  ago  there 
never  had  lived  a  man  who  had  ventured  to  assail  it  in  the  sneaking 
way  of  pretending  to  believe  it  and  then  asserting  it  did  not  include 
the  negro.  I  believe  the  first  man  who  ever  said  it  was  Chief  Jus 
tice  Taney  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  and  the  next  to  him  was  our  friend, 
Stephen  A.  Douglas.  And  now  it  has  become  the  catchword  of 
the  entire  party.  I  would  like  to  call  upon  his  friends  everywhere 
to  consider  how  they  have  come  in  so  short  a  time  to  view  this  mat 
ter  in  a  way  so  entirely  different  from  their  former  belief ;  to  ask 
whether  they  are  not  being  borne  along  by  an  irresistible  current — 
whither,  they  know  not. 

In  answer  to  my  proposition  at  Galesburg  last  week,  I  see  that 
some  man  in  Chicago  has  got  up  a  letter  addressed  to  the  Chicago 
" Times,"  to  show,  as  he  professes,  that  somebody  had  said  so  before; 
and  he  signs  himself  "An  Old-Line  Whig,"  if  I  remember  correctly. 
In  the  first  place  I  would  say  he  was  not  an  old-line  Whig.  I  am  some 
what  acquainted  with  old-line  Whigs.  I  was  with  the  old-line  Whigs 
from  the  origin  to  the  end  of  that  party ;  I  became  pretty  well  ac 
quainted  with  them,  and  I  know  they  always  had  some  sense,  what 
ever  else  you  could  ascribe  to  them.  I  know  there  never  was  one  who 
had  not  more  sense  than  to  try  to  show  by  the  evidence  he  produces 
that  some  man  had,  prior  to  the  time  I  named,  said  that  negroes  were 
not  included  in  the  term  "  all  men"  in  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence.  What  is  the  evidence  he  produces?  I  will  bring  forward  his 
evidence,  and  let  you  see  what  he  offers  by  way  of  showing  that  some 
body  more  than  three  years  ago  had  said  negroes  were  not  included 
in  the  Declaration.  He  brings  forward  part  of  a  speech  from 
Henry  Clay — the  part  of  the  speech  of  Henry  Clay  which  I  used  to 
bring  forward  to  prove  precisely  the  contrary.  I  guess  we  are  sur 
rounded  to  some  extent  to-day  by  the  old  friends  of  Mr.  Clay,  and 
they  will  be  glad  to  hear  anything  from  that  authority.  While  he 
was  in  Indiana  a  man  presented  a  petition  to  liberate  his  negroes, 
and  he  (Mr.  Clay)  made  a  speech  in  answer  to  it,  which  I  suppose  he 
carefully  wrote  himself  and  caused  to  be  published.  I  have  before 
me  an  extract  from  that  speech  which  constitutes  the  evidence  this 
pretended  "  Old-Line  Whig "  at  Chicago  brought  forward  to  show 
that  Mr.  Clay  did  n't  suppose  the  negro  was  included  in  the  Decla 
ration  of  Independence.  Hear  what  Mr.  Clay  said: 

And  what  is  the  foundation  of  this  appeal  to  me  in  Indiana,  to  liberate 
the  slaves  under  iny  care  in  Kentucky  •?  It  is  a  general  declaration  in  the 
act  announcing  to  the  world  the  independence  of  the  thirteen  American 
colonies,  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  Now,  as  an  abstract  principle, 
there  is  no  doubt  of  the  truth  of  that  declaration ;  and  it  is  desirable,  in  the 
original  construction  of  society,  and  in  organized  societies,  to  keep  it  in 
view  as  a  great  fundamental  principle.  But  then  I  apprehend  that  in  no 
society  that  ever  did  exist,  or  ever  shall  be  formed,  was  or  can  the  equality 
asserted  among  the  members  of  the  human  race  be  practically  enforced  and 
carried  out.  There  are  portions,  large  portions, —  women,  minors,  insane, 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          501 

culprits,  transient  sojourners, — that  will  always  probably  remain  subject 
to  the  government  of  another  portion  of  the  community. 

That  declaration,  whatever  may  be  the  extent  of  its  import,  was  made  by 
the  delegations  of  the  thirteen  States.  In  most  of  them  slavery  existed,  and 
had  long-  existed,  and  was  established  by  law.  It  was  introduced  and  forced 
upon  the  colonies  by  the  paramount  law  of  England.  Do  you  believe  that 
in  making  that  declaration  the  States  that  concurred  in  it  intended  that  it 
should  be  tortured  into  a  virtual  emancipation  of  all  the  slaves  within  their 
respective  limits  "?  Would  Virginia  and  other  Southern  States  have  ever 
united  in  a  declaration  which  was  to  be  interpreted  into  an  abolition  of 
slavery  among  them  ?  Did  any  one  of  the  thirteen  colonies  entertain  such 
a  design  or  expectation  ?  To  impute  such  a  secret  and  unavowed  purpose 
would  be  to  charge  a  political  fraud  upon  the  noblest  band  of  patriots  that 
ever  assembled  in  council — a  fraud  upon  the  confederacy  of  the  Revolu 
tion —  a  fraud  upon  the  union  of  those  States  whose  constitution  not  only 
recognized  the  lawfulness  of  slavery,  but  permitted  the  importation  of 
slaves  from  Africa  until  the  year  1808. 

This  is  the  entire  quotation  brought  forward  to  prove  that  some 
body  previous  to  three  years  ago  had  said  the  negro  was  not  in 
cluded  in  the  term  "  all  men  "  in  the  Declaration.  How  does  it  do 
so  ?  In  what  way  has  it  a  tendency  to  prove  that !  Mr.  Clay  says 
it  is  true  as  an  abstract  principle  that  all  men  are  created  equal,  but 
that  we  cannot  practically  apply  it  in  all  cases.  He  illustrates  this 
by  bringing  forward  the  cases  of  females,  minors,  and  insane  per 
sons,  with  whom  it  cannot  be  enforced ;  but  he  says  that  it  is  true 
as  an  abstract  principle  in  the  organization  of  society  as  well  as  in 
organized  society,  and  it  should  be  kept  in  view  as  a  fundamental 
principle.  Let  me  read  a  few  words  more  before  I  add  some  com 
ments  of  my  own.  Mr.  Clay  says  a  little  further  on : 

I  desire  no  concealment  of  my  opinions  in  regard  to  the  institution  of 
slavery.  I  look  upon  it  as  a  great  evil,  and  deeply  lament  that  we  have  de 
rived  it  from  the  parent  government,  and  from  our  ancestors.  I  wish 
every  slave  in  the  United  States  was  in  the  country  of  his  ancestors.  But 
here  they  are,  and  the  question  is,  how  can  they  be  best  dealt  with  ?  If  a 
state  of  nature  existed,  and  we  were  about  to  lay  the  foundations  of  society, 
no  man  would  be  more  strongly  opposed  than  I  should  be,  to  incorporating 
the  institution  of  slavery  among  its  elements. 

Now,  here  in  this  same  book  —  in  this  same  speech  —  in  this  same 
extract  brought  forward  to  prove  that  Mr.  Clay  held  that  the  negro 
was  not  included  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  —  we  find  no 
such  statement  on  his  part,  but  instead  the  declaration  that  it  is  a 
great  fundamental  truth,  which  should  be  constantly  kept  in  view  in 
the  organization  of  society  and  in  societies  already  organized.  But 
if  I  say  a  word  about  it ;  if  I  attempt,  as  Mr.  Clay  said  all  good  men 
ought  to  do,  to  keep  it  in  view;  if,  in  this  "  organized  society,"  I  ask 
to  have  the  public  eye  turned  upon  it ;  if  I  ask,  in  relation  to  the  or 
ganization  of  new  Territories,  that  the  public  eye  should  be  turned 
upon  it, —  forthwith  I  am  vilified  as  you  hear  me  to-day.  What 
have  I  done  that  I  have  not  the  license  of  Henry  Clay's  illustrious 
example  here  in  doing?  Have  I  done  aught  that  I  have  not  his  au 
thority  for,  while  maintaining  that  in  organizing  new  Territories 


502         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  societies,  this  fundamental  principle  should  be  regarded,  and  in 
organized  society  holding  it  up  to  the  public  view  and  recognizing 
what  he  recognized  as  the  great  principle  of  free  government  ? 

And  when  this  new  principle — this  new  proposition  that  no 
human  being  ever  thought  of  three  years  ago  —  is  brought  f orward, 
I  combat  it  as  having  an  evil  tendency,  if  not  an  evil  design.  I 
combat  it  as  having  a  tendency  to  dehumanize  the  negro  —  to  take 
away  from  him  the  right  of  ever  striving  to  be  a  man.  I  combat  it 
as  being  one  of  the  thousand  things  constantly  done  in  these  days 
to  prepare  the  public  mind  to  make  property,  and  nothing  but 
property,  of  the  negro  in  all  the  States  in  this  Union. 

But  there  is  a  point  that  I  wish,  before  leaving  this  part  of  the 
discussion,  to  ask  attention  to.  I  have  read,  and  I  repeat,  the  words 
of  Henry  Clay : 

I  desire  no  concealment  of  my  opinions  in  regard  to  the  institution  of 
slavery.  I  look  upon  it  as  a  great  evil,  and  deeply  lament  that  we  have  de 
rived  it  from  the  parent  government,  and  from  our  ancestors.  I  wish 
every  slave  in  the  United  States  was  in  the  country  of  his  ancestors.  But 
here  they  are,  and  the  question  is,  how  can  they  best  be  dealt  with  ?  If  a 
state  of  nature  existed,  and  we  were  about  to  lay  the  foundations  of  society, 
no  man  would  be  more  strongly  opposed  than  I  should  be,  to  incorporating 
the  institution  of  slavery  among  its  elements. 

The  principle  upon  which  I  have  insisted  in  this  canvass,  is  in  re 
lation  to  laying  the  foundations  of  new  societies.  I  have  never 
sought  to  apply  these  principles  to  the  old  States  for  the  purpose  of 
abolishing  slavery  in  those  States.  It  is  nothing  but  a  miserable 
perversion  of  what  I  have  said,  to  assume  that  I  have  declared  Mis 
souri,  or  any  other  slave  State,  shall  emancipate  her  slaves.  I  have 
proposed  no  such  thing.  But  when  Mr.  Clay  says  that  in  laying  the 
foundations  of  societies  in  our  Territories  where  it  does  not  exist,  he 
would  be  opposed  to  the  introduction  of  slavery  as  an  element,  I  in 
sist  that  we  have  his  warrant — his  license  for  insisting  upon  the  ex 
clusion  of  that  element  which  he  declared  in  such  strong  and  emphatic 
language  was  most  hateful  to  him. 

Judge  Douglas  has  again  referred  to  a  Springfield  speech  in  which 
I  said,  u  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand."  The  judge  has 
so  often  made  the  entire  quotation  from  that  speech  that  I  can  make 
it  from  memory.  I  used  this  language : 

We  are  now  far  into  the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  initiated  with  the 
avowed  object  and  confident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to  the  slavery  agi 
tation.  Under  the  operation  of  this  policy,  that  agitation  has  not  only  not 
ceased,  but  has  constantly  augmented.  In  my  opinion  it  will  not  cease  un 
til  a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached  and  passed.  "A  house  divided  against 
itself  cannot  stand."  I  believe  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently 
half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall  —  but  I  do  expect 
it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing,  or  all  the  other. 
Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place 
it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of 
ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward  till  it  shall  become 
alike  lawful  in  all  the  States — old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          503 

That  extract,  and  the  sentiments  expressed  in  it,  have  been  ex 
tremely  offensive  to  Judge  Douglas.  He  has  warred  upon  them  as 
Satan  wars  upon  the  Bible.  His  perversions  upon  it  are  endless. 
Here  now  are  my  views  upon  it  in  brief. 

I  said  we  were  now  far  into  the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was 
initiated  with  the  avowed  object  and  confident  promise  of  putting  an 
end  to  the  slavery  agitation.  Is  it  not  so  ?  When  that  Nebraska  bill 
was  brought  forward  four  years  ago  last  January,  was  it  not  for  the 
"avowed  object"  of  putting  an  end  to  the  slavery  agitation?  We 
were  to  have  no  more  agitation  in  Congress;  it  was  all  to  be  ban 
ished  to  the  Territories.  By  the  way,  I  will  remark  here  that,  as 
Judge  Douglas  is  very  fond  of  complimenting  Mr.  Crittenden  in 
these  days,  Mr.  Crittenden  has  said  there  was  a  falsehood  in  that 
whole  business,  for  there  was  no  slavery  agitation  at  that  time  to 
allay.  We  were  for  a  little  while  quiet  on  the  troublesome  thing, 
and  that  very  allaying-plaster  of  Judge  Douglas's  stirred  it  up  again. 
But  was  it  not  undertaken  or  initiated  with  the  "  confident  promise" 
of  putting  an  end  to  the  slavery  agitation  ?  Surely  it  was.  In  every 
speech  you  heard  Judge  Douglas  make,  until  he  got  into  this  "  im 
broglio,"  as  they  call  it,  with  the  administration  about  the  Lecompton 
constitution,  every  speech  on  that  Nebraska  bill  was  full  of  his  felici 
tations  that  we  were  just  at  the  end  of  the  slavery  agitation.  The 
last  tip  of  the  last  joint  of  the  old  serpent's  tail  was  just  drawing  out 
of  view.  But  has  it  proved  so?  I  have  asserted  that  under  that 
policy  that  agitation  "  has  not  only  ceased,  but  has  constantly  aug 
mented."  When  was  there  ever  a  greater  agitation  in  Congress  than 
last  winter  ?  When  was  it  as  great  in  the  country  as  to-day  ? 

There  was  a  collateral  object  in  the  introduction  of  that  Nebraska 
policy  which  was  to  clothe  the  people  of  the  Territories  with  a  supe 
rior  degree  of  self-government,  beyond  what  they  had  ever  had  before. 
The  first  object  and  the  main  one  of  conferring  upon  the  people  a 
higher  degree  of  "  self-government,"  is  a  question  of  fact  to  be  de 
termined  by  you  in  answer  to  a  single  question.  Have  you  ever 
heard  or  known  of  a  people  anywhere  on  earth  who  had  as  little  to 
do  as,  in  the  first  instance  of  its  use,  the  people  of  Kansas  had  with 
this  same  right  of  "  self-government"?  In  its  main  policy  and  in 
its  collateral  object,  it  has  been  nothing  but  a  living,  creeping  lie 
from  the  time  of  its  introduction  till  to-day. 

I  have  intimated  that  I  thought  the  agitation  would  not  cease 
until  a  crisis  should  have  been  reached  and  passed.  I  have  stated 
in  what  way  I  thought  it  would  be  reached  and  passed.  I  have  said 
that  it  might  go  one  way  or  the  other.  We  might,  by  arresting  the 
further  spread  of  it,  and  placing  it  where  the  fathers  originally 
placed  it,  put  it  where  the  public  mind  should  rest  in  the  belief  that 
it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  Thus  the  agitation  may 
cease.  It  may  be  pushed  forward  until  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in 
all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South.  I  have  said, 
and  I  repeat,  my  wish  is  that  the  further  spread  of  it  may  be  arrested, 
and  that  it  may  be  placed  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the 
belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  I  have  ex 
pressed  that  as  my  wish.  I  entertain  the  opinion,  upon  evidence 


504         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

sufficient  to  my  mind,  that  the  fathers  of  this  government  placed 
that  institution  where  the  public  mind  did  rest  in  the  belief  that  it 
was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  Let  me  ask  why  they  made 
provision  that  the  source  of  slavery — the  African  slave-trade  — 
should  be  cut  off  at  the  end  of  twenty  years  ?  Wiry  did  they  make 
provision  that  in  all  the  new  territory  we  owned  at  that  time,  slavery 
should  be  forever  inhibited?  Why  stop  its  spread  in  one  direction 
and  cut  off  its  source  in  another,  if  they  did  not  look  to  its  being 
placed  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction? 

Again,  the  institution  of  slavery  is  only  mentioned  in  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States  two  or  three  times,  and  in  neither  of 
these  cases  does  the  word  "  slavery  n  or  "  negro  race "  occur ;  but 
covert  language  is  used  each  time,  and  for  a  purpose  full  of  signifi 
cance.  What  is  the  language  in  regard  to  the  prohibition  of  the 
African  slave-trade  ?  It  runs  in  about  this  way :  "  The  migration  or 
importation  of  such  persons  as  any  of  the  States  now  existing  shall 
think  proper  to  admit,  shall  not  be  prohibited  by  the  Congress  prior 
to  the  year  1808." 

The  next  allusion  in  the  Constitution  to  the  question  of  slavery  and 
the  black  race,  is  on  the  subject  of  the  basis  of  representation,  and 
there  the  language  used  is:  "Representatives  and  direct  taxes  shall 
be  apportioned  among  the  several  States  which  may  be  included 
within  this  Union,  according  to  their  respective  numbers,  which 
shall  be  determined  by  adding  to  the  whole  number  of  free  persons, 
including  those  bound  to  service  for  a  term  of  years,  and  excluding 
Indians  not  taxed,  three  fifths  of  all  other  persons." 

It  says  "  persons,"  not  slaves,  not  negroes ;  but  this  "  three  fifths" 
can  be  applied  to  no  other  class  among  us  than  the  negroes. 

Lastly,  in  the  provision  for  the  reclamation  of  fugitive  slaves,  it 
is  said :  "  No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  State,  under  the 
laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall  in  consequence  of  any  law 
or  regulation  therein  be  discharged  from  such  service  or  labor,  but 
shall  be  delivered  up,  on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such  service  or 
labor  may  be  due."  There,  again,  there  is  no  mention  of  the  word 
" negro,"  or  of  slavery.  In  all  three  of  these  places,  being  the  only 
allusion  to  slavery  in  the  instrument,  covert  language  is  used.  Lan 
guage  is  used  not  suggesting  that  slavery  existed  or  that  the  black 
race  were  among  us.  And  I  understand  the  contemporaneous  history 
of  those  times  to  be  that  covert  language  was  used  with  a  purpose, 
and  that  purpose  was  that  in  our  Constitution,  which  it  was  hoped, 
and  is  still  hoped,  will  endure  forever, — when  it  should  be  read  by 
intelligent  and  patriotic  men,  after  the  institution  of  slavery  had 
passed  from  among  us, — there  should  be  nothing  on  the  face  of  the 
great  charter  of  liberty  suggesting  that  such  a  thing  as  negro  slavery 
had  ever  existed  among  us.  This  is  part  of  the  evidence  that  the 
fathers  of  the  government  expected  and  intended  the  institution 
of  slavery  to  come  to  an  end.  They  expected  and  intended  that  it 
should  be  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  And  when  I  say 
that  I  desire  to  see  the  further  spread  of  it  arrested,  I  only  say  I 
desire  to  see  that  done  which  the  fathers  have  first  done.  When  I  say 
I  desire  to  see  it  placed  where  the  public  mind  will  rest  in  the  belief 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          505 

that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  I  only  say  I  desire  to 
see  it  placed  where  they  placed  it.  It  is  not  true  that  our  fathers,  as 
Judge  Douglas  assumes,  made  this  government  part  slave  and  part 
free.  Understand  the  sense  in  which  he  puts  it.  He  assumes  that 
slavery  is  a  rightful  thing  within  itself — was  introduced  by  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution.  The  exact  truth  is  that  they  found  the 
institution  existing  among  us,  and  they  left  it  as  they  found  it.  But 
in  making  the  government  they  left  this  institution  with  many  clear 
marks  of  disapprobation  upon  it.  They  found  slavery  among  them, 
and  they  left  it  among  them  because  of  the  difficulty — the  absolute 
impossibility — of  its  immediate  removal.  And  when  Judge  Douglas 
asks  me  why  we  cannot  let  it  remain  part  slave  and  part  free,  as  the 
fathers  of  the  government  made  it,  he  asks  a  question  based  upon 
an  assumption  which  is  itself  a  falsehood;  and  I  turn  upon  him 
and  ask  him  the  question,  when  the  policy  that  the  fathers  of  the 
government  had  adopted  in  relation  to  this  element  among  us  was 
the  best  policy  in  the  world, — the  only  wise  policy,  the  only  policy 
that  we  can  ever  safely  continue  upon,  that  will  ever  give  us  peace, 
unless  this  dangerous  element  masters  us  all  and  becomes  a  national 
institution, — I  turn  upon  him  and  ask  him  why  he  could  not  leave 
it  alone.  I  turn  and  ask  him  why  he  was  driven  to  the  necessity  of 
introducing  a  new  policy  in  regard  to  it.  He  has  himself  said  he 
introduced  a  new  policy.  He  said  so  in  his  speech  on  the  22d  of 
March  of  the  present  year,  1858.  I  ask  him  why  he  could  not  let  it 
remain  where  our  fathers  placed  it.  I  ask,  too,  of  Judge  Douglas 
and  his  friends,  why  we  shall  not  again  place  this  institution  upon 
the  basis  on  which  the  fathers  left  it?  I  ask  you,  when  he  infers 
that  I  am  in  favor  of  setting  the  free  and  the  slave  States  at  war, 
when  the  institution  was  placed  in  that  attitude  by  those  who  made 
the  Constitution,  did  they  make  any  war  ?  If  we  had  no  war  out  of 
it  when  thus  placed,  wherein  is  the  ground  of  belief  that  we  shall 
have  war  out  of  it  if  we  return  to  that  policy  ?  Have  we  had  any 
peace  upon  this  matter  springing  from  any  other  basis?  I  maintain 
that  we  have  not.  I  have  proposed  nothing  more  than  a  return  to 
the  policy  of  the  fathers. 

I  confess,  when  I  propose  a  certain  measure  of  policy,  it  is  not 
enough  for  me  that  I  do  not  intend  anything  evil  in  the  result,  but 
it  is  incumbent  on  me  to  show  that  it  has  not  a  tendency  to  that 
result.  I  have  met  Judge  Douglas  in  that  point  of  view.  I  have 
not  only  made  the  declaration  that  I  do  not  mean  to  produce  a  con 
flict  between  the  States,  but  I  have  tried  to  show  by  fair  reasoning, 
and  I  think  I  have  shown  to  the  minds  of  fair  men,  that  I  propose 
nothing  but  what  has  a  most  peaceful  tendency.  The  quotation 
that  I  happened  to  make  in  that  Springfield  speech,  that  "a  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand,"  and  which  has  proved  so  offen 
sive  to  the  judge,  was  part  and  parcel  of  the  same  thing.  He  tries 
to  show  that  variety  in  the  domestic  institutions  of  the  different 
States  is  necessary  and  indispensable.  I  do  not  dispute  it.  I  have 
no  controversy  with  Judge  Douglas  about  that.  I  shall  very  readily 
agree  with  him  that  it  would  be  foolish  for  us  to  insist  upon  hav 
ing  a  cranberry  law  here,  in  Illinois,  where  we  have  no  cranberries, 


506         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

because  they  have  a  cranberry  law  in  Indiana,  where  they  have 
cranberries.  I  should  insist  that  it  would  be  exceedingly  wrong  in 
us  to  deny  to  Virginia  the  right  to  enact  oyster  laws,  where  they 
have  oysters,  because  we  want  no  such  laws  here.  I  understand, 
I  hope,  quite  as  well  as  Judge  Douglas,  or  anybody  else,  that  the. 
variety  in  the  soil  and  climate  and  face  of  the  country,  and  con 
sequent  variety  in  the  industrial  pursuits  and  productions  of  a 
country,  require  systems  of  laws  conforming  to  this  variety  in  the 
natural  features  of  the  country.  I  understand  quite  as  well  as 
Judge  Douglas,  that  if  we  here  raise  a  barrel  of  flour  more  than 
we  want,  and  the  Louisianians  raise  a  barrel  of  sugar  more  than 
they  want,  it  is  of  mutual  advantage  to  exchange.  That  produces 
commerce,  brings  us  together,  and  makes  us  better  friends.  We 
like  one  another  the  more  for  it.  And  I  understand  as  well  as 
Judge  Douglas,  or  anybody  else,  that  these  mutual  accommodations 
are  the  cements  which  bind  together  the  different  parts  of  this 
Union;  that  instead  of  being  a  thing  to  "divide  the  house" — fig 
uratively  expressing  the  Union — they  tend  to  sustain  it;  they  are 
the  props  of  the  house  tending  always  to  hold  it  up. 

But  when  I  have  admitted  all  this,  I  ask  if  there  is  any  parallel 
between  these  things  and  this  institution  of  slavery  ?  I  do  not  see 
that  there  is  any  parallel  at  all  between  them.  Consider  it.  When 
have  we  had  any  difficulty  or  quarrel  amongst  ourselves  about  the 
cranberry  laws  of  Indiana,  or  the  oyster  laws  of  Virginia,  or  the 
pine-lumber  laws  of  Maine,  or  the  fact  that  Louisiana  produces 
sugar,  and  Illinois  flour?  When  have  we  had  any  quarrels  over 
these  things  ?  When  have  we  had  perfect  peace  in  regard  to  this 
thing  which  I  say  is  an  element  of  discord  in  this  Union  ?  We 
have  sometimes  had  peace,  but  when  was  it  ?  It  was  when  the  in 
stitution  of  slavery  remained  quiet  where  it  was.  We  have  had 
difficulty  and  turmoil  whenever  it  has  made  a  struggle  to  spread 
itself  where  it  was  not.  I  ask,  then,  if  experience  does  not  speak 
in  thunder-tones,  telling  us  that  the  policy  which  has  given  peace  to 
the  country  heretofore,  being  returned  to,  gives  the  greatest  prom 
ise  of  peace  again.  You  may  say,  and  Judge  Douglas  has  intimated 
the  same  thing,  that  all  this  difficulty  in  regard  to  the  institution 
of  slavery  is  the  mere  agitation  of  office-seekers  and  ambitious 
northern  politicians.  He  thinks  we  want  to  get  "  his  place/'  I  sup 
pose.  I  agree  that  there  are  office-seekers  amongst  us.  The  Bible 
says  somewhere  that  we  are  desperately  selfish.  I  think  we  would 
have  discovered  that  fact  without  the  Bible.  I  do  not  claim  that  I 
am  any  less  so  than  the  average  of  men,  but  I  do  claim  that  I  am 
not  more  selfish  than  Judge  Douglas. 

But  is  it  true  that  all  the  difficulty  and  agitation  we  have  in  re 
gard  to  this  institution  of  slavery  springs  from  office-seeking  —  from 
the  mere  ambition  of  politicians  ?  Is  that  the  truth  ?  How  many 
times  have  we  had  danger  from  this  question  ?  Go  back  to  the  day 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  Go  back  to  the  nullification  question, 
at  the  bottom  of  which  lay  this  same  slavery  question.  Go  back  to 
the  time  of  the  annexation  of  Texas.  Go  back  to  the  troubles  that 
led  to  the  compromise  of  1850.  You  will  find  that  every  time,  with 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          507 

the  single  exception  of  the  nullification  question,  they  sprang  from 
an  endeavor  to  spread  this  institution.  There  never  was  a  party  in 
the  history  of  this  country,  and  there  probably  never  will  be,  of 
sufficient  strength  to  disturb  the  general  peace  of  the  country. 
Parties  themselves  may  be  divided  and  quarrel  on  minor  questions, 
yet  it  extends  not  beyond  the  parties  themselves.  But  does  not  this 
question  make  a  disturbance  outside  of  political  circles?  Does  it 
not  enter  into  the  churches  and  rend  them  asunder  ?  What  divided 
the  great  Methodist  Church  into  two  parts,  North  and  South?  What 
has  raised  this  constant  disturbance*  in  every  Presbyterian  general 
assembly  that  meets?  What  disturbed  the  Unitarian  Church  in 
this  very  city  two  years  ago?  What  has  jarred  and  shaken  the 
great  American  Tract  Society  recently  —  not  yet  splitting  it,  but 
sure  to  divide  it  in  the  end?  Is  it  not  this  same  mighty,  deep- 
seated  power  that  somehow  operates  on  the  minds  of  men,  exciting 
and  stirring  them  up  in  every  avenue  of  society  —  in  politics,  in 
religion,  in  literature,  in  morals,  in  all  the  manifold  relations  of 
life  ?  Is  this  the  work  of  politicians  ?  Is  that  irresistible  power, 
which  for  fifty  years  has  shaken  the  government  and  agitated  the 
people,  to  be  stilled  and  subdued  by  pretending  that  it  is  an  exceed 
ingly  simple  thing,  and  we  ought  not  to  talk  about  it?  If  you  will 
get  everybody  else  to  stop  talking  about  it,  I  assure  you  I  will  quit 
before  they  have  half  done  so.  But  where  is  the  philosophy  or 
statesmanship  which  assumes  that  you  can  quiet  that  disturbing 
element  in  our  society  which  has  disturbed  us  for  more  than  half  a 
century,  which  has  been  the  only  serious  danger  that  has  threat 
ened  our  institutions  —  I  say,  where  is  the  philosophy  or  the  states 
manship  based  on  the  assumption  that  we  are  to  quit  talking  about 
it,  and  that  the  public  mind  is  all  at  once  to  cease  being  agitated  by 
it  ?  Yet  this  is  the  policy  here  in  the  North  that  Douglas  is  advo 
cating —  that  we  are  to  care  nothing  about  it !  I  ask  you  if  it  is  not 
a  false  philosophy  ?  Is  it  not  a  false  statesmanship  that  undertakes 
to  build  up  a  system  of  policy  upon  the  basis  of  caring  nothing 
about  the  very  thing  that  everybody  does  care  the  most  about  —  a 
thing  which  all  experience  has  shown  we  care  a  very  great  deal 
about  ? 

The  judge  alludes  very  often  in  the  course  of  his  remarks  to  the 
exclusive  right  which  the  States  have  to  decide  the  whole  thing  for 
themselves.  I  agree  with  him  very  readily  that  the  different  States 
have  that  right.  He  is  but  fighting  a  man  of  straw  when  he  assumes 
that  I  am  contending  against  the  right  of  the  States  to  do  as  they 
please  about  it.  Our  controversy  with  him  is  in  regard  to  the  new 
Territories.  We  agree  that  when  the  States  come  in  as  States  they 
have  the  right  and  the  power  to  do  as  they  please.  We  have  no  power 
as  citizens  of  the  free  States,  or  in  our  federal  capacity  as  members  of 
the  Federal  Union  through  the  General  Government,  to  disturb 
slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists.  We  profess  constantly  that  we 
have  no  more  inclination  than  belief  in  the  power  of  the  government 
to  disturb  it;  yet  we  are  driven  constantly  to  defend  ourselves  from 
the  assumption  that  we  are  warring  upon  the  rights  of  the  States. 
What  I  insist  upon  is,  that  the  new  Territories  shall  be  kept  free  from 


508         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

it  while  in  the  territorial  condition.  Judge  Douglas  assumes  that 
we  have  no  interest  in  them — that  we  have  no  right  whatever  to  in 
terfere.  I  think  we  have  some  interest.  I  think  that  as  white  men 
we  have.  Do  we  not  wish  for  an  outlet  for  our  surplus  population, 
if  I  may  so  express  myself !  Do  we  not  feel  an  interest  in  getting  to. 
that  outlet  with  such  institutions  as  we  would  like  to  have  prevail 
there  ?  If  you  go  to  the  Territory  opposed  to  slavery,  and  another  man 
comes  upon  the  same  ground  with  his  slave,  upon  the  assumption 
that  the  things  are  equal,  it  turns  out  that  he  has  the  equal  right  all 
his  way,  and  you  have  no  part  of  it  your  way.  If  he  goes  in  and 
makes  it  a  slave  Territory,  and  by  consequence  a  slave  State,  is  it 
not  time  that  those  who  desire  to  have  it  a  free  State  were  on  equal 
ground  ?  Let  me  suggest  it  in  a  different  way.  How  many  Demo 
crats  are  there  about  here  ["A  thousand'7]  who  have  left  slave  States 
and  come  into  the  free  State  of  Illinois  to  get  rid  of  the  institution 
of  slavery?  [Another  voice :  "A  thousand  and  one."]  I  reckon  there 
are  a  thousand  and  one.  I  will  ask  you,  if  the  policy  you  are  now 
advocating  had  prevailed  when  this  country  was  in  a  territorial  con 
dition,  where  would  you  have  gone  to  get  rid  of  it?  Where  would 
you  have  found  your  free  State  or  Territory  to  go  to  ?  And  when 
hereafter,  for  any  cause,  the  people  in  this  place  shall  desire  to  find 
new  homes,  if  they  wish  to  be  rid  of  the  institution,  where  will  they 
find  the  place  to  go  to  ? 

Now,  irrespective  of  the  moral  aspect  of  this  question  as  to  whether 
there  is  a  right  or  wrong  in  enslaving  a  negro,  I  am  still  in  favor  of 
our  new  Territories  being  in  such  a  condition  that  white  men  may 
find  a  home — may  find  some  spot  where  they  can  better  their  condi 
tion — where  they  can  settle  upon  new  soil,  and  better  their  condition 
in  life.  I  am  in  favor  of  this  not  merely  (I  must  say  it  here  as  I 
have  elsewhere)  for  our  own  people  who  are  born  amongst  us,  but 
as  an  outlet  for  free  white  people  everywhere,  the  world  over  —  in 
which  Hans,  and  Baptiste,  and  Patrick,  and  all  other  men  from  all 
the  world,  may  find  new  homes  and  better  their  condition  in  life. 

I  have  stated  upon  former  occasions,  and  I  may  as  well  state  again , 
what  I  understand  to  be  the  real  issue  of  this  controversy  between 
Judge  Douglas  and  myself.  On  the  point  of  my  wanting  to  make 
war  between  the  free  and  the  slave  States,  there  has  been  no  issue 
between  us.  So,  too,  when  he  assumes  that  I  am  in  favor  of  intro 
ducing  a  perfect  social  and  political  equality  between  the  white  and 
black  races.  These  are  false  issues,  upon  which  Judge  Douglas  has 
tried  to  force  the  controversy.  There  is  no  foundation  in  truth  for 
the  charge  that  I  maintain  either  of  these  propositions.  The  real 
issue  in  this  controversy — the  one  pressing  upon  every  mind — is  the 
sentiment  on  the  part  of  one  class  that  looks  upon  the  institution  of 
slavery  as  a  wrong,  and  of  another  class  that  does  not  look  upon  it 
as  a  wrong.  The  sentiment  that  contemplates  the  institution  of 
slavery  in  this  country  as  a  wrong  is  the  sentiment  of  the  Republi 
can  party.  It  is  the  sentiment  around  which  all  their  actions,  all 
their  arguments,  circle ;  from  which  all  their  propositions  radiate. 
They  look  upon  it  as  being  a  moral,  social,  and  political  wrong;  and 
while  they  contemplate  it  as  such,  they  nevertheless  have  due  regard 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          509 

for  its  actual  existence  among  us,  and  the  difficulties  of  getting  rid 
of  it  in  any  satisfactory  way,  and  to  all  the  constitutional  obligations 
thrown  about  it.  Yet  having  a  due  regard  for  these,  they  desire  a 
policy  in  regard  to  it  that  looks  to  its  not  creating  any  more  danger. 
They  insist  that  it,  as  far  as  may  be,  be  treated  as  a  wrong,  and  one 
of  the  methods  of  treating  it  as  a  wrong  is  to  make  provision  that  it 
shall  grow  no  larger.  They  also  desire  a  policy  that  looks  to  a 
peaceful  end  of  slavery  some  time,  as  being  a  wrong.  These  are  the 
views  they  entertain  in  regard  to  it,  as  I  understand  them ;  and  all 
their  sentiments,  all  their  arguments  and  propositions,  are  brought 
within  this  range.  I  have  said,  and  I  repeat  it  here,  that  if  there  be 
a  man  amongst  us  who  does  not  think  that  the  institution  of  slavery 
is  wrong  in  any  one  of  the  aspects  of  which  I  have  spoken,  he  is  mis 
placed,  and  ought  not  to  be  with  us.  And  if  there  be  a  man  amongst 
us  who  is  so  impatient  of  it  as  a  wrong  as  to  disregard  its  actual 
presence  among  us  and  the  difficulty  of  getting  rid  of  it  suddenly  in 
a  satisfactory  way,  and  to  disregard  the  constitutional  obligations 
thrown  about  it,  that  man  is  misplaced  if  he  is  on  our  platform. 
We  disclaim  sympathy  with  him  in  practical  action.  He  is  not 
placed  properly  with  us. 

On  this  subject  of  treating  it  as  a  wrong,  and  limiting  its  spread, 
let  me  say  a  word.  Has  anything  ever  threatened  the  existence  of 
this  Union  save  and  except  this  very  institution  of  slavery?  What 
is  it  that  we  hold  most  dear  amongst  us?  Our  own  liberty  and  pros 
perity.  What  has  ever  threatened  our  liberty  and  prosperity  save 
and  except  this  institution  of  slavery?  If  this  is  true,  how  do  you 
propose  to  improve  the  condition  of  things  by  enlarging  slavery  — 
by  spreading  it  out  and  making  it  bigger?  You  may  have  a  wen  or 
cancer  upon  your  person,  and  not  be  able  to  cut  it  out  lest  you  bleed 
to  death;  but  surely  it  is  no  way  to  cure  it,  to  engraft  it  and  spread 
it  over  your  whole  body.  That  is  no  proper  way  of  treating  what 
you  regard  as  a  wrong.  You  see  this  peaceful  way  of  dealing  with  it 
as  a  wrong — restricting  the  spread  of  it,  and  not  allowing  it  to  go 
into  new  countries  where  it  has  not  already  existed.  That  is  the 
peaceful  way,  the  old-fashioned  way,  the  way  in  which  the  fathers 
themselves  set  us  the  example. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  have  said  there  is  a  sentiment  which  treats 
it  as  not  being  wrong.  That  is  the  Democratic  sentiment  of  this 
day.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  every  man  who  stands  within  that 
range  positively  asserts  that  it  is  right.  That  class  will  include  all 
who  positively  assert  that  it  is  right,  and  all  who,  like  Judge  Douglas, 
treat  it  as  indifferent,  and  do  not  say  it  is  either  right  or  wrong. 
These  two  classes  of  men  fall  within  the  general  class  of  those  who 
do  not  look  upon  it  as  a  wrong.  And  if  there  be  among  you  any 
body  who  supposes  that  he,  as  a  Democrat,  can  consider  himself  "  as 
much  opposed  to  slavery  as  anybody,"  I  would  like  to  reason  with 
him.  You  never  treat  it  as  a  wrong.  What  other  thing  that  you 
consider  as  a  wrong,  do  you  deal  with  as  you  deal  with  that  ?  Per 
haps  you  say  it  is  wrong,  but  your  leader  never  does,  and  you 
quarrel  with  anybody  who  says  it  is  wrong.  Although  you  pretend 
to  say  so  yourself,  you  can  find  no  fit  place  to  deal  with  it  as  a  wrong. 


510         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF  ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

You  must  not  say  anything  about  it  in  the  free  States,  because  it  is 
not  here.  You  must  not  say  anything  about  it  in  the  slave  States, 
because  it  is  there.  You  must  not  say  anything  about  it  in  the 
pulpit,  because  that  is  religion,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  You 
must  not  say  anything  about  it  in  politics,  because  that  will  disturb 
the  security  of  "  my  place."  There  is  no  place  to  talk  about  it  as 
being  a  wrong,  although  you  say  yourself  it  is  a  wrong.  But  finally 
you  will  screw  yourself  up  to  the  belief  that  if  the  people  of  the 
slave  States  should  adopt  a  system  of  gradual  emancipation  on  the 
slavery  question,  you  would  be  in  favor  of  it.  You  would  be  in 
favor  of  it !  You  say  that  is  getting  it  in  the  right  place,  and  you 
would  be  glad  to  see  it  succeed.  But  you  are  deceiving  yourself. 
You  all  know  that  Frank  Blair  and  Gratz  Brown,  down  there  in  St. 
Louis,  undertook  to  introduce  that  system  in  Missouri.  They  fought 
as  valiantly  as  they  could  for  the  system  of  gradual  emancipation 
which  you  pretend  you  would  be  glad  to  see  succeed.  Now  I  will 
bring  you  to  the  test.  After  a  hard  fight,  they  were  beaten ;  and 
when  the  news  came  over  here,  you  threw  up  your  hats  and  hurrahed 
for  Democracy.  More  than  that,  take  all  the  argument  made  in 
favor  of  the  system  you  have  proposed,  and  it  carefully  excludes 
the  idea  that  there  is  anything  wrong  in  the  institution  of  slavery. 
The  arguments  to  sustain  that  policy  carefully  exclude  it.  Even 
here  to-day  you  heard  Judge  Douglas  quarrel  with  me  because  I 
uttered  a  wish  that  it  might  some  time  come  to  an  end.  Although 
Henry  Clay  could  say  he  wished  every  slave  in  the  United  States 
was  in  the  country  of  his  ancestors,  I  am  denounced  by  those  pre 
tending  to  respect  Henry  Clay,  for  uttering  a  wish  that  it  might 
some  time,  in  some  peaceful  way,  come  to  an  end. 

The  Democratic  policy  in  regard  to  that  institution  will  not 
tolerate  the  merest  breath,  the  slightest  hint,  of  the  least  degree  of 
wrong  about  it.  Try  it  by  some  of  Judge  Douglas's  arguments. 
He  says  he  "don't  care  whether  it  is  voted  up  or  voted  down77  in 
the  Territories.  I  do  not  care  myself,  in  dealing  with  that  expres 
sion,  whether  it  is  intended  to  be  expressive  of  his  individual  senti 
ments  on  the  subject,  or  only  of  the  national  policy  he  desires  to 
have  established.  It  is  alike  valuable  for  my  purpose.  Any  man 
can  say  that  who  does  not  see  anything  wrong  in  slavery,  but  no  man 
can  logically  say  it  who  does  see  a  wrong  in  it  j  because  no  man  can 
logically  say  he  don7t  care  whether  a  wrong  is  voted  up  or  voted 
down.  He  may  say  he  don7t  care  whether  an  indifferent  thing  is 
voted  up  or  down,  but  he  must  logically  have  a  choice  between  a 
right  thing  and  a  wrong  thing.  He  contends  that  whatever  com 
munity  wants  slaves  has  a  right  to  have  them.  So  they  have  if  it  is 
not  a  wrong.  But  if  it  is  a  wrong,  he  cannot  say  people  have  a  right 
to  do  wrong.  He  says  that,  upon  the  score  of  equality,  slaves  should 
be  allowed  to  go  into  a  new  Territory  like  other  property.  This  is 
strictly  logical  if  there  is  no  difference  between  it  and  other  pro 
perty.  If  it  and  other  property  are  equal,  his  argument  is  entirely 
logical.  But  if  you  insist  that  one  is  wrong  and  the  other  right, 
there  is  no  use  to  institute  a  comparison  between  right  and  wrong. 
You  may  turn  over  everything  in  the  Democratic  policy  from  begin- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          511 

ning  to  end,  whether  in  the  shape  it  takes  on  the  statute-book,  in 
the  shape  it  takes  in  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  in  the  shape  it  takes 
in  conversation,  or  the  shape  it  takes  in  short  maxim-like  arguments 
— it  everywhere  carefully  excludes  the  idea  that  there  is  anything 
wrong  in  it. 

That  is  the  real  issue.  That  is  the  issue  that  will  continue  in  this 
country  when  these  poor  tongues  of  Judge  Douglas  and  myself  shall 
be  silent.  It  is  the  eternal  struggle  between  these  two  principles 
— right  and  wrong — throughout  the  world.  They  are  the  two 
principles  that  have  stood  face  to  face  from  the  beginning  of  time; 
and  will  ever  continue  to  struggle.  The  one  is  the  common  right 
of  humanity,  and  the  other  the  divine  right  of  kings.  It  is  the  same 
principle  in  whatever  shape  it  develops  itself.  It  is  the  same  spirit 
that  says,  "You  toil  and  work  and  earn  bread,  and  I  '11  eat  it."  No 
matter  in  what  shape  it  comes,  whether  from  the  mouth  of  a  king 
who  seeks  to  bestride  the  people  of  his  own  nation  and  live  by  the  fruit 
of  their  labor,  or  from  one  race  of  men  as  an  apology  for  enslaving 
another  race,  it  is  the  same  tyrannical  principle.  I  was  glad  to 
express  my  gratitude  at  Quincy,  and  I  reexpress  it  here  to  Judge 
Douglas  —  that  he  looks  to  no  end  of  the  institution  of  slavery. 
That  will  help  the  people  to  see  where  the  struggle  really  is.  It  will 
hereafter  place  with  us  all  men  who  really  do  wish  the  wrong  may 
have  an  end.  And  whenever  we  can  get  rid  of  the  fog  which  ob 
scures  the  real  question, — when  we  can  get  Judge  Douglas  and  his 
friends  to  avow  a  policy  looking  to  its  perpetuation, — we  can  get  out 
from  among  them  that  class  of  men  and  bring  them  to  the  side  of 
those  who  treat  it  as  a  wrong.  Then  there  will  soon  be  an  end  of  it, 
and  that  end  will  be  its  "  ultimate  extinction."  Whenever  the  issue  can 
be  distinctly  made,  and  all  extraneous  matter  thrown  out,  so  that  men 
can  fairly  see  the  real  difference  between  the  parties,  this  controversy 
will  soon  be  settled,  and  it  will  be  done  peaceably  too.  There  will 
be  no  war,  no  violence.  It  will  be  placed  again  where  the  wisest  and 
best  men  of  the  world  placed  it.  Brooks  of  South  Carolina  once 
declared  that  when  this  Constitution  was  framed,  its  framers  did  not 
look  to  the  institution  existing  until  this  day.  When  he  said  this,  I 
think  he  stated  a  fact  that  is  fully  borne  out  by  the  history  of  the 
times.  But  he  also  said  they  were  better  and  wiser  men  than  the 
men  of  these  days  5  yet  the  men  of  these  days  had  experience  which 
they  had  not,  and  by  the  invention  of  the  cotton-gin  it  became  a 
necessity  in  this  country  that  slavery  should  be  perpetual.  I  now 
say  that,  willingly  or  unwillingly,  purposely  or  without  purpose, 
Judge  Douglas  has  been  the  most  prominent  instrument  in  chang 
ing  the  position  of  the  institution  of  slavery, —  which  the  fathers  of 
the  government  expected  to  come  to  an  end  ere  this, — and  putting 
it  upon  Brooks's  cotton-gin  basis — placing  it  where  he  openly  con 
fesses  he  has  no  desire  there  shall  ever  be  an  end  of  it. 

I  understand  I  have  ten  minutes  yet.  I  will  employ  it  in  saying 
something  about  this  argument  Judge  Douglas  uses,  while  he  sus 
tains  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  that  the  people  of  the  Territories  can 
still  somehow  exclude  slavery.  The  first  thing  I  ask  attention  to  is 
the  fact  that  Judge  Douglas  constantly  said,  before  the  decision, 


512          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  whether  they  could  or  not,  was  a  question  for  the  Supreme 
Court.  But  after  the  court  has  made  the  decision,  he  virtually  says 
it  is  not  a  question  for  the  Supreme  Court,  but  for  the  people. 
And  how  is  it  he  tells  us  they  can  exclude  it?  He  says  it  needs 
"  police  regulations/'  and  that  admits  of  "  unfriendly  legislation." 
Although  it  is  a  right  established  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  to  take  a  slave  into  a  Territory  of  the  United  States  and 
hold  him  as  property,  yet  unless  the  territorial  legislature  will  give 
friendly  legislation,  and,  more  especially,  if  they  adopt  unfriendly 
legislation,  they  can  practically  exclude  him.  Now,  without  meeting 
this  proposition  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  pass  to  consider  the  real  con 
stitutional  obligation.  Let  me  take  the  gentleman  who  looks  me  in 
the  face  before  me,  and  let  us  suppose  that  he  is  a  member  of  the 
territorial  legislature.  The  first  thing  he  will  do  will  be  to  swear 
that  he  will  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  His 
neighbor  by  his  side  in  the  Territory  has  slaves  and  needs  ter 
ritorial  legislation  to  enable  him  to  enjoy  that  constitutional  right. 
Can  he  withhold  the  legislation  which  his  neighbor  needs  for  the 
enjoyment  of  a  right  which  is  fixed  in  his  favor  in  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  which  he  has  sworn  to  support?  Can  he  with 
hold  it  without  violating  his  oath?  And  more  especially,  can  he  pass 
unfriendly  legislation  to  violate  his  oath  ?  Why,  this  is  a  monstrous 
sort  of  talk  about  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States !  There  has 
never  been  as  outlandish  or  lawless  a  doctrine  from  the  mouth  of 
any  respectable  man  on  earth.  I  do  not  believe  it  is  a  constitutional 
right  to  hold  slaves  in  a  Territory  of  the  United  States.  I  believe 
the  decision  was  improperly  made,  and  I  go  for  reversing  it.  Judge 
Douglas  is  furious  against  those  who  go  for  reversing  a  decision. 
But  he  is  for  legislating  it  out  of  all  force  while  the  law  itself  stands. 
I  repeat  that  there  has  never  been  so  monstrous  a  doctrine  uttered 
from  the  mouth  of  a  respectable  man. 

I  suppose  most  of  us  (I  know  it  of  myself)  believe  that  the  people 
of  the  Southern  States  are  entitled  to  a  congressional  fugitive-slave 
law;  that  is  a  right  fixed  in  the  Constitution.  But  it  cannot  be 
made  available  to  them  without  congressional  legislation.  In  the 
judge's  language,  it  is  a  "barren  right"  which  needs  legislation 
before  it  can  become  efficient  and  valuable  to  the  persons  to  whom 
it  is  guaranteed.  And,  as  the  right  is  constitutional,  I  agree  that 
the  legislation  shall  be  granted  to  it.  Not  that  we  like  the  insti 
tution  of  slavery  5  we  profess  to  have  no  taste  for  running  and 
catching  negroes  —  at  least,  I  profess  no  taste  for  that  job  at  all. 
Why  then  do  I  yield  support  to  a  fugitive-slave  law  ?  Because  I  do 
not  understand  that  the  Constitution,  which  guarantees  that  right, 
can  be  supported  without  it.  And  if  I  believed  that  the  right  to 
hold  a  slave  in  a  Territory  was  equally  fixed  in  the  Constitution 
with  the  right  to  reclaim  fugitives,  I  should  be  bound  to  give  it  the 
legislation  necessary  to  support  it.  I  say  that  no  man  can  deny  his 
obligation  to  give  the  necessary  legislation  to  support  slavery  in  a 
Territory,  who  believes  it  is  a  constitutional  right  to  have  it  there. 
No  man  can,  who  does  not  give  the  Abolitionists  an  argument  to 
deny  the  obligation  enjoined  by  the  Constitution  to  enact  a  fugitive- 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN          513 

slave  law.  Try  it  now.  It  is  the  strongest  Abolition  argument  ever 
made.  I  say,  if  that  Dred  Scott  decision  is  correct,  then  the  right 
to  hold  slaves  in  a  Territory  is  equally  a  constitutional  right  with 
the  right  of  a  slaveholder  to  have  his  runaway  returned.  No  one 
can  show  the  distinction  between  them.  The  one  is  express,  so  that 
we  cannot  deny  it  j  the  other  is  construed  to  be  in  the  Constitution, 
so  that  he  who  believes  the  decision  to  be  correct  believes  in  the 
right.  And  the  man  who  argues  that  by  unfriendly  legislation,  in 
spite  of  that  constitutional  right,  slavery  may  be  driven  from  the 
Territories,  cannot  avoid  furnishing  an  argument  by  which  Aboli 
tionists  may  deny  the  obligation  to  return  fugitives,  and  claim  the 
power  to  pass  laws  unfriendly  to  the  right  of  the  slaveholder  to 
reclaim  his  fugitive.  I  do  not  know  how  such  an  argument  may 
strike  a  popular  assembly  like  this,  but  I  defy  anybody  to  go  before 
a  body  of  men  whose  minds  are  educated  to  estimating  evidence  and 
reasoning,  and  show  that  there  is  an  iota  of  difference  between  the 
constitutional  right  to  reclaim  a  fugitive,  and  the  constitutional 
right  to  hold  a  slave,  in  a  Territory,  provided  this  Dred  Scott  deci 
sion  is  correct.  I  defy  any  man  to  make  an  argument  that  will 
justify  unfriendly  legislation  to  deprive  a  slaveholder  of  his  right 
to  hold  his  slave  in  a  Territory,  that  will  not  equally,  in  all  its 
length,  breadth,  and  thickness,  furnish  an  argument  for  nullifying 
the  fugitive-slave  law.  Why,  there  is  not  such  an  Abolitionist  in 
the  nation  as  Douglas,  after  all. 


Mr.  Douglas's  Rejoinder  in  the  Alton  Joint  Debate. 

Mr.  Lincoln  has  concluded  his  remarks  by  saying  that  there  is  not 
such  an  Abolitionist  as  I  am  in  all  America.  If  he  could  make  the 
Abolitionists  of  Illinois  believe  that,  he  would  not  have  much  show 
for  the  Senate.  Let  him  make  the  Abolitionists  believe  the  truth  of 
that  statement,  and  his  political  back  is  broken. 

His  first  criticism  upon  me  is  the  expression  of  his  hope  that  the 
war  of  the  administration  will  be  prosecuted  against  me  and  the 
Democratic  party  of  this  State  with  vigor.  He  wants  that  war 
prosecuted  with  vigor ;  I  have  no  doubt  of  it.  His  hopes  of  success, 
and  the  hopes  of  his  party,  depend  solely  upon  it.  They  have  no 
chance  of  destroying  the  Democracy  of  this  State  except  by  the  aid 
of  federal  patronage.  He  has  all  the  federal  office-holders  here  as 
his  allies,  running  separate  tickets  against  the  Democracy  to  divide 
the  party,  although  the  leaders  all  intend  to  vote  directly  the  Aboli 
tion  ticket,  and  only  leave  the  greenhorns  to  vote  this  separate  ticket 
who  refuse  to  go  into  the  Abolition  camp.  There  is  something  really 
refreshing  in  the  thought  that  Mr.  Lincoln  is  in  favor  of  prosecuting 
one  war  vigorously.  It  is  the  first  war  I  ever  knew  him  to  be  in  favor 
of  prosecuting.  It  is  the  first  war  that  I  ever  knew  him  to  believe  to 
be  just  or  constitutional.  When  the  Mexican  war  was  being  waged, 
and  the  American  army  was  surrounded  by  the  enemy  in  Mexico,  he 
thought  the  war  was  unconstitutional,  unnecessary,  and  unjust.  He 
thought  it  was  not  commenced  on  the  right  spot. 
VOL.  I.— 33. 


514          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

When  I  made  an  incidental  allusion  of  that  kind  in  the  joint  dis 
cussion  over  at  Charleston,  some  weeks  ago,  Lincoln,  in  replying, 
said  that  I,  Douglas,  had  charged  him  with  voting  against  supplies 
for  the  Mexican  war,  and  then  he  reared  up,  full  length,  and  swore 
that  he  never  voted  against  the  supplies, —  that  it  was  a  slander, — 
and  caught  hold  of  Ficklin,  who  sat  on  the  stand,  and  said,  "Here, 
Ficklin,  tell  the  people  that  it  is  a  lie."  Well,  Ficklin,  who  had 
served  in  Congress  with  him,  stood  up  and  told  them  all  he  recol 
lected  about  it.  It  was  that  when  George  Ashmun,  of  Massachusetts, 
brought  forward  a  resolution  declaring  the  war  unconstitutional, 
unnecessary,  and  unjust,  Lincoln  had  voted  for  it.  "  Yes,"  said  Lin 
coln,  "  I  did."  Thus  he  confessed  that  he  voted  that  the  war  was 
wrong,  that  our  country  was  in  the  wrong,  and  consequently  that 
the  Mexicans  were  in  the  right ;  but  charged  that  I  had  slandered 
him  by  saying  that  he  voted  against  the  supplies.  I  never  charged 
him  with  voting  against  the  supplies  in  my  life,  because  I  knew  that 
he  was  not  in  Congress  when  they  were  voted.  The  war  was  com 
menced  on  the  13th  day  of  May,  1846,  and  on  that  day  we  appro 
priated  in  Congress  ten  millions  of  dollars  and  fifty  thousand  men  to 
prosecute  it.  During  the  same  session  we  voted  more  men  and  more 
money,  and  at  the  next  session  we  voted  more  men  and  more  money, 
so  that  by  the  time  Mr.  Lincoln  entered  Congress  we  had  enough 
men  and  enough  money  to  carry  on  the  war,  and  had  no  occasion  to 
vote  for  any  more.  When  he  got  into  the  House,  being  opposed  to 
the  war,  and  not  being  able  to  stop  the  supplies,  because  they  had  all 
gone  forward,  all  he  could  do  was  to  follow  the  lead  of  Corwin,  and 
prove  that  the  war  was  not  begun  on  the  right  spot,  and  that  it  was 
unconstitutional,  unnecessary,  and  wron  g.  Remember,  too,  that  this 
he  did  after  the  war  had  been  begun.  It  is  one  thing  to  be  opposed 
to  the  declaration  of  a  war,  another  and  very  different  thing  to  take 
sides  with  the  enemy  against  your  own  country  after  the  war  has 
been  commenced.  Our  army  was  in  Mexico  at  the  time,  many  battles 
had  been  fought  j  our  citizens,  who  were  defending  the  honor  of  their 
country's  flag,  were  surrounded  by  the  daggers,  the  guns,  and  the 
poison  of  the  enemy.  Then  it  was  that  Corwin  made  his  speech  in 
which  he  declared  that  the  American  soldiers  ought  to  be  welcomed 
by  the  Mexicans  with  bloody  hands  and  hospitable  graves ;  then  it 
was  that  Ashmun  and  Lincoln  voted  in  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  that  the  war  was  unconstitutional  and  unjust ;  and  Ashmun's 
resolution,  Corwin's  speech,  and  Lincoln's  vote  were  sent  to  Mexico 
and  read  at  the  head  of  the  Mexican  army,  to  prove  to  them  that 
there  was  a  Mexican  party  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  who 
were  doing  all  in  their  power  to  aid  them.  That  a  man. who  takes 
sides  with  the  common  enemy  against  his  own  country  in  time  of 
war  should  rejoice  in  a  war  being  made  on  me  now,  is  very  natural. 
And,  in  my  opinion,  no  other  kind  of  a  man  would  rejoice  in  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln  has  told  you  a  great  deal  to-day  about  his  being  an 
old-line  Clay  Whig.  Bear  in  mind  that  there  are  a  great  many  old 
Clay  Whigs  down  in  this  region.  It  is  more  agreeable,  therefore, 
for  him  to  talk  about  the  old  Clay  Whig  party  than  it  is  for  him  to 
talk  Abolitionism.  We  did  not  hear  much  about  the  old  Clay  Whig 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          515 

party  up  in  the  Abolition  districts.  How  much  of  an  old-line  Henry 
Clay  Whig  was  he?  Have  you  read  General  Singleton's  speech  at 
Jacksonville?  You  know  that  General  Singleton  was,  for  twenty- 
five  years,  the  confidential  friend  of  Henry  Clay  in  Illinois,  and  he 
testified  that  in  1847,  when  the  constitutional  convention  of  this 
State  was  in  session,  the  Whig  members  were  invited  to  a  Whig 
caucus  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  brother-in-law,  where  Mr. 
Lincoln  proposed  to  throw  Henry  Clay  overboard  and  take  up  Gen 
eral  Taylor  in  his  place,  giving,  as  his  reason,  that  if  the  Whigs  did 
not  take  up  General  Taylor,  the  Democrats  would.  Singleton  testi 
fies  that  Lincoln,  in  that  speech,  urged,  as  another  reason  for  throw 
ing  Henry  Clay  overboard,  that  the  Whigs  had  fought  long  enough 
for  principle,  and  ought  to  begin  to  fight  for  success.  Singleton 
also  testifies  that  Lincoln's  speech  did  have  the  effect  of  cutting 
Clay's  throat,  and  that  he  (Singleton)  and  others  withdrew  from  the 
caucus  in  indignation.  He  further  states  that  when  they  got  to 
Philadelphia  to  attend  the  national  convention  of  the  Whig  party, 
that  Lincoln  was  there,  the  bitter  and  deadly  enemy  of  Clay,  and 
that  he  tried  to  keep  him  (Singleton)  out  of  the  convention  because 
he  insisted  on  voting  for  Clay,  and  Lincoln  was  determined  to  have 
Taylor.  Singleton  says  that  Lincoln  rejoiced  with  very  great  joy 
when  he  found  the  mangled  remains  of  the  murdered  Whig  states 
man  lying  cold  before  him.  Now  Mr.  Lincoln  tells  you  that  he  is 
an  old-line  Clay  Whig!  General  Singleton  testifies  to  the  facts  I 
have  narrated,  in  a  public  speech  which  has  been  printed  and  cir 
culated  broadcast  over  the  State  for  weeks,  yet  not  a  lisp  have  we 
heard  from  Mr.  Lincoln  on  the  subject,  except  that  he  is  an  old 
Clay  Whig. 

What  part  of  Henry  Clay's  policy  did  Lincoln  ever  advocate  ?  He 
was  in  Congress  in  1848-49,  when  the  Wilmot  proviso  warfare  dis 
turbed  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  country,  until  it  shook  the 
foundation  of  the  republic  from  its  center  to  its  circumference.  It 
was  that  agitation  that  brought  Clay  forth  from  his  retirement  at 
Ashland  again  to  occupy  his  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
to  see  if  he  could  not,  by  his  great  wisdom  and  experience,  and  the 
renown  of  his  name,  do  something  to  restore  peace  and  quiet  to  a 
disturbed  country.  Who  got  up  that  sectional  strife  that  Clay  had 
to  be  called  upon  to  quell  ?  I  have  heard  Lincoln  boast  that  he  voted 
forty-two  times  for  the  Wilmot  proviso,  and  that  he  would  have 
voted  as  many  times  more  if  he  could.  Lincoln  is  the  man,  in  con 
nection  with  Seward,  Chase,  Giddings,  and  other  Abolitionists,  who 
got  up  that  strife  that  I  helped  Clay  to  put  down.  Henry  Clay  came 
back  to  the  Senate  in  1849,  and  saw  that  he  must  do  something  to 
restore  peace  to  the  country.  The  Union  Whigs  and  the  Union 
Democrats  welcomed  him  the  moment  he  arrived,  as  the  man  for  the 
occasion.  We  believed  that  he,  of  all  men  on  earth,  had  been  pre 
served  by  divine  providence  to  guide  us  out  of  our  difficulties,  and 
we  Democrats  rallied  under  Clay  then,  as  you  Whigs  in  nullification 
times  rallied  under  the  banner  of  old  Jackson,  forgetting  party  when 
the  country  was  in  danger,  in  order  that  we  might  have  a  country 
first  and  parties  afterward. 


516          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

And  this  reminds  me  that  Mr.  Lincoln  told  you  that  the  slavery  ques 
tion  was  the  only  thing  that  ever  disturbed  the  peace  and  harmony 
of  the  Union.  Did  not  nullification  once  raise  its  head  and  disturb 
the  peace  of  this  Union  in  1832?  Was  that  the  slavery  question,  Mr. 
Lincoln?  Did  not  disunion  raise  its  monster  head  during  the  last 
war  with  Great  Britain  ?  Was  that  the  slavery  question,  Mr.  Lin 
coln?  The  peace  of  this  country  has  been  disturbed  three  times, 
once  during  the  war  with  Great  Britain,  once  on  the  tariff  question, 
and  once  on  the  slavery  question.  His  argument,  therefore,  that 
slavery  is  the  only  question  that  has  ever  created  dissension  in  the 
Union  falls  to  the  ground.  It  is  true  that  agitators  are  enabled  now 
to  use  this  slavery  question  for  the  purpose  of  sectional  strife.  He 
admits  that,  in  regard  to  all  things  else,  the  principle  that  I  advocate, 
making  each  State  and  Territory  free  to  decide  for  itself,  ought  to 
prevail.  He  instances  the  cranberry  laws,  and  the  oyster  laws,  and 
he  might  have  gone  through  the  whole  list  with  the  same  effect.  I 
say  that  all  these  laws  are  local  and  domestic,  and  that  local  and  do 
mestic  concerns  should  be  left  to  each  State  and  Territory  to  manage 
for  itself.  If  agitators  would  acquiesce  in  that  principle,  there  never 
would  be  any  danger  to  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  Union. 

Mr.  Lincoln  tries  to  avoid  the  main  issue  by  attacking  the  truth 
of  my  proposition,  that  our  fathers  made  this  government  divided 
into  free  and  slave  States,  recognizing  the  right  of  each  to  decide 
all  its  local  questions  for  itself.  Did  they  not  thus  make  it  ?  It  is 
true  that  they  did  not  establish  slavery  in  any  of  the  States,  or  abol 
ish  it  in  any  of  them ;  but  finding  thirteen  States,  twelve  of  which 
were  slave  and  one  free,  they  agreed  to  form  a  government  uniting 
them  together,  as  they  stood,  divided  into  free  and  slave  States,  and 
to  guarantee  forever  to  each  State  the  right  to  do  as  it  pleased  on 
the  slavery  question.  Having  thus  made  the  government,  and  con 
ferred  this  right  upon  each  State  forever,  I  assert  that  this  govern 
ment  can  exist  as  they  made  it,  divided  into  free  and  slave  States, 
if  any  one  State  chooses  to  retain  slavery.  He  says  that  he  looks 
forward  to  a  time  when  slavery  shall  be  abolished  everywhere.  I 
look  forward  to  the  time  when  each  State  shall  be  allowed  to  do 
as  it  pleases.  If  it  chooses  to  keep  slavery  forever,  it  is  not  my 
business,  but  its  own ;  if  it  chooses  to  abolish  slavery,  it  is  its  own 
business,  not  mine.  I  care  more  for  the  great  principle  of  self- 
government,  the  right  of  the  people  to  rule,  than  I  do  for  all  the 
negroes  in  Christendom.  I  would  not  endanger  the  perpetuity  of 
this  Union;  I  would  not  blot  out  the  great  inalienable  rights  of  the 
white  men  for  all  the  negroes  that  ever  existed.  Hence,  I  say,  let 
us  maintain  this  government  on  the  principles  on  which  our  fathers 
made  it,  recognizing  the  right  of  each  State  to  keep  slavery  as  long 
as  its  people  determine,  or  to  abolish  it  when  they  please.  But  Mr. 
Lincoln  says  that  when  our  fathers  made  this  government  they  did 
not  look  forward  to  the  state  of  things  now  existing,  and  therefore 
he  thinks  the  doctrine  was  wrong  j  and  he  quotes  Brooks,  of  South 
Carolina,  to  prove  that  our  fathers  then  thought  that  probably 
slavery  would  be  abolished  by  each  State  acting  for  itself  before 
this  time.  Suppose  they  did ;  suppose  they  did  not  foresee  what 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          517 

has  occurred  —  does  that  change  the  principles  of  our  government? 
They  did  not  probably  foresee  the  telegraph  that  transmits  intelli 
gence  by  lightning ;  nor  did  they  foresee  the  railroads  that  now 
form  the  bonds  of  union  between  the  different  States  j  or  the  thou 
sand  mechanical  inventions  that  have  elevated  mankind.  But  do 
these  things  change  the  principles  of  the  government  ?  Our  fathers, 
I  say,  made  this  government  on  the  principle  of  the  right  of  each 
State  to  do  as  it  pleases  in  its  own  domestic  affairs,  subject  to  the 
Constitution,  and  allowed  the  people  of  each  to  apply  to  every  new 
change  of  circumstances  such  remedy  as  they  may  see  fit  to  improve 
their  condition.  This  right  they  have  for  all  time  to  come. 

Mr.  Lincoln  went  on  to  tell  you  that  he  does  not  at  all  desire  to 
interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists,  nor  does  his 
party.  I  expected  him  to  say  that  down  here.  Let  me  ask  him 
then  how  he  expects  to  put  slavery  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinc 
tion  everywhere,  if  he  does  not  intend  to  interfere  with  it  in  the 
States  where  it  exists  ?  He  says  that  he  will  prohibit  it  in  all  Ter 
ritories,  and  the  inference  is,  then,  that  unless  they  make  free  States 
out  of  them  he  will  keep  them  out  of  the  Union ;  for,  mark  you,  he 
did  not  say  whether  or  not  he  would  vote  to  admit  Kansas  with 
slavery  or  not,  as  her  people  might  apply  (he  forgot  that,  as  usual)  ; 
he  did  not  say  whether  or  not  he  was  in  favor  of  bringing  the 
Territories  now  in  existence  into  the  Union  on  the  principle  of 
Clay's  compromise  measures  on  the  slavery  question.  I  told  you 
that  he  would  not.  His  idea  is  that  he  will  prohibit  slavery  in  all 
the  Territories,  and  thus  force  them  all  to  become  free  States,  sur 
rounding  the  slave  States  with  a  cordon  of  free  States  and  hem 
ming  them  in,  keeping  the  slaves  confined  to  their  present  limits 
whilst  they  go  on  multiplying  until  the  soil  on  which  they  live  will 
no  longer  feed  them,  and  he  will  thus  be  able  to  put  slavery  in  a 
course  of  ultimate  extinction  by  starvation.  He  will  extinguish 
slavery  in  the  Southern  States  as  the  French  general  extinguished 
the  Algerines  when  he  smoked  them  out.  He  is  going  to  extin 
guish  slavery  by  surrounding  the  slave  States,  hemming  in  the 
slaves,  and  starving  them  out  of  existence,  as  you  smoke  a  fox  out 
of  his  hole.  He  intends  to  do  that  in  the  name  of  humanity  and 
Christianity,  in  order  that  we  may  get  rid  of  the  terrible  crime  and 
sin  entailed  upon  our  fathers  of  holding  slaves.  Mr.  Lincoln  makes 
out  that  line  of  policy,  and  appeals  to  the  moral  sense  of  justice 
and  to  the  Christian  feeling  of  the  community  to  sustain  him.  He 
says  that  any  man  who  holds  to  the  contrary  doctrine  is  in  the  po 
sition  of  the  king  who  claimed  to  govern  by  divine  right.  Let  us 
examine  for  a  moment  and  see  what  principle  it  was  that  over 
threw  the  divine  right  of  George  III.  to  govern  us.  Did  not  these 
colonies  rebel  because  the  British  parliament  had  no  right  to  pass 
laws  concerning  our  property  and  domestic  and  private  institu 
tions  without  our  consent  ?  We  demanded  that  the  British  govern 
ment  should  not  pass  such  laws  unless  they  gave  us  representation 
in  the  body  passing  them — and  this  the  British  government  insist 
ing  on  doing,  we  went  to  war,  on  the  principle  that  the  home 
government  should  not  control  and  govern  distant  colonies  without 


518          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

giving  them  a  representation.  Now  Mr.  Lincoln  proposes  to  govern 
the  Territories  without  giving  them  a  representation,  and  calls  on 
Congress  to  pass  laws  controlling  their  property  and  domestic  con 
cerns  without  their  consent  and  against  their  will.  Thus  he  asserts 
for  his  party  the  identical  principle  asserted  by  George  III.  and  the 
Tories  of  the  Revolution. 

I  ask  you  to  look  into  these  things,  and  then  tell  me  whether  the 
Democracy  or  the  Abolitionists  are  right.  I  hold  that  the  people  of 
a  Territory,  like  those  of  a  State  (I  use  the  language  of  Mr.  Buchanan 
in  his  letter  of  acceptance),  have  the  right  to  decide  for  themselves 
whether  slavery  shall  or  shall  not  exist  within  their  limits.  The  point 
upon  which  Chief  Justice  Taney  expresses  his  opinion  is  simply  this, 
that  slaves,  being  property,  stand  on  an  equal  footing  with  other 
property,  and  consequently  that  the  owner  has  the  same  right  to  carry 
that  property  into  a  Territory  that  he  has  any  other,  subject  to  the 
same  conditions.  Suppose  that  one  of  your  merchants  was  to  take 
fifty  or  one  hundred  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  liquors  to  Kansas. 
He'  has  a  right  to  go  there  under  that  decision,  but  when  he  gets 
there  he  finds  the  Maine  liquor-law  in  force,  and  what  can  he  do  with 
his  property  after  he  gets  it  there?  He  cannot  sell  it,  he  cannot  use 
it,  it  is  subject  to  the  local  law,  and  that  law  is  against  him,  and  the 
best  thing  he  can  do  with  it  is  to  bring  it  back  into  Missouri  or  Illi 
nois  and  sell  it.  If  you  take  negroes  to  Kansas,  as  Colonel  Jefferson 
Davis  said  in  his  Bangor  speech,  from  which  I  have  quoted  to-day, 
you  must  take  them  there  subject  to  the  local  law.  If  the  people 
want  the  institution  of  slavery,  they  will  protect  and  encourage  it; 
but  if  they  do  not  want  it,  they  will  withhold  that  protection,  and  the 
absence  of  local  legislation  protecting  slavery  excludes  it  as  com 
pletely  as  a  positive  prohibition.  You  slaveholders  of  Missouri 
might  as  well  understand  what  you  know  practically,  that  you  cannot 
carry  slavery  where  the  people  do  not  want  it.  All  you  have  a  right 
to  ask  is  that  the  people  shall  do  as  they  please ;  if  they  want  slavery, 
let  them  have  it;  if  they  do  not  want  it,  allow  them  to  refuse  to 
encourage  it. 

My  friends,  if,  as  I  have  said  before,  we  will  only  live  up  to  this 
great  fundamental  principle,  there  will  be  peace  between  the  North 
and  the  South.  Mr.  Lincoln  admits  that  under  the  Constitution,  on 
all  domestic  questions  except  slavery^  we  ought  not  to  interfere  with 
the  people  of  each  State.  What  right  have  we  to  interfere  with 
slavery  any  more  than  we  have  to  interfere  with  any  other  question? 
He  says  that  this  slavery  question  is  now  the  bone  of  contention. 
Why?  Simply  because  agitators  have  combined  in  all  the  free  States 
to  make  war  upon  it.  Suppose  the  agitators  in  the  States  should 
combine  in  one  half  of  the  Union  to  make  war  upon  the  railroad  sys 
tem  of  the  other  half.  They  would  thus  be  driven  to  the  same  sec 
tional  strife.  Suppose  one  section  makes  war  upon  any  other  peculiar 
institution  of  the  opposite  section,  and  the  same  strife  is  produced. 
The  only  remedy  and  safety  is  that  we  shall  stand  by  the  Constitution 
as  our  fathers  made  it,  obey  the  laws  as  they  are  passed,  while  they 
stand  the  proper  test,  and  sustain  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court 
and  the  constituted  authorities. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          519 

[October  15?]  1858. — FRAGMENT.   OPINION  ON  ELECTION  LAWS  OF 

ILLINOIS. 

It  is  made  a  question  whether,  under  our  laws,  a  person  offering 
to  vote,  and  being  challenged,  and  having  taken  the  oath  prescribed 
by  the  act  of  1849,  is  then  absolutely  entitled  to  vote,  or  whether 
his  oath  may  be  disproved,  and  his  vote  thereon  lawfully  rejected. 
In  Purple's  Statutes,  Volume  I,  all  our  existing  election  laws  are 
brought  together,  commencing  on  page  514  and  extending  to  page 
532.  They  consist  of  acts  and  parts  of  acts  passed  at  different  times. 
The  true  way  of  reading  so  much  of  the  law  as  applies  to  the  above 
question,  is  to  first  read  (64)  section  x,  including  the  form  of  the 
oath  on  page  528.  Then  turn  back  and  read  (19)  section  xix,  on 
page  518.  If  it  be  said  that  the  section  last  mentioned  is  not  now 
in  force,  turn  forward  to  (75)  section  xxi,  on  page  530,  where  it  is 
expressly  declared  to  be  in  force. 

The  result  is  that  when  a  person  has  taken  the  oath,  his  oath  may 
still  be  proved  to  be  false,  and  his  vote  thereupon  rejected.  It  may 
be  proved  to  be  false  by  cross-examining  the  proposed  voter  himself, 
or  by  any  other  person,  or  competent  testimony  known  to  the  gen 
eral  law  of  evidence.  On  page  532  is  an  extract  of  a  Supreme  Court 
decision  on  the  very  section  xix,  on  page  518,  in  which,  among  other 
things,  the  court  says:  "If  such  person  takes  the  oath  prescribed 
by  law,  the  judges  must  receive  his  vote,  unless  the  oath  be  proved 
false."  Something  of  a  definition  of  residence  is  therein  given. 

October  30, 1858. —  LETTER  TO  E.  LUSK. 

SPRINGFIELD,  October  30,  1858. 
EDWARD  LUSK,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir:  I  understand  the  story  is  still  being  told  and  insisted 
upon  that  I  have  been  a  Know-nothing.  I  repeat  what  I  stated  in 
a  public  speech  at  Meredosia,  that  I  am  not,  nor  ever  have  been,  con 
nected  with  the  party  called  the  Know-nothing  party,  or  party  call 
ing  themselves  the  American  party.  Certainly  no  man  of  truth,  and 
I  believe  no  man  of  good  character  for  truth,  can  be  found  to  say  on 
his  own  knowledge  that  I  ever  was  connected  with  that  party. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

November  4,  1858.— LETTER  TO  J.  J.  CRITTENDEN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  November  4,  1858. 
HON.  J.  J.  CRITTENDEN. 

My  dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  27th  was  taken  from  the  office  by 
my  law  partner,  and  in  the  confusion  consequent  upon  the  recent 
election,  was  handed  to  me  only  this  moment.  I  am  sorry  the  allu 
sion  made  in  the  "  Missouri  Republican "  to  the  private  correspon 
dence  between  yourself  and  me  has  given  you  any  pain.  It  gave  me 
scarcely  a  thought,  perhaps  for  the  reason  that,  being  away  from 
home,  I  did  not  see  it  until  only  two  days  before  the  election.  It 


520          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

never  occurred  to  me  to  cast  any  blame  upon  you.  I  have  been  told 
that  the  correspondence  has  been  alluded  to  in  the  "Missouri  Repub 
lican"  several  times  5  but  I  only  saw  one  of  the  allusions  made,  in 
which  it  was  stated,  as  I  remember,  that  a  gentleman  of  St.  Louis 
had  seen  a  copy  of  your  letter  to  me.  As  I  have  given  no  copy,  nor 
ever  shown  the  original,  of  course  I  inferred  he  had  seen  it  in  your 
hands  5  but  it  did  not  occur  to  me  to  blame  you  for  showing  what 
you  had  written  yourself.  It  was  not  said  that  the  gentleman  had 
seen  a  copy,  or  the  original,  of  my  letter  to  you. 

The  emotions  of  defeat  at  the  close  of  a  struggle  in  which  I  felt 

more  than  a  merely  selfish  interest,  and  to  which  defeat  the  use  of 

your  name  contributed  largely,  are  fresh  upon  me;  but  even  in  this 

mood  I  cannot  for  a  moment  suspect  you  of  anything  dishonorable. 

Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINCOLN. 

November  15,  1858. — LETTER  TO  N.  B.  JUDD. 

SPRINGFIELD,  November  15,  1858. 
HON.  N.  B.  JUDD. 

My  dear  Sir:  I  have  the  pleasure  to  inform  you  that  I  am  con 
valescent,  and  hoping  these  lines  may  find  you  in  the  same  improv 
ing  state  of  health.  Doubtless  you  have  suspected  for  some  time 
that  I  entertain  a  personal  wish  for  a  term  in  the  United  States 
Senate ;  and  had  the  suspicion  taken  the  shape  of  a  direct  charge,  I 
think  I  could  not  have  truthfully  denied  it.  But  let  the  past  as 
nothing  be.  For  the  future,  my  view  is  that  the  fight  must  go  on. 
The  returns  here  are  not  yet  completed ;  but  it  is  believed  that 
Dougherty's  vote  will  be  slightly  greater  than  Miller's  majority  over 
Tracy.  We  have  some  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  clear  Repub 
lican  votes.  That  pile  is  worth  keeping  together.  It  will  elect  a 
State  treasurer  two  years  hence. 

In  that  day  I  shall  fight  in  the  ranks,  but  I  shall  be  in  no  one's 
way  for  any  of  the  places.  I  am  especially  for  TrumbulFs  reelec 
tion  ;  and,  by  the  way,  this  brings  me  to  the  principal  object  of  this 
letter.  Can  you  not  take  your  draft  of  an  apportionment  law,  and 
carefully  revise  it  till  it  shall  be  strictly  and  obviously  just  in  all  par 
ticulars,  and  then  by  an  early  and  persistent  effort  get  enough  of  the 
enemy's  men  to  enable  you  to  pass  it  ?  I  believe  if  you  and  Peck 
make  a  job  of  it,  begin  early,  and  work  earnestly  and  quietly,  you  can 
succeed  in  it.  Unless  something  be  done,  Trumbull  is  eventually 
beaten  two  years  hence.  Take  this  into  serious  consideration. 

Yours  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 

November  16, 1858. —  LETTER  TO  N.  B.  JUDD. 

SPRINGFIELD,  November  16,  1858. 
HON.  N.  B.  JUDD. 

Dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  15th  is  just  received.  I  wrote  you  the 
same  day.  As  to  the  pecuniary  matter,  I  am  willing  to  pay  accord 
ing  to  my  ability ;  but  I  am  the  poorest  hand  living  to  get  others 


ADDRESSES    AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          521 

to  pay.  I  have  been  on  expenses  so  long  without  earning  anything 
that  I  am  absolutely  without  money  now  for  even  household  purposes. 
Still,  if  you  can  put  in  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  for  me  toward 
discharging  the  debt  of  the  committee,  I  will  allow  it  when  you  and 
I  settle  the  private  matter  between  us.  This,  with  what  I  have 
already  paid,  and  with  an  outstanding  note  of  mine,  will  exceed  my 
subscription  of  five  hundred  dollars.  This,  too,  is  exclusive  of  my 
ordinary  expenses  during  the  campaign,  all  of  which  being  added  to 
my  loss  of  time  and  business,  bears  pretty  heavily  upon  one  no  better 
off  in  [this]  world's  goods  than  I ;  but  as  I  had  the  post  of  honor,  it 
is  not  for  me  to  be  over  nice.  You  are  feeling  badly, —  "And  this 
too  shall  pass  away/7  never  fear.  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

November  19,  1858. —  LETTER  TO  H.  ASBURY. 

SPRINGFIELD,  November  19,  1858. 
HENRY  ASBURY,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir  :  Yours  of  the  13th  was  received  some  days  ago.  The 
fight  must  go  on.  The  cause  of  civil  liberty  must  not  be  surrendered 
at  the  end  of  one  or  even  one  hundred  defeats.  Douglas  had  the 
ingenuity  to  be  supported  in  the  late  contest  both  as  the  best  means 
to  break  down  and  to  uphold  the  slave  interest.  No  ingenuity  can 
keep  these  antagonistic  elements  in  harmony  long.  Another  explo 
sion  will  soon  come.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

November  19, 1858. —  LETTER  TO  A.  G-.  HENRY. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  November  19,  1858. 
DR.  A.  G.  HENRY. 

My  dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  27th  of  September  was  received  two 
days  ago.  I  was  at  Oquawka,  Henderson  County,  on  the  9th  of 
October ;  and  I  may  then  have  seen  Major  A.  N.  Armstrong ;  but 
having  nothing  then  to  fix  my  attention,  I  do  not  remember  such  a 
man.  I  have  concluded,  as  the  best  way  of  serving  you,  to  inclose 
your  letter  to  E.  A.  Paine,  Esq.,  of  Monmouth,  111.,  a  reliable  law 
yer,  asking  him  to  do  what  you  ask  of  me.  If  a  suit  is  to  be 
brought,  he  will  correspond  directly  with  you. 

You  doubtless  have  seen  ere  this  the  result  of  the  election  here. 
Of  course  I  wished,  but  I  did  not  much  expect,  a  better  result. 
The  popular  vote  of  the  State  is  with  us ;  so  that  the  seat  in  the 

(Lower  portion  of  page  cut  off.) 

whole  canvass.  On  the  contrary,  John  and  George  "Weber,  and 
several  such  old  Democrats,  were  furiously  for  me.  As  a  general 
rule,  out  of  Sangamon  as  well  as  in  it,  much  of  the  plain  old  De 
mocracy  is  with  us,  while  nearly  all  the  old  exclusive  silk-stocking 
Whiggery  is  against  us.  I  don't  mean  nearly  all  the  Old  Whig  party, 
but  nearly  all  of  the  nice  exclusive  sort.  And  why  not?  There 


522          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

has  been  nothing  in  politics  since  the  Revolution  so  congenial  to 
their  nature  as  the  present  position  of  the  great  Democratic  party. 
I  am  glad  I  made  the  late  race.  It  gave  me  a  hearing  on  the 
great  and  durable  question  of  the  age,  which  I  could  have  had  in 
no  other  way ;  and  though  I  now  sink  out  of  view,  and  shall  be  for 
gotten,  I  believe  I  have  made  some  marks  which  will  tell  for  the 
cause  of  civil  liberty  long  after  I  am  gone.  Mary  joins  me  in  send 
ing  our  best  wishes  to  Mrs.  Henry  and  others  of  your  family. 

November  25,  1858. —  LETTER  TO  J.  A.  MATTESON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  November  25,  1858. 
HON.  JOEL  A.  MATTESON. 

Dear  Sir:  Last  summer,  when  a  movement  was  made  in  court 
against  your  road,  you  engaged  us  to  be  on  your  side.  It  has  so 
happened  that,  so  far,  we  have  performed  no  service  in  the  case ; 
but  we  lost  a  cash  fee  offered  us  on  the  other  side.  Now,  being  hard 
run,  we  propose  a  little  compromise.  We  will  claim  nothing  for  the 
matter  just  mentioned,  if  you  will  relieve  us  at  once  from  the  old 
matter  at  the  Marine  and  Fire  Insurance  Company,  and  be  greatly 
obliged  to  boot.  Can  you  not  do  it? 

Yours  truly,    A.  LINCOLN. 

[February  22]  1859. —  LECTURE  ON  "  DISCOVERIES,  INVENTIONS,  AND 
IMPROVEMENTS,"  DELIVERED  IN  NEIGHBORING  TOWNS  IN  1859,  AND 
BEFORE  THE  SPRINGFIELD  LIBRARY  ASSOCIATION,  SPRINGFIELD, 
ILLINOIS,  FEBRUARY  22,  1860. 

From  autograph  manuscript  in  the  Lincoln  Collection  of  Charles  F. 
Gunther,  Esq.,  Chicago,  Illinois. 

We  have  all  heard  of  Young  America.  He  is  the  most  current 
youth  of  the  age.  Some  think  him  conceited  and  arrogant ;  but  has 
he  not  reason  to  entertain  a  rather  extensive  opinion  of  himself? 
Is  he  not  the  inventor  and  owner  of  the  present,  and  sole  hope  of 
the  future  ?  Men  and  things,  everywhere,  are  ministering  unto  him. 
Look  at  his  apparel,  and  you  shall  see  cotton  fabrics  from  Man 
chester  and  Lowell ;  flax  linen  from  Ireland ;  wool  cloth  from  Spain  • 
silk  from  France ;  furs  from  the  arctic  region  ;  with  a  buffalo-robe 
from  the  Rocky  Mountains,  as  a  general  outsider.  At  his  table,  be 
sides  plain  bread  and  meat  made  at  home,  are  sugar  from  Louisiana, 
coffee  and  fruits  from  the  tropics,  salt  from  Turk's  Island,  fish  from 
Newfoundland,  tea  from  China,  and  spices  from  the  Indies.  The 
whale  of  the  Pacific  furnishes  his  candle-light,  he  has  a  diamond  ring 
from  Brazil,  a  gold  watch  from  California,  and  a  Spanish  cigar  from 
Havana.  He  not  only  has  a  present  supply  of  all  these,  and  much 
more ;  but  thousands  of  hands  are  engaged  in  producing  fresh  sup 
plies,  and  other  thousands  in  bringing  them  to  him.  The  iron  horse 
is  panting  and  impatient  to  carry  him  everywhere  in  no  time  j  and  the 
lightning  stands  ready  harnessed  to  take  and  bring  his  tidings  in  a 


'ADDKESSES  AND  LETTERS  or  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN       523 

trifle  less  than  no  time.  He  owns  a  large  part  of  the  world,  by  right 
of  possessing  it,  and  all  the  rest  by  right  of  wanting  it,  and  intend 
ing  to  have  it.  As  Plato  had  for  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  so 
Young  America  has  "a  pleasing  hope,  a  fond  desire  —  a  longing 
after  "  territory.  He  has  a  great  passion  —  a  perfect  rage  —  for  the 
41  new";  particularly  new  men  for  office,  and  the  new  earth  mentioned 
in  the  Revelations,  in  which, 'being  no  more  sea,  there  must  be  about 
three  times  as  much  land  as  in  the  present.  He  is  a  great  friend  of 
humanity ;  and  his  desire  for  land  is  not  selfish,  but  merely  an  im 
pulse  to  extend  the  area  of  freedom.  He  is  very  anxious  to  fight 
for  the  liberation  of  enslaved  nations  and  colonies,  provided,  always, 
they  have  land,  and  have  not  any  liking  for  his  interference.  As  to 
those  who  have  no  land,  and  would  be  glad  of  help  from  any  quarter, 
he  considers  they  can  afford  to  wait  a  few  hundred  years  longer.  In 
knowledge  he  is  particularly  rich.  He  knows  all  that  can  possibly 
be  known;  inclines  to  believe  in  spiritual  rappings,  and  is  the  un 
questioned  inventor  of  "  Manifest  Destiny."  His  horror  is  for  all 
that  is  old,  particularly  "  Old  Fogy  n ;  and  if  there  be  anything  old 
which  he  can  endure,  it  is  only  old  whisky  and  old  tobacco. 

If  the  said  Young  America  really  is,  as  he  claims  to  be,  the  owner 
of  all  present,  it  must  be  admitted  that  he  has  considerable  advan 
tage  of  Old  Fogy.  Take,  for  instance,  the  first  of  all  fogies,  Father 
Adam.  There  he  stood,  a  very  perfect  physical  man,  as  poets  and 
painters  inform  us;  but  he  must  have  been  very  ignorant,  and  sim 
ple  in  his  habits.  He  had  had  no  sufficient  time  to  learn  much  by 
observation,  and  he  had  no  near  neighbors  to  teach  him  anything. 
No  part  of  his  breakfast  had  been  brought  from  the  other  side  of 
the  world  j  and  it  is  quite  probable  he  had  no  conception  of  the 
world  having  any  other  side.  In  all  these  things,  it  is  very  plain,  he 
was  no  equal  of  Young  America ;  the  most  that  can  be  said  is,  that 
according  to  his  chance  he  may  have  been  quite  as  much  of  a  man 
as  his  very  self-complacent  descendant.  Little  as  was  what  he 
knew,  let  the  youngster  discard  all  he  has  learned  from  others,  and 
then  show,  if  he  can,  any  advantage  on  his  side.  In  the  way  of  land 
and  live-stock,  Adam  was  quite  in  the  ascendant.  He  had  dominion 
over  all  the  earth,  and  all  the  living  things  upon  and  round  about  it. 
The  land  has  been  sadly  divided  out  since;  but  never  fret,  Young 
America  will  re-annex  it. 

The  great  difference  between  Young  America  and  Old  Fogy  is  the 
result  of  discoveries,  inventions,  and  improvements.  These,  in  turn, 
are  the  result  of  observation,  reflection,  and  experiment.  For  in 
stance,  it  is  quite  certain  that  ever  since  water  has  been  boiled  in 
covered  vessels,  men  have  seen  the  lids  of  the  vessels  rise  and  fall  a 
little,  with  a  sort  of  fluttering  motion,  by  force  of  the  steam ;  but  so 
long  as  this  was  not  specially  observed,  and  reflected,  and  experi 
mented  upon,  it  came  to  nothing.  At  length,  however,  after  many 
thousand  years,  some  man  observes  this  long-known  effect  of  hot 
water  lifting  a  pot-lid,  and  begins  a  train  of  reflection  upon  it.  He 
says,  u  Why,  to  be  sure,  the  force  that  lifts  the  pot-lid  will  lift  any 
thing  else  which  is  no  heavier  than  the  pot-lid.  And  as  man  has 
much  hard  fighting  to  do,  cannot  this  hot-water  power  be  made  to 


524          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

help  him  ?  "  He  has  become  a  little  excited  on  the  subject,  and  he 
fancies  he  hears  a  voice  answering,  "  Try  me."  He  does  try  it ;  and 
the  observation,  reflection,  and  trial  give  to  the  world  the  control  of 
that  tremendous  and  now  well-known  agent  called  steam-power. 
This  is  not  the  actual  history  in  detail,  but  the  general  principle. 

But  was  this  first  inventor  of  the  application  of  steam  wiser  or 
more  ingenious  than  those  who  had  gone  before  him?  Not  at  all. 
Had  he  not  learned  much  of  those,  he  never  would  have  succeeded, 
probably  never  would  have  thought  of  making  the  attempt.  To  be 
fruitful  in  invention,  it  is  indispensable  to  have  a  habit  of  observa 
tion  and  reflection;  and  this  habit  our  steam  friend  acquired,  no 
doubt,  from  those  who,  to  him,  were  old  fogies.  But  for  the  difference 
in  habit  of  observation,  why  did  Yankees  almost  instantly  discover 
gold  in  California,  which  had  been  trodden  upon  and  overlooked  by 
Indians  and  Mexican  greasers  for  centuries  ?  Gold-mines  are  not  the 
only  mines  overlooked  in  the  same  way.  There  are  more  mines  above 
the  earth's  surface  than  below  it.  All  nature  — the  whole  world,  ma 
terial,  moral,  and  intellectual — is  a  mine;  and  in  Adam's  day  it  was  a 
wholly  unexplored  mine.  Now,  it  was  the  destined  work  of  Adam's 
race  to  develop,  by  discoveries,  inventions,  and  improvements,  the 
hidden  treasures  of  this  mine.  But  Adam  had  nothing  to  turn  his 
attention  to  the  work.  If  he  should  do  anything  in  the  way  of  inven 
tions,  he  had  first  to  invent  the  art  of  invention,  the  instance,  at  least, 
if  not  the  habit,  of  observation  and  reflection.  As  might  be  expected, 
he  seems  not  to  have  been  a  very  observing  man  at  first;  for  it  ap 
pears  he  went  about  naked  a  considerable  length  of  time  before  he 
ever  noticed  that  obvious  fact.  But  when  he  did  observe  it,  the  ob 
servation  was  not  lost  upon  him ;  for  it  immediately  led  to  the  first  of 
all  inventions  of  which  we  have  any  direct  account — the  fig-leaf  apron. 

The  inclination  to  exchange  thoughts  with  one  another  is  proba 
bly  an  original  impulse  of  our  nature.  If  I  be  in  pain,  I  wish  to  let 
you  know  it,  and  to  ask  your  sympathy  and  assistance;  and  my 
pleasurable  emotions  also  I  wish  to  communicate  to  and  share  with 
you.  But  to  carry  on  such  communications,  some  instrumentality 
is  indispensable.  Accordingly,  speech  —  articulate  sounds  rattled 
off  from  the  tongue  —  was  used  by  our  first  parents,  and  even  by 
Adam  before  the  creation  of  Eve.  He  gave  names  to  the  animals 
while  she  was  still  a  bone  in  his  side ;  and  he  broke  out  quite  volu 
bly  when  she  first  stood  before  him,  the  best  present  of  his  Maker. 
From  this  it  would  appear  that  speech  was  not  an  invention  of  man, 
but  rather  the  direct  gift  of  his  Creator.  But  whether  divine  gift 
or  invention,  it  is  still  plain  that  if  a  mode  of  communication  had 
been  left  to  invention,  speech  must  have  been  the  first,  from  the 
superior  adaptation  to  the  end  of  the  organs  of  speech  over  every 
other  means  within  the  whole  range  of  nature.  Of  the  organs  of 
speech  the  tongue  is  the  principal;  and  if  we  shall  test  it,  we  shall 
find  the  capacities  of  the  tongue,  in  the  utterance  of  articulate 
sounds,  absolutely  wonderful.  You  can  count  from  one  to  one 
hundred  quite  distinctly  in  about  forty  seconds.  In  doing  this  two 
hundred  and  eighty-three  distinct  sounds  or  syllables  are  uttered, 
being  seven  to  each  second,  and  yet  there  should  be  enough  differ- 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          525 

ence  between  every  two  to  be  easily  recognized  by  the  ear  of  the 
hearer.  What  other  signs  to  represent  things  could  possibly  be 
produced  so  rapidly  ?  or,  even  if  ready  made,  could  be  arranged  so 
rapidly  to  express  the  sense?  Motions  with  the  hands  are  no  ade 
quate  substitute.  Marks  for  the  recognition  of  the  eye, —  writing, — 
although  a  wonderful  auxiliary  of  speech,  is  no  worthy  substi 
tute  for  it.  In  addition  to  the  more  slow  and  laborious  process  of 
getting  up  a  communication  in  writing,  the  materials — pen,  ink, 
and  paper  —  are  not  always  at  hand.  But  one  always  has  his 
tongue  with  him,  and  the  breath  of  his  life  is  the  ever-ready  mate 
rial  with  which  it  works.  Speech,  then,  by  enabling  different  indi 
viduals  to  interchange  thoughts,  and  thereby  to  combine  their 
powers  of  observation  and  reflection,  greatly  facilitates  useful  dis 
coveries  and  inventions.  What  one  observes,  and  would  himself 
infer  nothing  from,  he  tells  to  another,  and  that  other  at  once  sees 
a  valuable  hint  in  it.  A  result  is  thus  reached  which  neither  alone 
would  have  arrived  at.  And  this  reminds  me  of  what  I  passed  un 
noticed  before,  that  the  very  first  invention  was  a  joint  operation, 
Eve  having  shared  with  Adam  the  getting  up  of  the  apron.  And, 
indeed,  judging  from  the  fact  that  sewing  has  come  down  to  our 
times  as  "  woman's  work,"  it  is  very  probable  she  took  the  leading 
part, — he,  perhaps,  doing  no  more  than  to  stand  by  and  thread  the 
needle.  That  proceeding  may  be  reckoned  as  the  mother  of  all 
"  sewing-societies/7  and  the  first  and  most  perfect  "  World's  Fair," 
all  inventions  and  all  inventors  then  in  the  world  being  on  the  spot. 

But  speech  alone,  valuable  as  it  ever  has  been  and  is,  has  not  ad 
vanced  the  condition  of  the  world  much.  This  is  abundantly  evident 
when  we  look  at  the  degraded  condition  of  all  those  tribes  of  human 
creatures  who  have  no  considerable  additional  means  of  communi 
cating  thoughts.  Writing,  the  art  of  communicating  thoughts  to 
the  mind  through  the  eye,  is  the  great  invention  of  the  world.  Great 
is  the  astonishing  range  of  analysis  and  combination  which  neces 
sarily  underlies  the  most  crude  and  general  conception  of  it  —  great, 
very  great,  in  enabling  us  to  converse  with  the  dead,  the  absent,  and 
the  unborn,  at  all  distances  of  time  and  space ;  and  great,  not  only 
in  its  direct  benefits,  but  greatest  help  to  all  other  inventions.  Sup 
pose  the  art,  with  all  conceptions  of  it,  were  this  day  lost  to  the  world, 
how  long,  think  you,  would  it  be  before  Young  America  could  get  up 
the  letter  A  with  any  adequate  notion  of  using  it  to  advantage?  The 
precise  period  at  which  writing  was  invented  is  not  known,  but  it 
certainly  was  as  early  as  the  time  of  Moses ;  from  which  we  may 
safely  infer  that  its  inventors  were  very  old  fogies. 

Webster,  at  the  time  of  writing  his  dictionary,  speaks  of  the  Eng 
lish  language  as  then  consisting  of  seventy  or  eighty  thousand  words. 
If  so,  the  language  in  which  the  five  books  of  Moses  were  written 
must  at  that  time,  now  thirty- three  or  -four  hundred  years  ago,  have 
consisted  of  at  least  one  quarter  as  many,  or  twenty  thousand.  When 
we  remember  that  words  are  sounds  merely,  we  shall  conclude  that 
the  idea  of  representing  those  sounds  by*  marks,  so  that  whoever 
should  at  any  time  after  see  the  marks  would  understand  what 
sounds  they  meant,  was  a  bold  and  ingenious  conception,  not  likely 


526          ADDRESSES   AND  LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

to  occur  to  one  man  in  a  million  in  the  run  of  a  thousand  years. 
And  when  it  did  occur,  a  distinct  mark  for  each  word,  giving  twenty 
thousand  different  marks  first  to  be  learned,  and  afterward  to  be  re 
membered,  would  follow  as  the  second  thought,  and  would  present 
such  a  difficulty  as  would  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  the  whole  thing 
was  impracticable.  But  the  necessity  still  would  exist  j  and  we  may 
readily  suppose  that  the  idea  was  conceived,  and  lost,  and  repro 
duced,  and  dropped,  and  taken  up  again  and  again,  until  at  last  the 
thought  of  divioting  sounds  into  parts,  and  making  a  mark,  not  to 
represent  a  whole  sound,  but  only  a  part  of  one,  and  then  of  com 
bining  those  marks,  not  very  many  in  number,  upon  principles  of 
permutation,  so  as  to  represent  any  and  all  of  the  whole  twenty  thou 
sand  words,  and  even  any  additional  number,  was  somehow  conceived 
and  pushed  into  practice.  This  was  the  invention  of  phonetic  writing, 
as  distinguished  from  the  clumsy  picture-writing  of  some  of  the  na 
tions.  That  it  was  difficult  of  conception  and  execution  is  apparent, 
as  well  by  the  foregoing  reflection,  as  the  fact  that  so  many  tribes  of 
men  have  come  down  from  Adam's  time  to  our  own  without  ever 
having  possessed  it.  Its  utility  may  be  conceived  by  the  reflection 
that  to  it  we  owe  everything  which  distinguishes  us  from  savages. 
Take  it  from  us,  and  the  Bible,  all  history,  all  science,  all  govern 
ment,  all  commerce,  and  nearly  all  social  intercourse  go  with  it. 

The  great  activity  of  the  tongue  in  articulating  sounds  has  already 
been  mentioned,  and  it  may  be  of  some  passing  interest  to  notice 
the  wonderful  power  of  the  eye  in  conveying  ideas  to  the  mind  from 
writing.  Take  the  same  example  of  the  numbers  from  one  to  one 
hundred  written  down,  and  you  can  run  your  eye  over  the  list,  and 
be  assured  that  every  number  is  in  it,  in  about  one  half  the  time  it 
would  require  to  pronounce  the  words  with  the  voice  j  and  not  only 
so,  but  you  can  in  the  same  short  time  determine  whether  every 
word  is  spelled  correctly,  by  which  it  is  evident  that  every  separate 
letter,  amounting  to  eight  hundred  and  sixty-four,  has  been  recog 
nized  and  reported  to  the  mind  within  the  incredibly  short  space  of 
twenty  seconds,  or  one  third  of  a  minute. 

I  have  already  intimated  my  opinion  that  in  the  world's  history 
certain  inventions  and  discoveries  occurred  of  peculiar  value,  on 
account  of  their  great  efficiency  in  facilitating  all  other  inventions 
and  discoveries.  Of  these  were  the  art  of  writing  and  of  printing, 
the  discovery  of  America,  and  the  introduction  of  patent  laws.  The 
date  of  the  first,  as  already  stated,  is  unknown ;  but  it  certainly  was 
as  much  as  fifteen  hundred  years  before  the  Christian  era";  the 
second — printing — came  in  1436,  or  nearly  three  thousand  years 
after  the  first.  The  others  followed  more  rapidly — the  discovery  of 
America  in  1492,  and  the  first  patent  laws  in  1624.  Though  not 
apposite  to  my  present  purpose,  it  is  but  justice  to  the  fruitfulness 
of  that  period  to  mention  two  other  important  events — the  Lu 
theran  Reformation  in  1517,  and,  still  earlier,  the  invention  of 
negroes,  or  of  the  present  mode  of  using  them,  in  1434.  But  to 
return  to  the  consideration  of  printing,  it  is  plain  that  it  is  but  the 
other  half,  and  in  reality  the  better  half,  of  writing;  and  that  both 
together  are  but  the  assistants  of  speech  in  the  communication  of 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          527 

thoughts  between  man  and  man.  When  man  was  possessed  of 
speech  alone,  the  chances  of  invention,  discovery,  and  improvement 
were  very  limited;  but  by  the  introduction  of  each  of  these  they 
were  greatly  multiplied.  When  writing  was  invented,  any  impor 
tant  observation  likely  to  lead  to  a  discovery  had  at  least  a  chance  of 
being  written  down,  and  consequently  a  little  chance  of  never  being 
forgotten,  and  of  being  seen  and  reflected  upon  by  a  much  greater 
number  of  persons  ;  and  thereby  the  chances  of  a  valuable  hint  being 
caught  proportionately  augmented.  By  this  means  the  observation 
of  a  single  individual  might  lead  to  an  important  invention  years, 
and  even  centuries,  after  he  was  dead.  In  one  word,  by  means  of 
writing,  the  seeds  of  invention  were  more  permanently  preserved 
and  more  widely  sown.  And  yet  for  three  thousand  years  during 
which  printing  remained  undiscovered  after  writing  was  in  use,  it 
was  only  a  small  portion  of  the  people  who  could  write,  or  read  writ 
ing;  and  consequently  the  field  of  invention,  though  much  extended, 
still  continued  very  limited.  At  length  printing  came.  It  gave  ten 
thousand  copies  of  any  written  matter  quite  as  cheaply  as  ten  were 
given  before;  and  consequently  a  thousand  minds  were  brought  into 
the  field  where  there  was  but  one  before.  This  was  a  great  gain — and 
history  shows  a  great  change  corresponding  to  it — in  point  of  time. 
I  will  venture  to  consider  it  the  true  termination  of  that  period 
called  "the  dark  ages.77  Discoveries,  inventions,  and  improvements 
followed  rapidly,  and  have  been  increasing  their  rapidity  ever  since. 
The  effects  could  not  come  all  at  once.  It  required  time  to  bring  them 
out;  and  they  are  still  coming.  The  capacity  to  read  could  not  be 
multiplied  as  fast  as  the  means  of  reading.  Spelling-books  just 
began  to  go  into  the  hands  of  the  children,  but  the  teachers  were 
not  very  numerous  or  very  competent,  so  that  it  is  safe  to  infer  they 
did  not  advance  so  speedily  as  they  do  nowadays.  It  is  very  prob 
able —  almost  certain  —  that  the  great  mass  of  men  at  that  time 
were  utterly  unconscious  that  their  condition  or  their  minds  were 
capable  of  improvement.  They  not  only  looked  upon  the  educated 
few  as  superior  beings,  but  they  supposed  themselves  to  be  naturally 
incapable  of  rising  to  equality.  To  emancipate  the  mind  from  this 
false  underestimate  of  itself  is  the  great  task  which  printing  came 
into  the  world  to  perform.  It  is  difficult  for  us  now  and  here  to 
conceive  how  strong  this  slavery  of  the  mind  was,  and  how  long 
it  did  of  necessity  take  to  break  its  shackles,  and  to  get  a  habit  of 
freedom  of  thought  established.  It  is,  in  this  connection,  a  curious 
fact  that  a  new  country  is  most  favorable — almost  necessary — 
to  the  emancipation  of  thought,  and  the  consequent  advancement 
of  civilization  and  the  arts.  The  human  family  originated,  as  is 
thought,  somewhere  in  Asia,  and  have  worked  their  way  principally 
westward.  Just  now  in  civilization  and  the  arts  the  people  of  Asia 
are  entirely  behind  those  of  Europe;  those  of  the  east  of  Europe 
behind  those  of  the  west  of  it;  while  we,  here,  in  America,  think  we 
discover,  and  invent,  and  improve  faster  than  any  of  them.  They 
may  think  this  is  arrogance;  but  they  cannot  deny  that  Russia  has 
called  on  us  to  show  her  how  to  build  steamboats  and  railroads, 
while  in  the  older  parts  of  Asia  they  scarcely  know  that  such  things 


528          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

as  steamboats  and  railroads  exist.  In  anciently  inhabited  countries, 
the  dust  of  ages  —  a  real,  downright  old-f ogyism  —  seems  to  settle 
upon  and  smother  the  intellects  and  energies  of  man.  It  is  in  this 
view  that  I  have  mentioned  the  discovery  of  America  as  an  event 
greatly  favoring  and  facilitating  useful  discoveries  and  inventions. 
Next  came  the  patent  laws.  These  began  in  England  in  1624,  and 
in  this  country  with  the  adoption  of  our  Constitution.  Before  then 
any  man  [might]  instantly  use  what  another  man  had  invented,  so 
that  the  inventor  had  no  special  advantage  from  his  invention.  The 
patent  system  changed  this,  secured  to  the  inventor  for  a  limited 
time  exclusive  use  of  his  inventions,  and  thereby  added  the  fuel 
of  interest  to  the  fire  of  genius  in  the  discovery  and  production  of 
new  and  useful  things. 

March  1,  1859. — SPEECH  AT  CHICAGO  ON  THE  NIGHT 
OF  THE  MUNICIPAL  ELECTION. 

I  understand  that  you  have  to-day  rallied  around  your  principles, 
and  they  have  again  triumphed  in  the  city  of  Chicago.  I  am  ex 
ceedingly  happy  to  meet  you  under  such  cheering  auspices  on  this 
occasion — the  first  on  which  I  have  appeared  before  an  audience 
since  the  campaign  of  last  year.  It  is  unsuitable  to  enter  into  a 
lengthy  discourse,  as  is  quite  apparent,  at  a  moment  like  this.  I 
shall  therefore  detain  you  only  a  very  short  while. 

It  gives  me  peculiar  pleasure  to  find  an  opportunity  under  such 
favorable  circumstances  to  return  my  thanks  for  the  gallant  support 
that  the  Republicans  of  the  city  of  Chicago  and  of  the  State  gave  to 
the  cause  in  which  we  were  all  engaged  in  the  late  momentous 
struggle  in  Illinois. 

I  remember  in  that  canvass  but  one  instance  of  dissatisfaction 
with  my  course,  and  I  allude  to  that  now  not  for  the  purpose  of  reviv 
ing  any  matter  of  dispute  or  producing  any  unpleasant  feeling,  but 
in  order  to  help  to  get  rid  of  the  point  upon  which  that  matter  of 
disagreement  or  dissatisfaction  arose.  I  understand  that  in  some 
speeches  I  made  I  said  something,  or  was  supposed  to  have  said 
something,  that  some  very  good  people,  as  I  really  believe  them  to 
be,  commented  upon  unfavorably,  and  said  that  rather  than  support 
one  holding  such  sentiments  as  I  had  expressed,  the  real  friends  of 
liberty  could  afford  to  wait  a  while.  I  don't  want  to  say  anything 
that  shall  excite  unkind  feeling,  and  I  mention  this  simply  to  sug 
gest  that  I  am  afraid  of  the  effect  of  that  sort  of  argument.  I  do  not 
doubt  that  it  conies  from  good  men,  but  I  am  afraid  of  the  result  upon 
organized  action  where  great  results  are  in  view,  if  any  of  us  allow 
ourselves  to  seek  out  minor  or  separate  points,  on  which  there  may 
be  difference  of  views  as  to  policy  and  right,  and  let  them  keep  us 
from  uniting  in  action  upon  a  great  principle  in  a  cause  on  which  we 
all  agree ;  or  are  deluded  into  the  belief  that  all  can  be  brought  to 
consider  alike  and  agree  upon  every  minor  point  before  we  unite  and 
press  forward  in  organization,  asking  the  cooperation  of  all  good 
men  in  that  resistance  to  the  extension  of  slavery  upon  which  we  all 
agree.  I  am  afraid  that  such  methods  would  result  in  keeping  the 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF  ABKAHAM  LINCOLN          529 

friends  of  liberty  waiting  longer  than  we  ought  to.  I  say  this  for 
the  purpose  of  suggesting  that  we  consider  whether  it  would  not  be 
better  and  wiser,  so  long  as  we  all  agree  that  this  matter  of  slavery 
is  a  moral,  political,  and  social  wrong,  and  ought  to  be  treated  as  a 
wrong,  not  to  let  anything  minor  or  subsidiary  to  that  main  princi 
ple  and  purpose  make  us  fail  to  cooperate. 

One  other  thing, —  and  that  again  I  say  in  no  spirit  of  unkindness. 
There  was  a  question  amongst  Republicans  all  the  time  of  the  can 
vass  of  last  year,  and  it  has  not  quite  ceased  yet,  whether  it  was  not 
the  true  and  better  policy  for  the  Republicans  to  make  it  their  chief 
object  to  reelect  Judge  Douglas  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 
Now,  I  differ  with  those  who  thought  that  the  true  policy,  but  I  have 
never  said  an  unkind  word  of  any  one  entertaining  that  opinion.  I 
believe  most  of  them  were  as  sincerely  the  friends  of  our  cause  as  I 
claim  to  be  myself;  yet  I  thought  they  were  mistaken,  and  I  speak 
of  this  now  for  the  purpose  of  justifying  the  course  that  I  took  and 
the  course  of  those  who  supported  me.  In  what  I  say  now  there  is 
no  unkindness,  even  toward  Judge  Douglas.  I  have  believed  that 
in  the  Republican  situation  in  Illinois,  if  we,  the  Republicans  of  this 
State,  had  made  Judge  Douglas  our  candidate  for  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States  last  year,  and  had  elected  him,  there  would  to-day  be 
no  Republican  party  in  this  Union.  I  believe  that  the  principles 
around  which  we  have  rallied  and  organized  that  party  would  live ; 
they  will  live  under  all  circumstances,  while  we  will  die.  They  would 
reproduce  another  party  in  the  future.  But  in  the  mean  time  all  the 
labor  that  has  been  done  to  build  up  the  present  Republican  party 
would  be  entirely  lost,  and  perhaps  twenty  years  of  time,  before  we 
would  again  have  formed  around  that  principle  as  solid,  extensive, 
and  formidable  an  organization  as  we  have,  standing  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  to-night,  in  harmony  and  strength  around  the  Republican 
banner. 

It  militates  not  at  all  against  this  view  to  tell  us  that  the  Repub 
licans  could  make  something  in  the  State  of  New  York  by  electing 
to  Congress  John  B.  Haskin,  who  occupied  a  position  similar  to 
Judge  Douglas;  or  that  they  could  make  something  by  electing 
Hickman  of  Pennsylvania,  or  Davis  of  Indiana.  I  think  it  likely 
that  they  could  and  do  make  something  by  it ;  but  it  is  false  logic 
to  assume  that  for  that  reason  anything  could  be  gained  by  us  in 
electing  Judge  Douglas  in  Illinois.  And  for  this  reason :  It  is  no 
disparagement  to  these  men,  Hickman  and  Davis,  to  say  that  indi 
vidually  they  were  comparatively  small  men,  and  the  Republican 
party  could  take  hold  of  them,  use  them,  elect  them,  absorb  them, 
expel  them,  or  do  whatever  it  pleased  with  them,  and  the  Repub 
lican  organization  be  in  no  wise  shaken.  But  it  is  not  so  with  Judge 
Douglas.  Let  the  Republican  party  of  Illinois  dally  with  Judge  Doug 
las  ;  let  them  fall  in  behind  him  and  make  him  their  candidate,  and 
they  do  not  absorb  him — he  absorbs  them.  They  would  come  out  at 
the  end  all  Douglas  men,  all  claimed  by  him  as  having  indorsed 
every  one  of  his  doctrines  upon  the  great  subject  with  which  the  whole 
nation  is  engaged  at  this  hour — that  the  question  of  negro  slavery 
is  simply  a  question  of  dollars  and  cents ;  that  the  Almighty  has 
VOL.  I.— 34. 


530          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

drawn  a  line  across  the  continent,  on  one  side  of  which  labor — the 
cultivation  of  the  soil — must  always  be  performed  by  slaves.  It 
would  be  claimed  that  we,  like  him,  do  not  care  whether  slavery  is 
voted  up  or  voted  down.  Had  we  made  him  our  candidate  and 
given  him  a  great  majority,  we  should  never  have  heard  an  end  of 
declarations  by  him  that  we  had  indorsed  all  these  dogmas. 

You  all  remember  that  at  the  last  session  of  Congress  there  was 
a  measure  introduced  in  the  Senate  by  Mr.  Crittenden  which  pro 
posed  that  the  pro-slavery  Lecompton  constitution  should  be  left  to  a 
vote  to  be  taken  in  Kansas,  and  if  it  and  slavery  were  adopted,  Kan 
sas  should  be  at  once  admitted  as  a  slave  State.  That  same  measure 
was  introduced  into  the  House  by  Mr.  Montgomery,  and  therefore 
got  the  name  of  the  Crittenden-Montgomery  bill;  and  in  the  House 
of  Representatives  the  Republicans  all  voted  for  it  under  the  pecu 
liar  circumstances  in  which  they  found  themselves  placed.  You  may 
remember  also  that  the  New  York  "Tribune,"  which  was  so  much  in 
favor  of  our  electing  Judge  Douglas  to  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  has  not  yet  got  through  the  task  of  defending  the  Republi 
can  party,  after  that  one  vote  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  from 
the  charge  of  having  gone  over  to  the  doctrine  of  popular  sove 
reignty.  Now,  how  long  would  the  New  York  " Tribune"  have  been 
in  getting  rid  of  the  charge  that  the  Republicans  had  abandoned 
their  principles,  if  we  had  taken  up  Judge  Douglas,  adopted  all  his 
doctrines,  and  elected  him  to  the  Senate,  when  the  single  vote  upon 
that  one  point  so  confused  and  embarrassed  the  position  of  the  Re 
publicans  that  it  has  kept  them  for  one  entire  year  arguing  against 
the  effect  of  it  ? 

This  much  being  said  on  that  point,  I  wish  now  to  add  a  word 
that  has  a  bearing  on  the  future.  The  Republican  principle,  the 
profound  central  truth  that  slavery  is  wrong  and  ought  to  be  dealt 
with  as  a  wrong, — though  we  are  always  to  remember  the  fact  of  its 
actual  existence  amongst  us  and  faithfully  observe  all  the  constitu 
tional  guarantees, —  the  unalterable  principle  never  for  a  moment  to 
be  lost  sight  of,  that  it  is  a  wrong  and  ought  to  be  dealt  with  as  such, 
cannot  advance  at  all  upon  Judge  Douglas's  ground  j  that  there  is 
a  portion  of  the  country  in  which  slavery  must  always  exist ;  that 
he  does  not  care  whether  it  is  voted  up  or  voted  down,  as  it  is  simply 
a  question  of  dollars  and  cents.  Whenever  in  any  compromise,  or 
arrangement,  or  combination  that  may  promise  some  temporary  ad 
vantage  we  are  led  upon  that  ground,  then  and  there  the  great  living 
principle  upon  which  we  have  organized  as  a  party  is  surrendered. 
The  proposition  now  in  our  minds  that  this  thing  is  wrong  being 
once  driven  out  and  surrendered,  then  the  institution  of  slavery 
necessarily  becomes  national. 

One  or  two  words  more  of  what  I  did  not  think  of  when  I  rose. 
Suppose  it  is  true  that  the  Almighty  has  drawn  a  line  across  this 
continent,  on  the  south  side  of  which  part  of  the  people  will  hold  the 
rest  as  slaves ;  that  the  Almighty  ordered  this  ;  that  it  is  right,  un 
changeably  right,  that  men  ought  there  to  be  held  as  slaves ;  that  their 
fellow-men  will  always  have  the  right  to  hold  them  as  slaves.  I  ask 
you,  this  once  admitted,  how  can  you  believe  that  it  is  not  right  for 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          531 

us,  or  for  them  coming  here,  to  hold  slaves  on  this  other  side  of  the 
line  ?  Once  we  come  to  acknowledge  that  it  is  right,  that  it  is  the 
law  of  the  Eternal  Being  for  slavery  to  exist  on  one  side  of  that 
line,  have  we  any  sure  ground  to  object  to  slaves  being  held  on  the 
other  side?  Once  admit  the  position  that  a  man  rightfully  holds 
another  man  as  property  on  one  side  of  the  line,  and  you  must,  when 
it  suits  his  convenience  to  come  to  the  other  side,  admit  that  he  has 
the  same  right  to  hold  his  property  there.  Once  admit  Judge  Doug 
las's  proposition,  and  we  must  all  finally  give  way.  Although  we 
may  not  bring  ourselves  to  the  idea  that  it  is  to  our  interest  to  have 
slaves  in  this  Northern  country,  we  shall  soon  bring  ourselves  to 
admit  that  while  we  may  not  want  them,  if  any  one  else  does,  he  has 
the  moral  right  to  have  them.  Step  by  step,  south  of  the  judge's 
moral  climate  line  in  the  States,  in  the  Territories  everywhere,  and 
then  in  all  the  States  —  it  is  thus  that  Judge  Douglas  would  lead 
us  inevitably  to  the  nationalization  of  slavery.  Whether  by  his  doc 
trine  of  squatter  sovereignty,  or  by  the  ground  taken  by  him'in  his  re 
cent  speeches  in  Memphis  and  through  the  South, — that  wherever  the 
climate  makes  it  the  interest  of  the  inhabitants  to  encourage  slave 
property  they  will  pass  a  slave  code, — whether  it  is  covertly  nation 
alized  by  congressional  legislation,  or  by  Dred  Scott  decision,  or  by 
the  sophistical  and  misleading  doctrine  he  has  last  advanced,  the 
same  goal  is  inevitably  reached  by  the  one  or  the  other  device.  It 
is  only  traveling  to  the  same  place  by  different  roads. 

It  is  in  this  direction  lies  all  the  danger  that  now  exists  to  the 
great  Republican  cause.  I  take  it  that  so  far  as  concerns  forcibly 
establishing  slavery  in  the  Territories  by  congressional  legislation, 
or  by  virtue  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  that  day  has  passed.  Our 
only  serious  danger  is  that  we  shall  be  led  upon  this  ground  of  Judge 
Douglas,  on  the  delusive  assumption  that  it  is  a  good  way  of  whipping 
our  opponents,  when  in  fact  it  is  a  way  that  leads  straight  to  final  sur 
render.  The  Republican  party  should  not  dally  with  Judge  Douglas 
when  it  knows  where  his  proposition  and  his  leadership  would  take 
us,  nor  be  disposed  to  listen  to  it  because  it  was  best  somewhere  else 
to  support  somebody  occupying  his  ground.  That  is  no  just  reason 
why  we  ought  to  go  over  to  Judge  Douglas,  as  we  were  called  upon 
to  do  last  year.  Never  forget  that  we  have  before  us  this  whole 
matter  of  the  right  or  wrong  of  slavery  in  this  Union,  though  the 
immediate  question  is  as  to  its  spreading  out  into  new  Territories 
and  States. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  misunderstood  upon  this  subject  of  slavery 
in  this  country.  I  suppose  it  may  long  exist;  and  perhaps  the  best 
way  for  it  to  come  to  an  end  peaceably  is  for  it  to  exist  for  a  length 
of  time.  But  I  say  that  the  spread  and  strengthening  and  perpetua 
tion  of  it  is  an  entirely  different  proposition.  There  we  should  in 
every  way  resist  it  as  a  wrong,  treating  it  as  a  wrong,  with  the  fixed 
idea  that  it  must  and  will  come  to  an  end.  If  we  do  not  allow  our 
selves  to  be  allured  from  the  strict  path  of  our  duty  by  such  a  device 
as  shifting  our  ground  and  throwing  us  into  the  rear  of  a  leader 
who  denies  our  first  principle,  denies  that  there  is  an  absolute  wrong 
in  the  institution  of  slavery,  then  the  future  of  the  Republican  cause 


532          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

is  safe,  and  victory  is  assured.  You  Republicans  of  Illinois  have 
deliberately  taken  your  ground  5  you  have  heard  the  whole  subject 
discussed  again  and  again  •  you  have  stated  your  faith  in  platforms 
laid  down  in  a  State  convention  and  in  a  national  convention;  you 
have  heard  and  talked  over  and  considered  it  until  you  are  now  all 
of  opinion  that  you  are  on  a  ground  of  unquestionable  right.  All 
you  have  to  do  is  to  keep  the  faith,  to  remain  steadfast  to  the  right, 
to  stand  by  your  banner.  Nothing  should  lead  you  to  leave  your 
guns.  Stand  together,  ready,  with  match  in  hand.  Allow  nothing 
to  turn  you  to  the  right  or  to  the  left.  Remember  how  long  you 
have  been  in  setting  out  on  the  true  course  ;  how  long  you  have  been 
in  getting  your  neighbors  to  understand  and  believe  as  you  now  do. 
Stand  by  your  principles,  stand  by  your  guns,  and  victory,  complete 
and  permanent,  is  sure  at  the  last. 

March  28,  1859. — LETTER  TO  W.  M.  MORRIS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  March  28,  1859. 
W.  M.  MORRIS,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir:  Your  kind  note  inviting  me  to  deliver  a  lecture  at 
Galesburg  is  received.  I  regret  to  say  I  cannot  do  so  now ;  I  must 
stick  to  the  courts  awhile.  I  read  a  sort  of  lecture  to  three  differ 
ent  audiences  during  the  last  month  and  this  j  but  I  did  so  under 
circumstances  which  made  it  a  waste  of  no  time  whatever. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

April  6,  1859. — LETTER  TO  H.  L.  PIERCE  AND  OTHERS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  April  6,  1859. 

Gentlemen:  Your  kind  note  inviting  me  to  attend  a  festival  in 
Boston,  on  the  28th  instant,  in  honor  of  the  birthday  of  Thomas 
Jefferson,  was  duly  received.  My  engagements  are  such  that  I  can 
not  attend. 

Bearing  in  mind  that  about  seventy  years  ago  two  great  political 
parties  were  first  formed  in  this  country,  that  Thomas  Jefferson  was 
the  head  of  one  of  them  and  Boston  the  headquarters  of  the  other, 
it  is  both  curious  and  interesting  that  those  supposed  to  descend 
politically  from  the  party  opposed  to  Jefferson  should  now  be  cele 
brating  his  birthday  in  their  own  original  seat  of  empire,  while 
those  claiming  political  descent  from  him  have  nearly  ceased  to 
breathe  his  name  everywhere. 

Remembering,  too,  that  the  Jefferson  party  was  formed  upon  its 
supposed  superior  devotion  to  the  personal  rights  of  men,  holding 
the  rights  of  property  to  be  secondary  only,  and  greatly  inferior, 
and  assuming  that  the  so-called  Democracy  of  to-day  are  the 
Jefferson,  and  their  opponents  the  an ti- Jefferson,  party,  it  will  be 
equally  interesting  to  note  how  completely  the  two  have  changed 
hands  as  to  the  principle  upon  which  they  were  originally  sup 
posed  to  be  divided.  The  Democracy  of  to-day  hold  the  liberty  of 
one  man  to  be  absolutely  nothing,  when  in  conflict  with  another 
man's  right  of  property;  Republicans,  on  the  contrary,  are  for 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          533 

both  the  man  and  the  dollar,  but  in  case  of  conflict  the  man  before 
the  dollar. 

I  remember  being  once  much  amused  at  seeing  two  partially  in 
toxicated  men  engaged  in  a  fight  with  their  great-coats  on,  which 
fight,  after  a  long  and  rather  harmless  contest,  ended  in  each  hav 
ing  fought  himself  out  of  his  own  coat  and  into  that  of  the  other. 
If  the  two  leading  parties  of  this  day  are  really  identical  with  the 
two  in  the  days  of  Jefferson  and  Adams,  they  have  performed  the 
same  feat  as  the  two  drunken  men. 

But,  soberly,  it  is  now  no  child's  play  to  save  the  principles  of 
Jefferson  from  total  overthrow  in  this  nation.  One  would  state 
with  great  confidence  that  he  could  convince  any  sane  child  that 
the  simpler  propositions  of  Euclid  are  true;  but  nevertheless  he 
would  fail,  utterly,  with  one  who  should  deny  the  definitions  and 
axioms.  The  principles  of  Jefferson  are  the  definitions  and  axioms 
of  free  society.  And  yet  they  are  denied  and  evaded,  with  no  small 
show  of  success.  One  dashingly  calls  them  "  glittering  generali 
ties."  Another  bluntly  calls  them  "  self-evident  lies.'7  And  others 
insidiously  argue  that  they  apply  to  "  superior  races."  These  ex 
pressions,  differing  in  form,  are  identical  in  object  and  effect — the 
supplanting  the  principles  of  free  government,  and  restoring  those 
of  classification,  caste,  and  legitimacy.  They  would  delight  a  con 
vocation  of  crowned  heads  plotting  against  the  people.  They  are 
the  vanguard,  the  miners  and  sappers  of  returning  despotism. 
We  must  repulse  them,  or  they  will  subjugate  us.  This  is  a  world 
of  compensation ;  and  he  who  would  be  no  slave  must  consent  to 
have  no  slave.  Those  who  deny  freedom  to  others  deserve  it  not 
for  themselves,  and,  under  a  just  God,  cannot  long  retain  it.  All 
honor  to  Jefferson  —  to  the  man  who,  in  the  concrete  pressure  of  a 
struggle  for  national  independence  by  a  single  people,  had  the  cool 
ness,  forecast,  and  capacity  to  introduce  into  a  merely  revolutionary 
document  an  abstract  truth,  applicable  to  all  men  and  all  times,  and 
so  to  embalm  it  there  that  to-day  and  in  all  coming  days  it  shall  be 
a  rebuke  and  a  stumbling-block  to  the  very  harbingers  of  reappear 
ing  tyranny  and  oppression.  Your  obedient  servant, 

MESSRS.  H.  L.  PIERCE  AND  OTHERS.  A.  LINCOLN. 

April  16, 1859. — LETTER  TO  T.  J.  PICKETT. 

SPRINGFIELD,  April  16, 1859. 
T.  J.  PICKETT,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  13th  is  just  received.  My  engagements 
are  such  that  I  cannot  at  any  very  early  day  visit  Rock  Island  to 
deliver  a  lecture,  or  for  any  other  object.  As  to  the  other  matter  you 
kindly  mention,  I  must  in  candor  say  I  do  not  think  myself  fit  for 
the  presidency.  I  certainly  am  flattered  and  gratified  that  some 
partial  friends  think  of  me  in  that  connection ;  but  I  really  think  it 
best  for  our  cause  that  no  concerted  effort,  such  as  you  suggest, 
should  be  made.  Let  this  be  considered  confidential. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


534          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


May  14,  1859. —  LETTER  TO  M.  W.  DELAHAY. 

May  14,  1859. 
M.  W.  DELAHAY. 

.  .  .  Yon  will  probably  adopt  resolutions  in  the  nature  of  a 
platform.  I  think  the  only  temptation  will  be  to  lower  the  Repub 
lican  standard  in  order  to  gather  recruits.  In  my  judgment  such  a 
step  would  be  a  serious  mistake,  and  open  a  gap  through  which  more 
would  pass  out  than  pass  in.  And  this  would  be  the  same  whether 
the  letting  down  should  be  in  deference  to  Douglasism  or  to  the 
Southern  opposition  element ;  either  would  surrender  the  object  of 
the  Republican  organization — the  preventing  of  the  spread  and  na 
tionalization  of  slavery.  This  object  surrendered,  the  organization 
would  go  to  pieces.  I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  no  Southern  man 
must  be  placed  upon  our  national  ticket  in  1860.  There  are  many 
men  in  the  slave  States  for  any  one  of  whom  I  could  cheerfully  vote 
to  be  either  President  or  Vice-President,  provided  he  would  enable 
me  to  do  so  with  safety  to  the  Republican  cause,  without  lowering 
the  Republican  standard.  This  is  the  indispensable  condition  of  a 
union  with  us ;  it  is  idle  to  talk  of  any  other.  Any  other  would  be 
as  fruitless  to  the  South  as  distasteful  to  the  North,  the  whole 
ending  in  common  defeat.  Let  a  union  be  attempted  on  the  basis  of 
ignoring  the  slavery  question,  and  magnifying  other  questions  which 
the  people  are  just  now  not  caring  about,  and  it  will  result  in  gain 
ing  no  single  electoral  vote  in  the  South,  and  losing  every  one  in 
the  North.  .  .  . 

May  17,  1859. — LETTER  TO  T.  CANISIUS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  May  17,  1859. 
DR.  THEODORE  CANISIUS. 

Dear  Sir :  Your  note  asking,  in  behalf  of  yourself  and  other  Ger 
man  citizens,  whether  I  am  for  or  against  the  constitutional  provi 
sion  in  regard  to  naturalized  citizens,  lately  adopted  by  Massachu 
setts,  and  whether  I  am  for  or  against  a  fusion  of  the  Republicans, 
and  other  opposition  elements,  for  the  canvass  of  1860,  is  received. 

Massachusetts  is  a  sovereign  and  independent  State  j  and  it  is  no 
privilege  of  mine  to  scold  her  for  what  she  does.  Still,  if  from  what 
she  has  done  an  inference  is  sought  to  be  drawn  as  to  what  I  would 
do,  I  may  without  impropriety  speak  out.  I  say,  then,  that,  as  I 
understand  the  Massachusetts  provision,  I  am  against  its  adoption 
in  Illinois,  or  in  any  other  place  where  I  have  a  right  to  oppose  it. 
Understanding  the  spirit  of  our  institutions  to  aim  at  the  elevation 
of  men,  I  am  opposed  to  whatever  tends  to  degrade  them.  I  have 
some  little  notoriety  for  commiserating  the  oppressed  negro ;  and  I 
should  be  strangely  inconsistent  if  I  could  favor  any  project  for  cur 
tailing  the  existing  rights  of  white  men,  even  though  born  in  different 
lands,  and  speaking  different  languages  from  myself.  As  to  the 
matter  of  fusion,  I  am  for  it,  if  it  can  be  had  on  Republican  grounds; 
and  I  am  not  for  it  on  any  other  terms.  A  fusion  on  any  other 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          535 

terms  would  be  as  foolish  as  unprincipled.  It  would  lose  the  whole 
North,  while  the  common  enemy  would  still  carry  the  whole  South. 
The  question  of  men  is  a  different  one.  There  are  good  patriotic 
men  and  able  statesmen  in  the  South  whom  I  would  cheerfully  sup 
port,  if  they  would  now  place  themselves  on  Republican  ground, 
but  I  am  against  letting  down  the  Republican  standard  a  hair's- 
breadth. 

I  have  written  this  hastily,  but  I  believe  it  answers  your  ques 
tions  substantially.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

July  6,  1859. — LETTER  TO  SCHUYLER  GOLF  AX. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  July  6,  1859. 
HON.  SCHUYLER  COLFAX. 

My  dear  Sir  :  I  much  regret  not  seeing  you  while  you  were  here 
among  us.  Before  learning  that  you  were  to  be  at  Jacksonville  on 
the  4th,  I  had  given  my  word  to  be  at  another  place.  Besides  a 
strong  desire  to  make  your  personal  acquaintance,  I  was  anxious  to 
speak  with  you  on  politics  a  little  more  fully  than  I  can  well  do  in 
a  letter.  My  main  object  in  such  conversation  would  be  to  hedge 
against  divisions  in  the  Republican  ranks  generally,  and  particularly 
for  the  contest  of  1860.  The  point  of  danger  is  the  temptation  in 
different  localities  to  "  platform  "  for  something  which  will  be  popu 
lar  just  there,  but  which,  nevertheless,  will  be  a  firebrand  elsewhere, 
and  especially  in  a  national  convention.  As  instances,  the  move 
ment  against  foreigners  in  Massachusetts ;  in  New  Hampshire,  to 
make  obedience  to  the  fugitive-slave  law  punishable  as  a  crime ;  in 
Ohio,  to  repeal  the  fugitive-slave  law ;  and  squatter  sovereignty,  in 
Kansas.  In  these  things  there  is  explosive  matter  enough  to  blow 
up  half  a  dozen  national  conventions,  if  it  gets  into  them  ;  and  what 
gets  very  rife  outside  of  conventions  is  very  likely  to  find  its  way  into 
them.  What  is  desirable,  if  possible,  is  that  in  every  local  convoca 
tion  of  Republicans  a  point  should  be  made  to  avoid  everything 
which  will  disturb  Republicans  elsewhere.  Massachusetts  Republi 
cans  should  have  looked  beyond  their  noses,  and  then  they  could  not 
have  failed  to  see  that  tilting  against  foreigners  would  ruin  us  in 
the  whole  Northwest.  New  Hampshire  and  Ohio  should  forbear 
tilting  against  the  fugitive-slave  law  in  such  a  way  as  to  utterly 
overwhelm  us  in  Illinois  with  the  charge  of  enmity  to  the  Constitu 
tion  itself.  Kansas,  in  her  confidence  that  she  can  be  saved  to  free 
dom  on  "  squatter  sovereignty,"  ought  not  to  forget  that  to  prevent 
the  spread  and  nationalization  of  slavery  is  a  national  concern,  and 
must  be  attended  to  by  the  nation.  In  a  word,  in  every  locality  we 
should  look  beyond  our  noses ;  and  at  least  say  nothing  on  points 
where  it  is  probable  we  shall  disagree.  I  write  this  for  your  eye 
only ;  hoping,  however,  if  you  see  danger  as  I  think  I  do,  you  will 
do  what  you  can  to  avert  it.  Could  not  suggestions  be  made  to  lead 
ing  men  in  the  State  and  congressional  conventions,  and  so  avoid, 
to  some  extent  at  least,  these  apples  of  discord  ? 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


536          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


July  11,  1859. —  LETTER  TO  JAMES  MILLER,  TREASURER  OF  THE 
STATE  OF  ILLINOIS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  July  11,  1859. 
HON.  JAMES  MILLER. 

Dear  Sir:  We  suppose  you  are  persistently  urged  to  pay  some 
thing  upon  the  new  McCallister  and  Stebbins  bonds.  As  friends  of 
yours  and  of  the  people,  we  advise  you  to  pay  nothing  upon  them 
under  any  possible  circumstances.  The  holders  of  them  did  a  great 
wrong,  and  are  now  persisting  in  it  in  a  way  which  deserves  severe 
punishment.  They  know  the  legislature  has  again  and  again  refused 
to  fully  recognize  the  old  bonds.  Seizing  upon  an  act  never  in 
tended  to  apply  to  them,  they  besieged  Governor  Bissell  more  than 
a  year  ago  to  fund  the  old  bonds ;  he  refused.  They  sought  a  man 
damus  upon  him  from  the  Supreme  Court;  the  court  refused.  Again 
they  besieged  the  governor  last  winter;  he  sought  to  have  them  go 
before  the  legislature ;  they  refused.  Still  they  persisted,  and  dogged 
him  in  his  afflicted  condition  till  they  got  from  him  what  the  agent  in 
New  York  acted  upon  and  issued  the  new  bonds.  Now  they  refuse 
to  surrender  them,  hoping  to  force  an  acquiescence,  for  Governor 
BisselPs  sake.  "  That  cock  won't  fight,"  and  they  may  as  well  so 
understand  at  once.  If  the  news  of  the  surrender  of  the  new  bonds 
does  not  reach  here  in  ten  days  from  this  date,  we  shall  do  what  we 
can  to  have  them  repudiated  in  toto,  finally  and  forever.  If  they 
were  less  than  demons  they  would  at  once  relieve  Governor  Bissell 
from  the  painful  position  they  have  dogged  him  into ;  and  if  they 
still  persist,  they  shall  never  see  even  the  twenty-six  cents  to  the 
dollar,  if  we  can  prevent  it.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN, 
S.  T.  LOGAN, 
O.  M.  HATCH. 

July  27,  1859. — LETTER  TO  S.  GALLOWAY. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  July  27,  1859. 
HON.  SAMUEL  GALLOWAY. 

My  dear  Sir :  Your  letter  in  relation  to  the  claim  of  Mr.  Ambos 
for  the  Columbus  Machine  Manufacturing  Company  against  Barret 
and  others  is  received.  This  has  been  a  somewhat  disagreeable  mat 
ter  to  me.  As  I  remember,  you  first  wrote  me  on  the  general  subject, 
Barret  having  then  had  a  credit  of  four  or  five  hundred  dollars,  and 
there  was  some  question  about  his  taking  the  machinery.  I  think 
you  inquired  as  to  Barret's  responsibility ;  and  that  I  answered  I 
considered  him  an  honest  and  honorable  man,  having  a  great  deal  of 

Property,  owing  a  good  many  debts,  and  hard  pressed  for  ready  cash, 
was  a  little  surprised  soon  after  to  learn  that  they  had  enlarged 
the  credit  to  near  ten  thousand  dollars,  more  or  less.  They 
wrote  me  to  take  notes  and  a  mortgage,  and  to  hold  on  to  the  notes 
awhile  to  fix  amounts.  I  inferred  the  notes  and  mortgage  were  both 
to  be  held  up  for  a  time,  and  did  so ;  Barret  gave  a  second  mortgage 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN          537 

on  part  of  the  premises,  which  was  first  recorded,  and  then  I  was 
blamed  some  for  not  having  recorded  the  other  mortgage  when  first 
executed.  My  chief  annoyance  with  the  case  now  is  that  the  parties 
at  Columbus  seem  to  think  it  is  by  my  neglect  that  they  do  not  get 
their  money.  There  is  an  older  mortgage  on  the  real  estate  mort 
gaged,  though  not  on  the  machinery.  I  got  a  decree  of  foreclosure 
in  this  present  month ;  but  I  consented  to  delay  advertising  for  sale 
till  September,  on  a  reasonable  prospect  that  something  will  then  be 
paid  on  a  collateral  Barret  has  put  in  my  hands.  When  we  come  to 
sell  on  the  decree,  what  will  we  do  about  the  older  mortgage  ?  Bar 
ret  has  offered  one  or  two  other  good  notes — that  is,  notes  on  good 
men  —  if  we  would  take  them,  pro  tanto,  as  payment,  but  I  notified 
Mr.  Ambos,  and  he  declined.  My  impression  is  that  the  whole  of 
the  money  cannot  be  got  very  soon,  anyway,  but  that  it  all  will 
be  ultimately  collected,  and  that  it  could  be  got  faster  by  turning  in 
every  little  parcel  we  can,  than  by  trying  to  force  it  through  by  the 
law  in  a  lump.  There  are  no  special  personal  relations  between  Bar 
ret  and  myself.  We  are  personal  friends  in  a  general  way — no 
business  transactions  between  us — not  akin,  and  opposed  on  politics. 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

July  28,  1859. — LETTER  TO  S.  GALLOWAY. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  July  28,  1859. 
HON.  SAMUEL  GALLOWAY. 

My  dear  Sir :  Your  very  complimentary,  not  to  say  flattering, 
letter  of  the  23d  inst.  is  received.  Dr.  Reynolds  had  induced  me  to 
expect  you  here;  and  I  was  disappointed  not  a  little  by  your  failure 
to  come.  And  yet  I  fear  you  have  formed  an  estimate  of  me  which 
can  scarcely  be  sustained  on  a  personal  acquaintance. 

Two  things  done  by  the  Ohio  Republican  convention — the  repudi 
ation  of  Judge  Swan,  and  the  "  plank  "  for  a  repeal  of  the  fugitive- 
slave  law — I  very  much  regretted.  These  two  things  are  of  a  piece; 
and  they  are  viewed  by  many  good  men,  sincerely  opposed  to  slavery, 
as  a  struggle  against,  and  in  disregard  of,  the  Constitution  itself. 
And  it  is  the  very  thing  that  will  greatly  endanger  oar  cause,  if  it 
be  not  kept  out  of  our  national  convention.  There  is  another  thing 
our  friends  are  doing  which  gives  me  some  uneasiness.  It  is  their 
leaning  toward  "  popular  sovereignty."  There  are  three  substantial 
objections  to  this.  First,  no  party  can  command  respect  which  sus 
tains  this  year  what  it  opposed  last.  Secondly,  Douglas  (who  is  the 
most  dangerous  enemy  of  liberty,  because  the  most  insidious  one) 
would  have  little  support  in  the  North,  and  by  consequence,  no  cap 
ital  to  trade  on  in  the  South,  if  it  were  not  for  his  friends  thus  mag 
nifying  him  and  his  humbug.  But  lastly,  and  chiefly,  Douglas's 
popular  sovereignty,  accepted  by  the  public  mind  as  a  just  principle, 
nationalizes  slavery,  and  revives  the  African  slave-trade  inevitably. 
Taking  slaves  into  new  Territories,  and  buying  slaves  in  Africa,  are 
identical  things,  identical  rights  or  identical  wrongs,  and  the  argu 
ment  which  establishes  one  will  establish  the  other.  Try  a  thousand 


538          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

years  for  a  sound  reason  why  Congress  shall  not  hinder  the  people 
of  Kansas  from  having  slaves,  and  when  you  have  found  it,  it  will  be 
an  equally  good  one  why  Congress  should  not  hinder  the  people  of 
Georgia  from  importing  slaves  from  Africa. 

As  to  Governor  Chase,  I  have  a  kind  side  for  him.  He  was  one 
of  the  few  distinguished  men  of  the  nation  who  gave  us,  in  Illinois, 
their  sympathy  last  year.  I  never  saw  him,  but  suppose  him  to  be 
able  and  right-minded ;  but  still  he  may  not  be  the  most  suitable  as 
a  candidate  for  the  presidency. 

I  must  say  I  do  not  think  myself  fit  for  the  presidency.  As  you 
propose  a  correspondence  with  me,  I  shall  look  for  your  letters 
anxiously. 

I  have  not  met  Dr.  Reynolds  since  receiving  your  letter ;  but  when 
I  shall,  I  will  present  your  respects  as  requested. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


September  16,  1859. —  SPEECH  AT  COLUMBUS,  OHIO. 

Fellow-citizens  of  the  State  of  Ohio:  I  cannot  fail  to  remember  that 
I  appear  for  the  first  time  before  an  audience  in  this  now  great 
State — an  audience  that  is  accustomed  to  hear  such  speakers  as  Cor- 
win,  and  Chase,  and  Wade,  and  many  other  renowned  men  ;  and  re 
membering  this,  I  feel  that  it  will  be  well  for  you,  as  for  me,  that 
you  should  not  raise  your  expectations  to  that  standard  to  which  you 
would  have  been  justified  in  raising  them  had  one  of  these  distin 
guished  men  appeared  before  you.  You  would  perhaps  be  only  pre 
paring  a  disappointment  for  yourselves,  and,  as  a  consequence  of 
your  disappointment,  mortification  to  me.  I  hope,  therefore,  that 
you  will  commence  with  very  moderate  expectations ;  and  perhaps, 
if  you  will  give  me  your  attention,  I  shall  be  able  to  interest  you  to 
a  moderate  degree. 

Appearing  here  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  have  been  somewhat 
embarrassed  for  a  topic  by  way  of  introduction  to  my  speech ;  but  I 
have  been  relieved  from  that  embarrassment  by  an  introduction 
which  the  " Ohio  Statesman"  newspaper  gave  me  this  morning.  In 
this  paper  I  have  read  an  article  in  which,  among  other  statements, 
I  find  the  following : 

In  debating  with  Senator  Douglas  during  the  memorable  contest  last  fall, 
Mr.  Lincoln  declared  in  favor  of  negro  suffrage,  and  attempted  to  defend 
that  vile  conception  against  the  Little  Giant. 

I  mention  this  now,  at  the  opening  of  my  remarks,  for  the  purpose 
of  making  three  comments  upon  it.  The  first  I  have  already  an 
nounced — it  furnished  me  an  introductory  topic;  the  second  is  to 
show  that  the  gentleman  is  mistaken ;  thirdly,  to  give  him  an  op 
portunity  to  correct  it. 

In  the  first  place,  in  regard  to  this  matter  being  a  mistake.  I 
have  found  that  it  is  not  entirely  safe,  when  one  is  misrepresented 
under  his  very  nose,  to  allow  the  misrepresentation  to  go  uncontra- 
dicted.  I  therefore  propose,  here  at  the  outset,  not  only  to  say  that 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          539 

this  is  a  misrepresentation,  but  to  show  conclusively  that  it  is  so  j 
and  you  will  bear  with  me  while  I  read  a  couple  of  extracts  from 
that  very  "memorable"  debate  with  Judge  Douglas  last  year,  to 
which  this  newspaper  refers.  In  the  first  pitched  battle  which 
Senator  Douglas  and  myself  had,  at  the  town  of  Ottawa,  I  used 
the  language  which  I  will  now  read.  Having  been  previously  read 
ing  an  extract,  I  continued  as  follows: 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  don't  want  to  read  at  any  greater  length,  but  this  is 
the  true  complexion  of  all  I  have  ever  said  in  regard  to  the  institution  of 
slavery  and  the  black  race.  This  is  the  whole  of  it,  and  anything  that 
argues  me  into  his  idea  of  perfect  social  and  political  equality  with  the 
negro  is  but  a  specious  and  fantastic  arrangement  of  words,  by  which  a 
man  can  prove  a  horse-chestnut  to  be  a  chestnut  horse.  I  will  say  here, 
while  upon  this  subject,  that  I  have  no  purpose  either  directly  or  indirectly 
to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists.  I 
believe  I  have  no  lawful  right  to  do  so,  and  I  have  no  inclination  to  do  so. 
I  have  no  purpose  to  introduce  political  and  social  equality  between  the 
white  and  the  black  races.  There  is  a  physical  difference  between  the  two 
which,  in  my  judgment,  will  probably  forever  forbid  their  living  together 
upon  the  footing  of  perfect  equality,  and  inasmuch  as  it  becomes  a  neces 
sity  that  there  must  be  a  difference,  I,  as  well  as  Judge  Douglas,  am  in 
favor  of  the  race  to  which  I  belong  having  the  superior  position.  I  have 
never  said  anything  to  the  contrary,  but  I  hold  that,  notwithstanding  all 
this,  there  is  no  reason  in  the  world  why  the  negro  is  not  entitled  to  all  the 
natural  rights  enumerated  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  right  to 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  I  hold  that  he  is  as  much  entitled 
to  these  as  the  white  man.  I  agree  with  Judge  Douglas,  he  is  not  my  equal 
in  many  respects  —  certainly  not  in  color,  perhaps  not  in  moral  or  intellec 
tual  endowments.  But  in  the  right  to  eat  the  bread,  without  leave  of  any 
body  else,  which  his  own  hand  earns,  he  is  my  equal,  and  the  equal  of 
Judge  Douglas,  and  the  equal  of  every  living  man. 

Upon  a  subsequent  occasion,  when  the  reason  for  making  a  state 
ment  like  this  recurred,  I  said: 

While  I  was  at  the  hotel  to-day  an  elderly  gentleman  called  upon  me  to 
know  whether  I  was  really  in  favor  of  producing  a  perfect  equality  between 
the  negroes  and  white  people.  While  I  had  not  proposed  to  myself  on  this 
occasion  to  say  much  on  that  subject,  yet  as  the  question  was  asked  me  I 
thought  I  would  occupy  perhaps  five  minutes  in  saying  something  in  regard 
to  it.  I  will  say,  then,  that  I  am  not,  nor  ever  have  been,  in  favor  of  bringing 
about  in  any  way  the  social  and  political  equality  of  the  white  and  the  black 
races — that  I  am  not,  nor  ever  have  been,  in  favor  of  making  voters  or  ju 
rors  of  negroes,  nor  of  qualifying  them  to  hold  office,  nor  to  intermarry  with 
white  people  5  and  I  will  say  in  addition  to  this,  that  there  is  a  physical  dif 
ference  between  the  white  and  the  black  races,  which,  I  believe,  will  forever 
forbid  the  two  races  living  together  on  terms  of  social  and  political  equality. 
And  inasmuch  as  they  cannot  so  live,  while  they  do  remain  together  there 
must  be  the  position  of  superior  and  inferior,  and  I,  as  much  as  any  other 
man,  am  in  favor  of  having  the  superior  position  assigned  to  the  white  race. 
I  say  upon  this  occasion  I  do  not  perceive  that  because  the  white  man  is  to 
have  the  superior  position,  the  negro  should  be  denied  everything.  I  do 
not  understand  that  because  I  do  not  want  a  negro  woman  for  a  slave,  I  must 
necessarily  want  her  for  a  wife.  My  understanding  is  that  I  can  just  let  her 
alone.  I  am  now  in  my  fiftieth  year  j  and  I  certainly  never  have  had  a 


540          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

black  woman  for  either  a  slave  or  a  wife.  So  it  seems  to  me  quite  possible 
for  us  to  get  along  without  making  either  slaves  or  wives  of  negroes.  I  will 
add  to  this,  that  I  have  never  seen  to  my  knowledge  a  man,  woman,  or  child 
who  was  in  favor  of  producing  a  perfect  equality,  social  and  political,  be 
tween  negroes  and  white  men.  I  recollect  of  but  one  distinguished  instance 
that  I  ever  heard  of  so  frequently  as  to  be  entirely  satisfied  of  its  correct 
ness — and  that  is  the  case  of  Judge  Douglas's  old  friend,  Colonel  Richard 
M.  Johnson.  I  will  also  add  to  the  remarks  I  have  made  (for  I  am  not 
going  to  enter  at  large  upon  this  subject),  that  I  have  never  had  the  least 
apprehension  that  I  or  my  friends  would  marry  negroes,  if  there  was  no  law 
to  keep  them  from  it ;  but  as  Judge  Douglas  and  his  friends  seem  to  be  in 
great  apprehension  that  they  might,  if  there  were  no  law  to  keep  them  from 
it,  I  give  him  the  most  solemn  pledge  that  I  will  to  the  very  last  stand  by  the 
law  of  the  State,  which  forbids  the  marrying  of  white  people  with  negroes. 

There,  my  friends,  you  have  briefly  what  I  have,  upon  former  oc 
casions,  said  upon  the  subject  to  which  this  newspaper,  to  the  extent 
of  its  ability,  has  drawn  the  public  attention.  In  it  you  not  only 
perceive,  as  a  probability,  that  in  that  contest  I  did  not  at  any  time 
say  I  was  in  favor  of  negro  suffrage  j  but  the  absolute  proof  that 
twice — once  substantially  and  once  expressly  —  I  declared  against 
it.  Having  shown  you  this,  there  remains  but  a  word  of  comment 
upon  that  newspaper  article.  It  is  this :  that  I  presume  the  editor  of 
that  paper  is  an  honest  and  truth-loving  man,  and  that  he  will  be 
greatly  obliged  to  me  for  furnishing  him  thus  early  an  opportunity 
to  correct  the  misrepresentation  he  has  made,  before  it  has  run  so 
long  that  malicious  people  can  call  him  a  liar. 

The  giant  himself  has  been  here  recently.  I  have  seen  a  brief  re 
port  of  his  speech.  If  it  were  otherwise  unpleasant  to  me  to  intro 
duce  the  subject  of  the  negro  as  a  topic  for  discussion,  I  might  be 
somewhat  relieved  by  the  fact  that  he  dealt  exclusively  in  that  sub 
ject  while  he  was  here.  I  shall,  therefore,  without  much  hesitation 
or  diffidence,  enter  upon  this  subject. 

The  American  people,  on  the  first  day  of  January,  1854,  found  the 
African  slave-trade  prohibited  by  a  law  of  Congress.  In  a  majority 
of  the  States  of  this  Union,  they  found  African  slavery,  or  any  other 
sort  of  slavery,  prohibited  by  State  constitutions.  They  also  found 
a  law  existing,  supposed  to  be  valid,  by  which  slavery  was  excluded 
from  almost  all  the  territory  the  United  States  then  owned.  This 
was  the  condition  of  the  country,  with  reference  to  the  institution  of 
slavery,  on  the  first  of  January,  1854.  A  few  days  after  that,  a  bill 
was  introduced  into  Congress,  which  ran  through  its  regular  course 
in  the  two  branches  of  the  national  legislature,  and  finally  passed  into 
a  law  in  the  month  of  May,  by  which  the  act  of  Congress  prohibiting 
slavery  from  going  into  the  Territories  of  the  United  States  was  re 
pealed.  In  connection  with  the  law  itself,  and,  in  fact,  in  the  terms 
of  the  law,  the  then  existing  prohibition  was  not  only  repealed,  but 
there  was  a  declaration  of  a  purpose  on  the  part  of  Congress  never 
thereafter  to  exercise  any  power  that  they  might  have,  real  or  sup 
posed,  to  prohibit  the  extension  or  spread  of  slavery.  This  was  a 
very  great  change ;  for  the  law  thus  repealed  was  of  more  than  thirty 
years'  standing.  Following  rapidly  upon  the  heels  of  this  action  of 
Congress,  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  is  made,  by  which  it  is 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          541 

declared  that  Congress,  if  it  desires  to  prohibit  the  spread  of  slavery 
into  the  Territories,  has  no  constitutional  power  to  do  so.  Not  only 
so,  but  that  decision  lays  down  principles,  which,  if  pushed  to  their 
logical  conclusion, —  I  say  pushed  to  their  logical  conclusion, —  would 
decide  that  the  constitutions  of  free  States,  forbidding  slavery,  are 
themselves  unconstitutional.  Mark  me,  I  do  not  say  the  judges  said 
this,  and  let  no  man  say  I  affirm  the  judges  used  these  words ;  but  I 
only  say  it  is  my  opinion  that  what  they  did  say,  if  pressed  to  its 
logical  conclusion,  will  inevitably  result  thus. 

Looking  at  these  things,  the  Republican  party,  as  I  understand  its 
principles  and  policy,  believes  that  there  is  great  danger  of  the  institu 
tion  of  slavery  being  spread  out  and  extended,  until  it  is  ultimately 
made  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States  of  this  Union;  so  believing,  to 
prevent  that  incidental  and  ultimate  consummation  is  the  original 
and  chief  purpose  of  the  Republican  organization.  I  say  "  chief  pur 
pose"  of  the  Republican  organization;  for  it  is  certainly  true  that  if 
the  national  house  shall  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Republicans,  they 
will  have  to  attend  to  all  the  other  matters  of  national  house-keep 
ing  as  well  as  this.  The  chief  and  real  purpose  of  the  Republican 
party  is  eminently  conservative.  It  proposes  nothing  save  and  ex 
cept  to  restore  this  government  to  its  original  tone  in  regard  to 
this  element  of  slavery,  and  there  to  maintain  it,  looking  for  no  fur 
ther  change  in  reference  to  it  than  that  which  the  original  framers 
of  the  government  themselves  expected  and  looked  forward  to. 

The  chief  danger  to  this  purpose  of  the  Republican  party  is  not 
just  now  the  revival  of  the  African  slave-trade,  or  the  passage  of  a 
congressional  slave-code,  or  the  declaring  of  a  second  Dred  Scott 
decision,  making  slavery  lawful  in  all  the  States.  These  are  not 
pressing  us  just  now.  They  are  not  quite  ready  yet.  The  authors 
of  these  measures  know  that  we  are  too  strong  for  them;  but  they 
will  be  upon  us  in  due  time,  and  we  will  be  grappling  with  them 
hand  to  hand,  if  they  are  not  now  headed  off.  They  are  not  now  the 
chief  danger  to  the  purpose  of  the  Republican  organization;  but  the 
most  imminent  danger  that  now  threatens  that  purpose  is  that 
insidious  Douglas  popular  sovereignty.  This  is  the  miner  and 
sapper.  While  it  does  not  propose  to  revive  the  African  slave-trade, 
nor  to  pass  a  slave-code,  nor  to  make  a  second  Dred  Scott  decision, 
it  is  preparing  us  for  the  onslaught  and  charge  of  these  ultimate 
enemies  when  they  shall  be  ready  to  come  on,  and  the  word  of  com 
mand  for  them  to  advance  shall  be  given.  I  say  this  Douglas  popular 
sovereignty — for  there  is  a  broad  distinction,  as  I  now  understand 
it,  between  that  article  and  a  genuine  popular  sovereignty. 

I  believe  there  is  a  genuine  popular  sovereignty.  I  think  a  defini 
tion  of  genuine  popular  sovereignty,  in  the  abstract,  would  be  about 
this:  That  each  man  shall  do  precisely  as  he  pleases  with  himself, 
and  with  all  those  things  which  exclusively  concern  him.  Applied 
to  government,  this  principle  would  be,  that  a  general  government 
shall  do  all  those  things  which  pertain  to  it,  and  all  the  local  govern 
ments  shall  do  precisely  as  they  please  in  respect  to  those  matters 
which  exclusively  concern  them.  I  understand  that  this  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States,  under  which  we  live,  is  based  upon  this 


542          ADDRESSES    AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

principle;  and  I  am  misunderstood  if  it  is  supposed  that  I  have  any 
war  to  make  upon  that  principle. 

Now,  what  is  Judge  Douglas's  popular  sovereignty  ?  It  is,  as  a 
principle,  no  other  than  that  if  one  man  chooses  to  make  a  slave  of 
another  man,  neither  that  other  man  nor  anybody  else  has  a  right 
to  object.  Applied  in  government,  as  he  seeks  to  apply  it,  it  is  this: 
If,  in  a  new  Territory  into  which  a  few  people  are  beginning  to  enter 
for  the  purpose  of  making  their  homes,  they  choose  to  either  exclude 
slavery  from  their  limits  or  to  establish  it  there,  however  one  or  the 
other  may  affect  the  persons  to  be  enslaved,  or  the  infinitely  greater 
number  of  persons  who  are  afterward  to  inhabit  that  Territory,  or 
the  other  members  of  the  families  of  communities,  of  which  they  are 
but  an  incipient  member,  or  the  general  head  of  the  family  of  States 
as  parent  of  all — however  their  action  may  affect  one  or  the  other 
of  these,  there  is  no  power  or  right  to  interfere.  That  is  Douglas's 
popular  sovereignty  applied. 

He  has  a  good  deal  of  trouble  with  popular  sovereignty.  His  ex 
planations  explanatory  of  explanations  explained  are  interminable. 
The  most  lengthy  and,  as  I  suppose,  the  most  maturely  considered 
of  his  long  series  of  explanations  is  his  great  essay  in  "  Harper's 
Magazine."  I  will  not  attempt  to  enter  on  any  very  thorough  in 
vestigation  of  his  argument  as  there  made  and  presented.  I  will 
nevertheless  occupy  a  good  portion  of  your  time  here  in  drawing 
your  attention  to  certain  points  in  it.  Such  pf  you  as  may  have  read 
this  document  will  have  perceived  that  the  judge,  early  in  the  docu 
ment,  quotes  from  two  persons  as  belonging  to  the  Republican  party, 
without  naming  them,  but  who  can  readily  be  recognized  as  being 
Governor  Seward,  of  New  York,  and  myself.  It  is  true  that  exactly 
fifteen  months  ago  this  day,  I  believe,  I  for  the  first  time  expressed 
a  sentiment  upon  this  subject,  and  in  such  a  manner  that  it  should 
get  into  print,  that  the  public  might  see  it  beyond  the  circle  of  my 
hearers,  and  my  expression  of  it  at  that  time  is  the  quotation  that 
Judge  Douglas  makes.  He  has  not  made  the  quotation  with  accu 
racy,  but  justice  to  him  requires  me  to  say  that  it  is  sufficiently  ac 
curate  not  to  change  its  sense. 

The  sense  of  that  quotation  condensed  is  this — that  this  slavery 
element  is  a  durable  element  of  discord  among  us,  and  that  we  shall 
probably  not  have  perfect  peace  in  this  country  with  it  until  it  either 
masters  the  free  principle  in  our  government,  or  is  so  far  mastered 
by  the  free  principle  as  for  the  public  mind  to  rest  in  the  belief  that 
it  is  going  to  its  end.  This  sentiment  which  I  now  express  in  this 
way  was,  at  no  great  distance  of  time,  perhaps  in  different  language, 
and  in  connection  with  some  collateral  ideas,  expressed  by  Governor 
Seward.  Judge  Douglas  has  been  so  much  annoyed  by  the  expres 
sion  of  that  sentiment  that  he  has  constantly,  I  believe,  in  almost  all 
his  speeches  since  it  was  uttered,  been  referring  to  it.  I  find  he  al 
luded  to  it  in  his  speech  here,  as  well  as  in  the  copyright  essay.  I 
do  not  now  enter  upon  this  for  the  purpose  of  making  an  elaborate 
argument  to  show  that  we  were  right  in  the  expression  of  that  senti 
ment.  I  only  ask  your  attention  to  this  matter  for  the  purpose  of 
making  one  or  two  points  upon  it. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          543 

If  you  will  read  the  copyright  essay,  you  will  discover  that  Judge 
Douglas  himself  says  a  controversy  between  the  American  colonies 
and  the  government  of  Great  Britain  began  on  the  slavery  question 
in  1699,  and  continued  from  that  time  until  the  Revolution ;  and, 
while  he  did  not  say  so,  we  all  know  that  it  has  continued  with  more 
or  less  violence  ever  since  the  Revolution. 

Then  we  need  not  appeal  to  history,  to  the  declaration  of  the 
framers  of  the  government,  but  we  know  from  Judge  Douglas  him 
self  that  slavery  began  to  be  an  element  of  discord  among  the  white 
people  of  this  country  as  far  back  as  1699,  or  one  hundred  and  sixty 
years  ago,  or  five  generations  of  men  —  counting  thirty  years  to  a 
generation.  Now  it  would  seem  to  me  that  it  might  have  occurred  to 
Judge  Douglas,  or  to  anybody  who  had  turned  his  attention  to  these 
facts,  that  there  was  something  in  the  nature  of  that  thing,  slavery, 
somewhat  durable  for  mischief  and  discord. 

There  is  another  point  I  desire  to  make  in  regard  to  this  matter 
before  I  leave  it.  From  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  down  to 
1820  is  the  precise  period  of  our  history  when  we  had  comparative 
peace  upon  this  question — the  precise  period  of  time  when  we  came 
nearer  to  having  peace  about  it  than  any  other  time  of  that  entire  one 
hundred  and  sixty  years,  in  which  he  says  it  began,  or  of  the  eighty 
years  of  our  own  Constitution.  Then  it  would  be  worth  our  while 
to  stop  and  examine  into  the  probable  reason  of  our  coming  nearer 
to  having  peace  then  than  at  any  other  time.  This  was  the  precise 
period  of  time  in  which  our  fathers  adopted,  and  during  which  they 
followed,  a  policy  restricting  the  spread  of  slavery,  and  the  whole 
Union  was  acquiescing  in  it.  The  whole  country  looked  forward  to 
the  ultimate  extinction  of  the  institution.  It  was  when  a  policy  had 
been  adopted  and  was  prevailing,  which  led  all  just  and  right-minded 
men  to  suppose  that  slavery  was  gradually  coming  to  an  end,  and 
that  they  might  be  quiet  about  it,  watching  it  as  it  expired.  I  think 
Judge  Douglas  might  have  perceived  that  too,  and,  whether  he  did 
or  not,  it  is  worth  the  attention  of  fair-minded  men,  here  and  else 
where,  to  consider  whether  that  is  not  the  truth  of  the  case.  If  he 
had  looked  at  these  two  facts,  that  this  matter  has  been  an  element 
of  discord  for  one  hundred  and  sixty  years  among  this  people,  and 
that  the  only  comparative  peace  we  have  had  about  it  was  when 
that  policy  prevailed  in  this  government,  which  he  now  wars  upon, 
he  might  then,  perhaps,  have  been  brought  to  a  more  just  apprecia 
tion  of  what  I  said  fifteen  months  ago — that  "a  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  believe  this  government  cannot  en 
dure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the 
Union  to  be  dissolved  —  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall ;  but  I  do 
expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or 
all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  fur 
ther  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  will  rest  in  the 
belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates 
will  push  it  forward,  until  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the 
States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South."  That  was  my 
sentiment  at  that  time.  In  connection  with  it  I  said,  "We  are  now 
far  into  the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  initiated  with  the  avowed 


544          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

object  and  confident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation. 
Under  the  operation  of  that  policy,  that  agitation  has  not  only  not 
ceased,  but  has  constantly  augmented."  I  now  say  to  you  here  that 
we  are  advanced  still  farther  into  the  sixth  year  since  that  policy  of 
Judge  Douglas — that  popular  sovereignty  of  his  for  quieting*  the 
slavery  question — was  made  the  national  policy.  Fifteen  months 
more  have  been  added  since  I  uttered  that  sentiment,  and  I  call 
upon  you,  and  all  other  right-minded  men,  to  say  whether  those  fifteen 
months  have  belied  or  corroborated  my  words. 

While  I  am  here  upon  this  subject,  I  cannot  but  express  gratitude 
that  the  true  view  of  this  element  of  discord  among  us  —  as  I  believe 
it  is — is  attracting  more  and  more  attention.  I  do  not  believe  that 
Governor  Seward  uttered  that  sentiment  because  I  had  done  so  be 
fore,  but  because  he  reflected  upon  this  subject,  and  saw  the  truth  of  it. 
Nor  do  I  believe,  because  Governor  Seward  or  I  uttered  it,  that  Mr. 
Hickman,  of  Pennsylvania,  in  different  language,  since  that  time,  has 
declared  his  belief  in  the  utter  antagonism  which  exists  between  the 
principles  of  liberty  and  slavery.  You  see  we  are  multiplying.  Now, 
while  I  am  speaking  of  Hickman,  let  me  say,  I  know  but  little  about 
him.  I  have  never  seen  him,  and  know  scarcely  anything  about  the 
man ;  but  I  will  say  this  much  about  him :  Of  all  the  anti-Lecompton 
Democracy  that  have  been  brought  to  my  notice,  he  alone  has  the 
true,  genuine  ring  of  the  metal.  And  now,  without  indorsing  any 
thing  else  he  has  said,  I  will  ask  this  audience  to  give  three  cheers  for 
Hickman.  [The  audience  responded  with  three  rousing  cheers  for 
Hickman.] 

Another  point  in  the  copyright  essay  to  which  I  would  ask  your 
attention  is  rather  a  feature  to  be  extracted  from  the  whole  thing, 
than  from  any  express  declaration  of  it  at  any  point.  It  is  a  general 
feature  of  that  document,  and  indeed,  of  all  of  Judge  Douglas's  dis 
cussions  of  this  question,  that  the  Territories  of  the  United  States  and 
the  States  of  this  Union  are  exactly  alike —  that  there  is  no  difference 
between  them  at  all — that  the  Constitution  applies  to  the  Territories 
precisely  as  it  does  to  the  States  —  and  that  the  United  States  Gov 
ernment,  under  the  Constitution,  may  not  do  in  a  State  what  it  may 
not  do  in  a  Territory,  and  what  it  must  do  in  a  State,  it  must  do  in  a 
Territory.  Gentlemen,  is  that  a  true  view  of  the  easel  It  is  neces 
sary  for  this  squatter  sovereignty ;  but  is  it  true  f 

Let  us  consider.  What  does  it  depend  upon  ?  It  depends  altogether 
upon  the  proposition  that  the  States  must,  without  the  interference 
of  the  General  Government,  do  all  those  things  that  pertain  exclu 
sively  to  themselves — that  are  local  in  their  nature,  that  have  no 
connection  with  the  General  Government.  After  Judge  Douglas  has 
established  this  proposition,  which  nobody  disputes  or  ever  has  dis 
puted,  he  proceeds  to  assume,  without  proving  it,  that  slavery  is  one 
of  those  little,  unimportant,  trivial  matters,  which  are  of  just  about 
as  much  consequence  as  the  question  would  be  to  me  whether  my 
neighbor  should  raise  horned  cattle  or  plant  tobacco ;  that  there  is 
no  moral  question  about  it,  but  that  it  is  altogether  a  matter  of  dol 
lars  and  cents ;  that  when  a  new  Territory  is  opened  for  settlement, 
the  first  man  who  goes  into  it  may  plant  there  a  thing  which,  like  the 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          545 

Canada  thistle,  or  some  other  of  those  pests  of  the  soil,  cannot  be  dug 
out  by  the  millions  of  men  who  will  come  thereafter ;  that  it  is  one 
of  those  little  things  that  is  so  trivial  in  its  nature  that  it  has  no 
effect  upon  anybody  save  the  few  men  who  first  plant  upon  the  soil ; 
that  it  is  not  a  thing  which  in  any  way  affects  the  family  of  commu 
nities  composing  these  States,  nor  any  way  endangers  the  General 
Government.  Judge  Douglas  ignores  altogether  the  very  well-known 
fact  that  we  have  never  had  a  serious  menace  to  our  political  exis 
tence,  except  it  sprang  from  this  thing,  which  he  chooses  to  regard  as 
only  upon  a  par  with  onions  and  potatoes. 

Turn  it,  and  contemplate  it  in  another  view.  He  says  that,  ac 
cording  to  his  popular  sovereignty,  the  General  Government  may 
give  to  the  Territories  governors,  judges,  marshals,  secretaries,  and 
all  the  other  chief  men  to  govern  them,  but  they  must  not  touch 
upon  this  other  question.  Why?  The  question  of  who  shall  be 
governor  of  a  Territory  for  a  year  or  two,  and  pass  away,  without 
his  track  being  left  upon  the  soil,  or  an  act  which  he  did  for  good  or 
for  evil  being  left  behind,  is  a  question  of  vast  national  magnitude. 
It  is  so  much  opposed  in  its  nature  to  locality  that  the  nation  itself 
must  decide  it;  while  this  other  matter  of  planting  slavery  upon  a 
soil  —  a  thing  which,  once  planted,  cannot  be  eradicated  by  the  suc 
ceeding  millions  who  have  as  much  right  there  as  the  first  comers, 
or  if  eradicated,  not  without  infinite  difficulty  and  a  long  strug 
gle — he  considers  the  power  to  prohibit  it  as  one  of  these  little, 
local,  trivial  things  that  the  nation  ought  not  to  say  a  word  about ; 
that  it  affects  nobody  save  the  few  men  who  are  there. 

Take  these  two  things  and  consider  them  together,  present  the 
question  of  planting  a  State  with  the  institution  of  slavery  by  the 
side  of  a  question  of  who  shall  be  governor  of  Kansas  for  a  year  or 
two,  and  is  there  a  man  here — is  there  a  man  on  earth — who  would 
not  say  the  governor  question  is  the  little  one,  and  the  slavery 
question  is  the  great  one  ?  I  ask  any  honest  Democrat  if  the  small, 
the  local,  and  the  trivial  and  temporary  question  is  not,  Who  shall 
be  governor? — while  the  durable,  the  important,  and  the  mischievous 
one  is,  Shall  this  soil  be  planted  with  slavery? 

This  is  an  idea,  I  suppose,  which  has  arisen  in  Judge  Douglas's 
mind  from  his  peculiar  structure.  I  suppose  the  institution  of 
slavery  really  looks  small  to  him.  He  is  so  put  up  by  nature  that 
a  lash  upon  his  back  would  hurt  him,  but  a  lash  upon  anybody 
else's  back  does  not  hurt  him.  That  is  the  build  of  the  man,  and 
consequently  he  looks  upon  the  matter  of  slavery  in  this  unim 
portant  light. 

Judge  Douglas  ought  to  remember,  when  he  is  endeavoring  to 
force  this  policy  upon  the  American  people,  that  while  he  is  put  up 
in  that  way,  a^good  many  are  not.  He  ought  to  remember  that 
there  was  once  in  this  country  a  man  by  the  name  of  Thomas 
Jefferson,  supposed  to  be  a  Democrat — a  man  whose  principles  and 
policy  are  not  very  prevalent  amongst  Democrats  to-day,  it  is  true  j 
but  that  man  did  not  take  exactly  this  view  of  the  insignificance  of 
the  element  of  slavery  which  our  friend  Judge  Douglas  does.  In 
contemplation  of  this  thing,  we  all  know  he  was  led  to  exclaim,  "  I 
VOL.  I.— 35. 


546          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

tremble  for  my  country  when  I  remember  that  God  is  just ! "  We 
know  how  he  looked  upon  it  when  he  thus  expressed  himself. 
There  was  danger  to  this  country,  danger  of  the  avenging  justice 
of  God,  in  that  little  unimportant  popular-sovereignty  question  of 
Judge  Douglas.  He  supposed  there  was  a  question  of  God's  eter 
nal  justice  wrapped  up  in  the  enslaving  of  any  race  of  men,  or 
any  man,  and  that  those  who  did  so  braved  the  arm  of  Jehovah — 
that  when  a  nation  thus  dared  the  Almighty,  every  friend  of  that 
nation  had  cause  to  dread  his  wrath.  Choose  ye  between  Jefferson 
and  Douglas  as  to  what  is  the  true  view  of  this  element  among  us. 

There  is  another  little  difficulty  about  this  matter  of  treating  the 
Territories  and  States  alike  in  all  things,  to  which  I  ask  your  atten 
tion,  and  I  shall  leave  this  branch  of  the  case.  If  there  is  no  differ 
ence  between  them,  why  not  make  the  Territories  States  at  once  f 
What  is  the  reason  that  Kansas  was  not  fit  to  come  into  the  Union 
when  it  was  organized  into  a  Territory,  in  Judge  Douglas's  view  ? 
Can  any  of  you  tell  any  reason  why  it  should  not  have  come  into 
the  Union  at  once  ?  They  are  fit,  as  he  thinks,  to  decide  upon  the 
slavery  question — the  largest  and  most  important  with  which  they 
could  possibly  deal;  what  could  they  do  by  coming  into  the  Union 
that  they  are  not  fit  to  do,  according  to  his  view,  by  staying  out  of 
it  f  Oh,  they  are  not  fit  to  sit  in  Congress  and  decide  upon  the  rates 
of  postage,  or  questions  of  ad  valorem  or  specific  duties  on  foreign 
goods,  or  live-oak  timber  contracts ;  they  are  not  fit  to  decide  these 
vastly  important  matters,  which  are  national  in  their  import,  but 
they  are  fit,  "  from  the  jump/'  to  decide  this  little  negro  question, 
But,  gentlemen,  the  case  is  too  plain  j  I  occupy  too  much  time  on 
this  head,  and  I  pass  on. 

Near  the  close  of  the  copyright  essay,  the  judge,  I  think,  comes 
very  near  kicking  his  own  fat  into  the  fire.  I  did  not  think  when  I 
commenced  these  remarks  that  I  would  read  from  that  article,  but 
I  now  believe  I  will : 

This  exposition  of  the  history  of  these  measures  shows  conclusively  that 
the  authors  of  the  compromise  measures  of  1850,  and  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
act  of  1854,  as  well  as  the  members  of  the  Continental  Congress  in  1774,  and 
the  founders  of  our  system  of  government  subsequent  to  the  Revolutionj  re 
garded  the  people  of  the  Territories  and  Colonies  as  political  communities 
which  were  entitled  to  a  free  and  exclusive  power  of  legislation  in  their  pro 
vincial  legislatures,  where  their  representation  could  alone  be  preserved,  in 
all  cases  of  taxation  and  internal  polity. 

When  the  judge  saw  that  putting  in  the  word  "  slavery  "  would 
contradict  his  own  history,  he  put  in  what  he  knew  would  pass  as 
synonymous  with  it — "internal  polity."  Whenever  we  find  that  in 
one  of  his  speeches,  the  substitute  is  used  in  this  manner ;  and  I  can 
tell  you  the  reason.  It  would  be  too  bald  a  contradiction  to  say 
slavery,  but  "  internal  polity  n  is  a  general  phrase  which  would  pass 
in  some  quarters,  and  which  he  hopes  will  pass  with  the  reading  com 
munity,  for  the  same  thing. 

This  right  pertains  to  the  people  collectively,  as  a  law-abiding  and  peace 
ful  community,  and  not  to  the  isolated  individuals  who  may  wander  upon 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          547 

the  public  domain  in  violation  of  law.  It  can  only  be  exercised  where 
there  are  inhabitants  sufficient  to  constitute  a  government,  and  capable  of 
performing  its  various  functions  and  duties,  a  fact  to  be  ascertained  and  de 
termined  by  — 

Who  do  you  think?    Judge  Douglas  says,  "  By  Congress." 

Whether  the  number  shall  be  fixed  at  ten,  fifteen,  or  twenty  thousand  in 
habitants  does  not  affect  the  principle. 

Now  I  have  only  a  few  comments  to  make.  Popular  sovereignty, 
by  his  own  words,  does  not  pertain  to  the  few  persons  who  wander 
upon  the  public  domain  in  violation  of  law.  We  have  his  words  for 
that.  When  it  does  pertain  to  them  is  when  they  are  sufficient  to 
be  formed  into  an  organized  political  comm  unity ,  and  he  fixes  the 
minimum  for  that  at  10,000,  and  the  maximum  at  20,000.  Now  I 
would  like  to  know  what  is  to  be  done  with  the  9,000  f  Are  they  all 
to  be  treated,  until  they  are  large  enough  to  be  organized  into  a 
political  community,  as  wanderers  upon  the  public  land  in  violation 
of  law?  And  if  so  treated  and  driven  out,  at  what  point  of  time 
would  there  ever  be  ten  thousand  ?  If  they  were  not  driven  out,  but 
remained  there  as  trespassers  upon  the  public  land  in  violation  of  the 
law,  can  they  establish  slavery  there  ?  No  ;  the  judge  says  popular 
sovereignty  don't  pertain  to  them  then.  Can  they  exclude  it  then ? 
No;  popular  sovereignty  don't  pertain  to  them  then.  I  would  like 
to  know,  in  the  case  covered  by  the  essay,  what  condition  the 
people  of  the  Territory  are  in  before  they  reach  the  number  of  ten 
thousand? 

But  the  main  point  I  wish  to  ask  attention  to  is  that  the  question 
as  to  when  they  shall  have  reached  a  sufficient  number  to  be  formed 
into  a  regular  organized  community  is  to  be  decided  "by  Congress." 
Judge  Douglas  says  so.  Well,  gentlemen,  that  is  about  all  we  want. 
No;  that  is  all  the  Southerners  want.  That  is  what  all  those  who 
are  for  slavery  want.  They  do  not  want  Congress  to  prohibit  slav 
ery  from  coming  into  the  new  Territories,  and  they  do  not  want 
popular  sovereignty  to  hinder  it ;  and  as  Congress  is  to  say  when 
they  are  ready  to  be  organized,  all  that  the  South  has  to  do  is  to  get 
Congress  to  hold  off.  Let  Congress  hold  off  until  they  are  ready  to 
be  admitted  as  a  State,  and  the  South  has  all  it  wants  in  taking  slav 
ery  into  and  planting  it  in  all  the  Territories  that  we  now  have,  or 
hereafter  may  have.  In  a  word,  the  whole  thing,  at  a  dash  of  the 
pen,  is  at  last  put  in  the  power  of  Congress ;  for  if  they  do  not  have 
this  popular  sovereignty  until  Congress  organizes  them,  I  ask  if  it 
at  last  does  not  come  from  Congress  ?  If,  at  last,  it  amounts  to  any 
thing  at  all,  Congress  gives  it  to  them.  I  submit  this  rather  for  your 
reflection  than  for  comment.  After  all  that  is  said,  at  last,  by  a  dash 
of  the  pen,  everything  that  has  gone  before  is  undone,  and  he  puts 
the  whole  question  under  the  control  of  Congress.  After  fighting 
through  more  than  three  hours,  if  you  will  undertake  to  read  it,  he 
at  last  places  the  whole  matter  under  the  control  of  that  power  which 
he  had  been  contending  against,  and  arrives  at  a  result  directly  con 
trary  to  what  he  had  been  laboring  to  do.  He  at  last  leaves  the 
whole  matter  to  the  control  of  Congress. 


548         ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

There  are  two  main  objects,  as  I  understand  it,  of  this  "  Harper's 
Magazine"  essay.  One  was  to  show,  if  possible,  that  the  men  of  our 
Revolutionary  times  were  in  favor  of  his  popular  sovereignty ;  and 
the  other  was  to  show  that  the  Dred  Scott  decision  had  not  entirely 
squelched  out  this  popular  sovereignty.  I  do  not  propose,  in  regard 
to  this  argument  drawn  from  the  history  of  former  times,  to  enter 
into  a  detailed  examination  of  the  historical  statements  he  has  made. 
I  have  the  impression  that  they  are  inaccurate  in  a  great  many  in 
stances  •  sometimes  in  positive  statement,  but  very  much  more  in 
accurate  by  the  suppression  of  statements  that  really  belong  to  the 
history.  But  I  do  not  propose  to  affirm  that  this  is  so  to  any  very 
great  extent,  or  to  enter  into  a  very  minute  examination  of  his  his 
torical  statements.  I  avoid  doing  so  upon  this  principle — that  if  it 
were  important  for  me  to  pass  out  of  this  lot  in  the  least  period  of 
time  possible,  and  I  came  to  that  fence  and  saw  by  a  calculation  of 
my  own  strength  and  agility  that  I  could  clear  it  at  a  bound,  it  would 
be  folly  for  me  to  stop  and  consider  whether  I  could  or  could  not 
crawl  through  a  crack.  So  I  say  of  the  whole  history  contained  in 
his  essay,  where  he  endeavored  to  link  the  men  of  the  Revolution  to 
popular  sovereignty.  It  only  requires  an  effort  to  leap  out  of  it  —  a 
single  bound  to  be  entirely  successful.  If  you  read  it  over  you  will 
find  that  he  quotes  here  and  there  from  documents  of  the  Revolu 
tionary  times,  tending  to  show  that  the  people  of  the  colonies  were 
desirous  of  regulating  their  own  concerns  in  their  own  way,  that  the 
British  Government  should  not  interfere;  that  at  one  time  they 
struggled  with  the  British  Government  to  be  permitted  to  exclude 
the  African  slave-trade,*  if  not  directly, to  be  permitted  to  exclude  it 
indirectly  by  taxation  sufficient  to  discourage  and  destroy  it.  From 
these  and  many  things  of  this  sort,  Judge  Douglas  argues  that  they 
were  in  favor  of  the  people  of  our  own  Territories  excluding  slavery 
if  they  wanted  to,  or  planting  it  there  if  they  wanted  to,  doing  just  as 
they  pleased  from  the  time  they  settled  upon  the  Territory.  Now, 
however  his  history  may  apply,  and  whatever  of  his  argument  there 
may  be  that  is  sound  and  accurate  or  unsound  and  inaccurate,  if  we 
can  find  out  what  these  men  did  themselves  do  upon  this  very  ques 
tion  of  slavery  in  the  Territories,  does  it  not  end  the  whole  thing?  If, 
after  all  this  labor  and  effort  to  show  that  the  men  of  the  Revolution 
were  in  favor  of  his  popular  sovereignty  and  his  mode  of  dealing 
with  slavery  in  the  Territories,  we  can  show  that  these  very  men  took 
hold  of  that  subject,  and  dealt  with  it,  we  can  see  for  ourselves  how 
they  dealt  with  it.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  argument  or  inference,  but 
we  know  what  they  thought  about  it. 

It  is  precisely  upon  that  part  of  the  history  of  the  country  that 
one  important  omission  is  made  by  Judge  Douglas.  He  selects  parts 
of  the  history  of  the  United  States  upon  the  subject  of  slavery,  and 
treats  it  as  the  whole,  omitting  from  his  historical  sketch  the  legisla 
tion  of  Congress  in  regard  to  the  admission  of  Missouri,  by  which  the 
Missouri  Compromise  was  established,  and  slavery  excluded  from  a 
country  half  as  large  as  the  present  United  States.  All  this  is  left  out 
of  his  history,  and  in  no  wise  alluded  to  by  him,  so  far  as  I  can  re 
member,  save  once,  when  he  makes  a  remark,  that  upon  his  principle 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          549 

the  Supreme  Court  was  authorized  to  pronounce  a  decision  that  the 
act  called  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  unconstitutional.  All  that 
history  has  been  left  out.  But  this  part  of  the  history  of  the  coun 
try  was  not  made  by  the  men  of  the  Revolution. 

There  was  another  part  of  our  political  history  made  by  the  very 
men  who  were  the  actors  in  the  Revolution,  which  has  taken  the 
name  of  the  ordinance  of  '87.  Let  me  bring  that  history  to  your 
attention.  In  1784,  I  believe,  this  same  Mr.  Jefferson  drew  up  an 
ordinance  for  the  government  of  the  country  upon  which  we  now 
stand ;  or  rather  a  frame  or  draft  of  an  ordinance  for  the  government 
of  this  country,  here  in  Ohio,  our  neighbors  in  Indiana,  us  who  live 
in  Illinois,  and  our  neighbors  in  Wisconsin  and  Michigan.  In  that 
ordinance,  drawn  up  not  only  for  the  government  of  that  Territory, 
but  for  the  Territories  south  of  the  Ohio  River,  Mr.  Jefferson  ex 
pressly  provided  for  the  prohibition  of  slavery.  Judge  Douglas 
says,  and  perhaps  he  is  right,  that  that  provision  was  lost  from  that 
ordinance.  I  believe  that  is  true.  When  the  vote  was  taken  upon 
it,  a  majority  of  all  present  in  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation 
voted  for  it;  but  there  were  so  many  absentees  that  those  voting  for 
it  did  not  make  the  clear  majority  necessary,  and  it  was  lost.  But 
three  years  after  that  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation  were  to 
gether  again,  and  they  adopted  a  new  ordinance  for  the  government 
of  this  Northwest  Territory,  not  contemplating  territory  south  of  the 
river,  for  the  States  owning  that  territory  had  hitherto  refrained 
from  giving  it  to  the  General  Government;  hence  they  made  the 
ordinance  to  apply  only  to  what  the  government  owned.  In  that, 
the  provision  excluding  slavery  was  inserted  and  passed  unan 
imously,  or  at  any  rate  it  passed  and  became  a  part  of  the  law  of 
the  land.  Under  that  ordinance  we  live.  First,  here,  in  Ohio,  you 
were  a  Territory,  then  an  enabling  act  was  passed,  authorizing  you 
to  form  a  constitution  and  State  government,  provided  it  was  Repub 
lican,  and  not  in  conflict  with  the  ordinance  of  '87.  When  you  framed 
your  constitution  and  presented  it  for  admission,  I  think  you  will 
find  the  legislation  upon  the  subject  will  show  that,  " whereas  you 
had  formed  a  constitution  that  was  Republican,  and  not  in  conflict 
with  the  ordinance  of  '87,"  therefore  you  were  admitted  upon  equal 
footing  with  the  original  States.  The  same  process  in  a  few  years 
was  gone  through  with  Indiana,  and  so  with  Illinois,  and  the  same 
substantially  with.  Michigan  and  Wisconsin. 

Not  only  did  that  ordinance  prevail,  but  it  was  constantly  looked 
to  whenever  a  step  was  taken  by  a  new  Territory  to  become  a  State. 
Congress  always  turned  their  attention  to  it,  and  in  all  their  move 
ments  upon  this  subject  they  traced  their  course  by  that  ordinance 
of  '87.  When  they  admitted  new  States  they  advertised  them  of 
this  ordinance  as  a  part  of  the  legislation  of  the  country.  They  did 
so  because  they  had  traced  the  ordinance  of  '87  throughout  the  his 
tory  of  this  country.  Begin  with  the  men  of  the  Revolution,  and 
go  down  for  sixty  entire  years,  and  until  the  last  scrap  of  that  Terri 
tory  comes  into  the  Union  in  the  form  of  the  State  of  Wisconsin, 
everything  was  made  to  conform  to  the  ordinance  of  '87,  excluding 
slavery  from  that  vast  extent  of  country. 


550          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

I  omitted  to  mention  in  the  right  place  that  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  was  in  process  of  being  framed  when  that  ordi 
nance  was  made  by  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation ;  and  one  of 
the  first  acts  of  Congress  itself,  under  the  new  Constitution  itself, 
was  to  give  force  to  that  ordinance  by  putting  power  to  carry  it  out 
into  the  hands  of  new  officers  under  the  Constitution,  in  the  place  of 
the  old  ones,  who  had  been  legislated  out  of  existence  by  the  change 
in  the  government  from  the  Confederation  to  the  Constitution.  Not 
only  so,  but  I  believe  Indiana  once  or  twice,  if  not  Ohio,  petitioned 
the  General  Government  for  the  privilege  of  suspending  that  provi 
sion  and  allowing  them  to  have  slaves.  A  report  made  by  Mr.  Ran 
dolph,  of  Virginia,  himself  a  slaveholder,  was  directly  against  it,  and 
the  action  was  to  refuse  them  the  privilege  of  violating  the  ordi 
nance  of  '87. 

This  period  of  history,  which  I  have  run  over  briefly,  is,  I  presume, 
as  familiar  to  most  of  this  assembly  as  any  other  part  of  the  his 
tory  of  our  country.  I  suppose  that  few  of  my  hearers  are  not  as 
familiar  with  that  part  of  history  as  I  am,  and  I  only  mention  it  to 
recall  your  attention  to  it  at  this  time.  And  hence  I  ask  how  extra 
ordinary  a  thing  it  is  that  a  man  who  has  occupied  a  position  upon  the 
floor  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  who  is  now  in  his  third  term, 
and  who  looks  to  see  the  government  of  this  whole  country  fall  into 
his  own  hands,  pretending  to  give  a  truthful  and  accurate  history  of 
the  slavery  question  in  this  country,  should  so  entirely  ignore  the 
whole  of  that  portion  of  our  history — the  most  important  of  all.  Is 
it  not  a  most  extraordinary  spectacle,  that  a  man  should  stand  up 
and  ask  for  any  confidence  in  his  statements,  who  sets  out  as  he  does 
with  portions  of  history,  calling  upon  the  people  to  believe  that  it  is 
a  true  and  fair  representation,  when  the  leading  part  and  control 
ling  feature  of  the  whole  history  is  carefully  suppressed? 

But  the  mere  leaving  out  is  not  the  most  remarkable  feature  of 
this  most  remarkable  essay.  His  proposition  is  to  establish  that 
the  leading  men  of  the  Eevolution  were  for  his  great  principle  of 
non-intervention  by  the  government  in  the  question  of  slavery  in 
the  Territories ;  while  history  shows  that  they  decided  in  the  cases 
actually  brought  before  them  in  exactly  the  contrary  way,  and  he 
knows  it.  Not  only  did  they  so  decide  at  that  time,  but  they  stuck 
to  it  during  sixty  years,  through  thick  and  thin,  as  long  as  there  was 
one  of  the  Revolutionary  heroes  upon  the  stage  of  political  action. 
Through  their  whole  course,  from  first  to  last,  they  clung  to  free 
dom.  And  now  he  asks  the  community  to  believe  that  the  men  of 
the  Revolution  were  in  favor  of  his  great  principle,  when  we  have 
the  naked  history  that  they  themselves  dealt  with  this  very  subject- 
matter  of  his  principle,  and  utterly  repudiated  his  principle,  acting 
upon  a  precisely  contrary  ground.  It  is  as  impudent  and  absurd  as 
if  a  prosecuting  attorney  should  stand  up  before  a  jury,  and  ask 
them  to  convict  A  as  the  murderer  of  B,  while  B  was  walking  alive 
before  them. 

I  say  again,  if  Judge  Douglas  asserts  that  the  men  of  the  Revolu 
tion  acted  upon  principles  by  which,  to  be  consistent  with  themselves, 
they  ought  to  have  adopted  his  popular  sovereignty,  then,  upon  a 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          551 

consideration  of  his  own  argument,  he  had  a  right  to  make  you 
believe  that  they  understood  the  principles  of  government,  but  mis 
applied  them — that  he  has  arisen  to  enlighten  the  world  as  to  the 
just  application  of  this  principle.  He  has  a  right  to  try  to  per 
suade  you  that  he  understands  their  principles  better  than  they  did, 
and  therefore  he  will  apply  them  now,  not  as  they  did,  but  as  they 
ought  to  have  done.  He  has  a  right  to  go  before  the  community,  and 
try  to  convince  them  of  this;  but  he  has  no  right  to  attempt  to  im 
pose  upon  any  one  the  belief  that  these  men  themselves  approved  of 
his  great  principle.  There  are  two  ways  of  establishing  a  proposi 
tion.  One  is  by  trying  to  demonstrate  it  upon  reason,  and  the  other 
is,  to  show  that  great  men  in  former  times  have  thought  so  and  so, 
and  thus  to  pass  it  by  the  weight  of  pure  authority.  Now,  if  Judge 
Douglas  will  demonstrate  somehow  that  this  is  popular  sovereignty 
— the  right  of  one  man  to  make  a  slave  of  another,  without  any  right 
in  that  other,  or  any  one  else,  to  object, — demonstrate  it  as  Euclid 
demonstrated  propositions, — there  is  no  objection.  But  when  he 
comes  forward,  seeking  to  carry  a  principle  by  bringing  to  it  the 
authority  of  men  who  themselves  utterly  repudiate  that  principle,  I 
ask  that  he  shall  not  be  permitted  to  do  it. 

I  see,  in  the  judge's  speech  here,  a  short  sentence  in  these  words : 
"  Our  fathers,  when  they  formed  this  government  under  which  we 
live,  understood  this  question  just  as  well  and  even  better  than  we 
do  now."  That  is  true ;  I  stick  to  that.  I  will  stand  by  Judge  Doug 
las  in  that  to  the  bitter  end.  And  now,  Judge  Douglas,  come  and 
stand  by  me,  and  truthfully  show  how  they  acted,  understanding  it 
better  than  we  do.  All  I  ask  of  you,  Judge  Douglas,  is  to  stick  to 
the  proposition  that  the  men  of  the  Revolution  understood  this  sub 
ject  better  than  we  do  now,  and  with  that  better  understanding  they 
acted  better  than  you  are  trying  to  act  now. 

I  wish  to  say  something  now  in  regard  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision, 
as  dealt  with  by  Judge  Douglas.  In  that  "  memorable  debate  "  be 
tween  Judge  Douglas  and  myself,  last  year,  the  judge  thought  fit  to 
commence  a  process  of  catechizing  me,  and  at  Freeport  I  answered 
his  questions,  and  propounded  some  to  him.  Among  others  pro 
pounded  to  him  was  one  that  I  have  here  now.  The  substance,  as  I 
remember  it,  is :  "  Can  the  people  of  a  United  States  Territory,  under 
the  Dred  Scott  decision,  in  any  lawful  way,  against  the  wish  of  any 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery  from  its  limits,  prior  to 
the  formation  of  a  State  constitution?"  He  answered  that  they 
could  lawfully  exclude  slavery  from  the  United  States  Territories, 
notwithstanding  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  There  was  something 
about  that  answer  that  has  probably  been  a  trouble  to  the  judge  ever 
since. 

The  Dred  Scott  decision  expressly  gives  every  citizen  of  the  United 
States  a  right  to  carry  his  slaves  into  the  United  States  Territories. 
And  now  there  was  some  inconsistency  in  saying  that  the  decision 
was  right,  and  saying,  too,  that  the  people  of  the  Territory  could 
lawfully  drive  slavery  out  again.  When  all  the  trash,  the  words, 
the  collateral  matter,  was  cleared  away  from  it, —  all  the  chaff  was 
fanned  out  of  it, — it  was  a  bare  absurdity :  no  less  than  that  a  thing 


552          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

may  be  lawfully  driven  away  from  where  it  has  a  lawful  right  to  be. 
Clear  it  of  all  the  verbiage,  and  that  is  the  naked  truth  of  his  proposi 
tion  — that  a  thing  may  be  lawfully  driven  from  the  place  where  it  has 
a  lawful  right  to  stay.  Well,  it  was  because  the  judge  could  n't  help 
seeing  this  that  he  has  had  so  much  trouble  with  it ;  and  what  I  want 
to  ask  your  especial  attention  to,  just  now,  is  to  remind  you,  if  you 
have  not  noticed  the  fact,  that  the  judge  does  not  any  longer  say  that 
the  people  can  exclude  slavery.  He  does  not  say  so  in  the  copyright 
essay ;  he  did  not  say  so  in  the  speech  that  he  made  here ;  and,  so  far 
as  I  know,  since  his  reelection  to  the  Senate,  he  has  never  said,  as 
he  did  at  Freeport,  that  the  people  of  the  Territories  can  exclude 
slavery.  He  desires  that  you,  who  wish  the  Territories  to  remain 
free,  should  believe  that  he  stands  by  that  position,  but  he  does  not 
say  it  himself.  He  escapes,  to  some  extent,  the  absurd  position  I  have 
stated  by  changing  his  language  entirely.  What  he  says  now  is 
something  different  in  language,  and  we  will  consider  whether  it 
is  not  different  in  sense  too.  It  is  now  that  the  Dred  Scott  de 
cision,  or  rather  the  Constitution  under  that  decision,  does  not  carry 
slavery  into  the  Territories  beyond  the  power  of  the  people  of  the 
Territories  to  control  it  as  other  property.  He  does  not  say  the  peo 
ple  can  drive  it  out,  but  they  can  control  it  as  other  property.  The 
language  is  different ;  we  should  consider  whether  the  sense  is  dif 
ferent.  Driving  a  horse  out  of  this  lot  is  too  plain  a  proposition  to 
be  mistaken  about ;  it  is  putting  him  on  the  other  side  of  the  fence. 
Or  it  might  be  a  sort  of  exclusion  of  him  from  the  lot  if  you  were  to 
kill  him  and  let  the  worms  devour  him  ;  but  neither  of  these  things 
is  the  same  as  "  controlling  him  as  other  property.77  That  would  be 
to  feed  him,  to  pamper  him,  to  ride  him,  to  use  and  abuse  him,  to 
make  the  most  money  out  of  him,  "as  other  property77;  but,  please 
you,  what  do  the  men  who  are  in  favor  of  slavery  want  more  than 
this  ?  What  do  they  really  want,  other  than  that  slavery,  being  in 
the  Territories,  shall  be  controlled  as  other  property  ? 

If  they  want  anything  else,  I  do  not  comprehend  it.  I  ask  your 
attention  to  this,  first,  for  the  purpose  of  pointing  out  the  change  of 
ground  the  judge  has  made  j  and,  in  the  second  place,  the  importance 
of  the  change  —  that  that  change  is  not  such  as  to  give  you  gentle 
men  who  want  his  popular  sovereignty  the  power  to  exclude  the  in 
stitution  or  drive  it  out  at  all.  I  know  the  judge  sometimes  squints 
at  the  argument  that  in  controlling  it  as  other  property  by  unfriendly 
legislation  they  may  control  it  to  death,  as  you  might  in  the  case  of 
a  horse,  perhaps,  feed  him  so  lightly  and  ride  him  so  much  that  he 
would  die.  But  when  you  come  to'legislative  control,  there  is  some 
thing  more  to  be  attended  to.  I  have  no  doubt,  myself,  that  if  the 
Territories  should  undertake  to  control  slave  property  as  other  prop 
erty —  that  is,  control  it  in  such  a  way  that  it  would  be  the  most 
valuable  as  property,  and  make  it  bear  its  just  proportion  in  the  way 
of  burdens  as  property, —  really  deal  with  it  as  property, —  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States  will  say,  "  God  speed  you,  and 
amen.'7  But  I  undertake  to  give  the  opinion,  at  least,  that  if  the 
Territories  attempt  by  any  direct  legislation  to  drive  the  man  with 
his  slave  out  of  the  Territory,  or  to  decide  that  his  slave  is  free  be- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          553 

cause  of  his  being  taken  in  there,  or  to  tax  him  to  such  an  extent 
that  he  cannot  keep  him  there,  the  Supreme  Court  will  unhesitatingly 
decide  all  such  legislation  unconstitutional,  as  long  as  that  Supreme 
Court  is  constructed  as  the  Dred  Scott  Supreme  Court  is.  The  first 
two  things  they  have  already  decided,  except  that  there  is  a  little 
quibble  among  lawyers  between  the  words  dicta  and  decision.  They 
have  already  decided  that  a  negro  cannot  be  made  free  by  territorial 
legislation. 

What  is  that  Dred  Scott  decision?  Judge  Douglas  labors  to  show 
that  it  is  one  thing,  while  I  think  it  is  altogether  different.  It  is  a 
long  opinion,  but  it  is  all  embodied  in  this  short  statement:  "The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  forbids  Congress  to  deprive  a  man 
of  his  property  without  due  process  of  law ;  the  right  of  property 
in  slaves  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  in  that  Constitution  ; 
therefore  if  Congress  shall  undertake  to  say  that  a  man's  slave  is  no 
longer  his  slave  when  he  crosses  a  certain  line  into  a  Territory,  that 
is  depriving  him  of  his  property  without  due  process  of  law,  and  is 
unconstitutional.77  There  is  the  whole  Dred  Scott  decision.  They 
add  that  if  Congress  cannot  do  so  itself,  Congress  cannot  confer  any 
power  to  do  so,  and  hence  any  effort  by  the  territorial  legislature  to 
do  either  of  these  things  is  absolutely  decided  against.  It  is  a  fore 
gone  conclusion  by  that  court. 

Now,  as  to  this  indirect  mode  by  "unfriendly  legislation,'7  all  law 
yers  here  will  readily  understand  that  such  a  proposition  cannot  be 
tolerated  for  a  moment,  because  a  legislature  cannot  indirectly  do 
that  which  it  cannot  accomplish  directly.  Then  I  say  any  legislation 
to  control  this  property,  as  property,  for  its  benefit  as  property,  would 
be  hailed  by  this  Dred  Scott  Supreme  Court,  and  fully  sustained ; 
but  any  legislation  driving  slave  property  out,  or  destroying  it  as 
property,  directly  or  indirectly,  will  most  assuredly  by  that  court  be 
held  unconstitutional. 

Judge  Douglas  says  that  if  the  Constitution  carries  slavery  into 
the  Territories,  beyond  the  power  of  the  people  of  the  Territories  to 
control  it  as  other  property,  then  it  follows  logically  that  every  one 
who  swears  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  must 
give  that  support  to  that  property  which  it  needs.  And  if  the  Con 
stitution  carries  slavery  into  the  Territories  beyond  the  power  of  the 
people  to  control  it  as  other  property,  then  it  also  carries  it  into  the 
States,  because  the  Constitution  is  the  supreme  law  of  the  land. 
Now,  gentlemen,  if  it  were  not  for  my  excessive  modesty  I  would 
say  that  I  told  that  very  thing  to  Judge  Douglas  quite  a  year  ago. 
This  argument  is  here  in  print,  and  if  it  were  not  for  my  modesty, 
as  I  said,  I  might  call  your  attention  to  it.  If  you  read  it,  you  will 
find  that  I  not  only  made  that  argument,  but  made  it  better  than  he 
has  made  it  since. 

There  is,  however,  this  difference.  I  say  now,  and  said  then, 
there  is  no  sort  of  question  that  the  Supreme  Court  has  decided  that 
it  is  the  right  of  the  slaveholder  to  take  his  slave  and  hold  him  in 
the  Territory ;  and,  saying  this,  Judge  Douglas  himself  admits  the 
conclusion.  He  says  if  that  is  so,  this  consequence  will  follow;  and 
because  this  consequence  would  follow,  his  argument  is,  the  decision 


554          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

cannot  therefore  be  that  way  —  "  that  would  spoil  my  popular  sov 
ereign  ty,  and  it  cannot  be  possible  that  this  great  principle  has  been 
squelched  out  in  this  extraordinary  way.  It  might  be,  if  it  were  not 
for  the  extraordinary  consequences  of  spoiling  my  humbug." 

Another  feature  of  the  judge's  argument  about  the  Dred  Scott 
case  is  an  effort  to  show  that  that  decision  deals  altogether  in  dec 
larations  of  negatives  j  that  the  Constitution  does  not  affirm  any 
thing  as  expounded  by  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  but  it  only  declares 
a  want  of  power,  a  total  absence  of  power,  in  reference  to  the  Ter 
ritories.  It  seems  to  be  his  purpose  to  make  the  whole  of  that  deci 
sion  to  result  in  a  mere  negative  declaration  of  a  want  of  power  in 
Congress  to  do  anything  in  relation  to  this  matter  in  the  Territories. 
I  know  the  opinion  of  the  judges  states  that  there  is  a  total  absence 
of  power ;  but  that  is,  unfortunately,  not  all  it  states ;  for  the  judges 
add  that  the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and  expressly 
affirmed  in  the  Constitution.  It  does  not  stop  at  saying  that  the 
right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  recognized  in  the  Constitution,  is  de 
clared  to  exist  somewhere  in  the  Constitution,  but  says  it  is  affirmed 
in  the  Constitution.  Its  language  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  it  is 
embodied  and  so  woven  into  that  instrument  that  it  cannot  be  de 
tached  without  breaking  the  Constitution  itself, — in  a  word,  it  is  a 
part  of  the  Constitution. 

Douglas  is  singularly  unfortunate  in  his  effort  to  make  out  that 
decision  to  be  altogether  negative,  when  the  express  language  at  the 
vital  part  is  that  this  is  distinctly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution.  I 
think  myself,  and  I  repeat  it  here,  that  this  decision  does  not  merely 
carry  slavery  into  the  Territories,  but  by  its  logical  conclusion  it 
carries  it  into  the  States  in  which  we  live.  One  provision  of  that 
Constitution  is,  that  it  shall  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land, — I  do 
not  quote  the  language, — any  constitution  or  law  of  any  State  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding.  This  Dred  Scott  decision  says  that 
the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  affirmed  in  that  Constitution  which 
is  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  any  State  constitution  or  law  not 
withstanding.  Then  I  say  that  to  destroy  a  thing  which  is  distinctly 
affirmed  and  supported  by  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  even  by  a 
State  constitution  or  law,  is  a  violation  of  that  supreme  law,  and 
there  is  no  escape  from  it.  In  my  judgment  there  is  no  avoiding  that 
result,  save  that  the  American  people  shall  see  that  State  constitu 
tions  are  better  construed  than  our  Constitution  is  construed  in  that 
decision.  They  must  take  care  that  it  is  more  faithfully  and  truly 
carried  out  than  it  is  there  expounded. 

I  must  hasten  to  a  conclusion.  Near  the  beginning  of  my  remarks 
I  said  that  this  insidious  Douglas  popular  sovereignty  is  the  measure 
that  now  threatens  the  purpose  of  the  Republican  party  to  prevent 
slavery  from  being  nationalized  in  the  United  States.  I  propose  to 
ask  your  attention  for  a  little  while  to  some  propositions  in  affir 
mance  of  that  statement.  Take  it  just  as  it  stands,  and  apply  it  as  a 
principle ;  extend  and  apply  that  principle  elsewhere,  and  consider 
where  it  will  lead  you.  I  now  put  this  proposition,  that  Judge  Doug 
las's  popular  sovereignty  applied  will  reopen  the  African  slave-trade; 
and  I  will  demonstrate  it  by  any  variety  of  ways  in  which  you  can 
turn  the  subject  or  look  at  it. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEBS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          555 

The  judge  says  that  the  people  of  the  Territories  have  the  right, 
by  his  principle,  to  have  slaves  if  they  want  them.  Then  I  say  that 
the  people  in  Georgia  have  the  right  to  buy  slaves  in  Africa  if  they 
want  them,  and  I  defy  any  man  on  earth  to  show  any  distinction 
between  the  two  things — to  show  that  the  one  is  either  more  wicked 
or  more  unlawful ;  to  show,  on  original  principles,  that  one  is  better  or 
worse  than  the  other ;  or  to  show  by  the  Constitution  that  one  differs 
a  whit  from  the  other.  He  will  tell  me,  doubtless,  that  there  is  no 
constitutional  provision  against  people  taking  slaves  into  the  new 
Territories,  and  I  tell  him  that  there  is  equally  no  constitutional 
provision  against  buying  slaves  in  Africa.  He  will  tell  you  that  a 
people  in  the  exercise  of  popular  sovereignty  ought  to  do  as  they 
please  about  that  thing,  and  have  slaves  if  they  want  them ;  and 
I  tell  you  that  the  people  of  Georgia  are  as  much  entitled  to  pop 
ular  sovereignty,  and  to  buy  slaves  in  Africa,  if  they  want  them, 
as  the  people  of  the  Territory  are  to  have  slaves  if  they  want  them. 
I  ask  any  man,  dealing  honestly  with  himself,  to  point  out  a 
distinction. 

I  have  recently  seen  a  letter  of  Judge  Douglas's,  in  which,  with 
out  stating  that  to  be  the  object,  he  doubtless  endeavors  to  make  a 
distinction  between  the  two.  He  says  he  is  unalterably  opposed  to 
the  repeal  of  the  laws  against  the  African  slave-trade.  And  why  ? 
He  then  seeks  to  give  a  reason  that  would  not  apply  to  his  popular 
sovereignty  in  the  Territories.  What  is  that  reason  ?  "  The  abolition 
of  the  African  slave-trade  is  a  compromise  of  the  Constitution."  I 
deny  it.  There  is  no  truth  in  the  proposition  that  the  abolition  of 
the  African  slave-trade  is  a  compromise  of  the  Constitution.  No  man 
can  put  his  finger  on  anything  in  the  Constitution,  or  on  the  line  of 
history,  which  shows  it.  It  is  a  mere  barren  assertion,  made  simply 
for  the  purpose  of  getting  up  a  distinction  between  the  revival  of  the 
African  slave-trade  and  his  "  great  principle.7' 

At  the  time  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  adopted  it 
was  expected  that  the  slave-trade  would  be  abolished.  I  should  as 
sert,  and  insist  upon  that,  if  Judge  Douglas  denied  it.  But  I  know 
that  it  was  equally  expected  that  slavery  would  be  excluded  from 
the  Territories,  and  I  can  show  by  history  that  in  regard  to  these 
two  things  public  opinion  was  exactly  alike,  while  in  regard  to  posi 
tive  action,  there  was  more  done  in  the  ordinance  of  '87  to  resist  the 
spread  of  slavery  than  was  ever  done  to  abolish  the  foreign  slave- 
trade.  Lest  I  be  misunderstood,  I  say  again  that  at  the  time  of  the 
formation  of  the  Constitution,  public  expectation  was  that  the  slave- 
trade  would  be  abolished,  but  no  more  so  than  that  the  spread  of 
slavery  in  the  Territories  should  be  restrained.  They  stand  alike, 
except  that  in  the  ordinance  of  '87  there  was  a  mark  left  by  public 
opinion,  showing  that  it  was  more  committed  against  the  spread  of 
slavery  in  the  Territories  than  against  the  foreign  slave-trade. 

Compromise !  What  word  of  compromise  was  there  about  it?  Why, 
the  public  sense  was  then  in  favor  of  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade ; 
but  there  was  at  the  time  a  very  great  commercial  interest  involved 
in  it,  and  extensive  capital  in  that  branch  of  trade.  There  were 
doubtless  the  incipient  stages  of  improvement  in  the  South  in  the 
way  of  farming,  dependent  on  the  slave-trade,  and  they  made  a  pro- 


556          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

position  to  Congress  to  abolish  the  trade  after  allowing  it  twenty 
years,  a  sufficient  time  for  the  capital  and  commerce  engaged  in  it  to 
be  transferred  to  other  channels.  They  made  no  provision  that  it 
should  be  abolished  in  twenty  years ;  I  do  not  doubt  that  they  ex 
pected  it  would  be  ;  but  they  made  no  bargain  about  it.  The  public 
sentiment  left  no  doubt  in  the  minds  of  any  that  it  would  be  done 
away.  I  repeat,  there  is  nothing  in  the  history  of  those  times  in 
favor  of  that  matter  being  a  compromise  of  the  Constitution.  It  was 
the  public  expectation  at  the  time,  manifested  in  a  thousand  ways, 
that  the  spread  of  slavery  should  also  be  restricted. 

Then  I  say  if  this  principle  is  established,  that  there  is  no  wrong 
in  slavery,  and  whoever  wants  it  has  a  right  to  have  it ;  that  it  is  a 
matter  of  dollars  and  cents ;  a  sort  of  question  as  to  how  they  shall 
deal  with  brutes;  that  between  us  and  the  negro  here  there  is  no  sort 
of  question,  but  that  at  the  South  the  question  is  between  the  negro 
and  the  crocodile ;  that  it  is  a  mere  matter  of  policy;  that  there  is  a 
perfect  right,  according  to  interest,  to  do  just  as  you  please — when 
this  is  done,  where  this  doctrine  prevails,  the  miners  and  sappers  will 
have  formed  public  opinion  for  the  slave-trade.  They  will  be  ready 
for  Jeff  Davis  and  Stephens,  and  other  leaders  of  that  company,  to 
sound  the  bugle  for  the  revival  of  the  slave-trade,  for  the  second 
Dred  Scott  decision,  for  the  flood  of  slavery  to  be  poured  over  the 
free  States,  while  we  shall  be  here  tied  down  and  helpless,  and  run 
over  like  sheep. 

It  is  to  be  a  part  and  parcel  of  this  same  idea  to  say  to  men  who 
want  to  adhere  to  the  Democratic  party,  who  have  always  belonged 
to  that  party,  and  are  only  looking  about  for  some  excuse  to  stick  to 
it,  but  nevertheless  hate  slavery,  that  Douglas's  popular  sovereignty 
is  as  good  a  way  as  any  to  oppose  slavery.  They  allow  themselves  to 
be  persuaded  easily,  in  accordance  with  their  previous  dispositions, 
into  this  belief,  that  it  is  about  as  good  a  way  of  opposing  slavery 
as  any,  and  we  can  do  that  without  straining  our  old  party  ties  or 
breaking  up  old  political  associations.  We  can  do  so  without  being 
called  negro-worshipers.  We  can  do  that  without  being  subjected 
to  the  gibes  and  sneers  that  are  so  readily  thrown  out  in  place 
of  argument  where  no  argument  can  be  found.  So  let  us  stick  to 
this  popular  sovereignty — this  insidious  popular  sovereignty.  Now 
let  me  call  your  attention  to  one  thing  that  has  really  happened, 
which  shows  this  gradual  and  steady  debauching  of  public  opinion,, 
this  course  of  preparation  for  the  revival  of  the  slave-trade,  for  the 
territorial  slave-code,  and  the  new  Dred  Scott  decision  that  is  to 
carry  slavery  into  the  free  States.  Did  you  ever,  five  years  ago, 
hear  of  anybody  in  the  world  sayrng  that  the  negro  had  no  share 
in  the  Declaration  of  National  Independence;  that  it  did  not  mean 
negroes  at  all,  and  when  "all  men"  were  spoken  of  negroes  were 
not  included? 

I  am  satisfied  that  five  years  ago  that  proposition  was  not  put 
upon  paper  by  any  living  being  anywhere.  I  have  been  unable  at 
any  time  to  find  a  man  in  an  audience  who  would  declare  that  he  had 
ever  known  of  anybody  saying  so  five  years  ago.  But  last  year  there 
was  not  a  "Douglas  popular  sovereignty"  man  in  Illinois  who  did  not 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          557 

say  it.  Is  there  one  in  Ohio  but  declares  his  firm  belief  that  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  did  not  mean  negroes  at  all  ?  I  do  not 
know  how  this  is ;  I  have  not  been  here  much;  but  I  presume  you 
are  very  much  alike  everywhere.  Then  I  suppose  that  all  now 
express  the  belief  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  never  did 
mean  negroes.  I  call  upon  one  of  them  to  say  that  he  said  it  five 
years  ago. 

If  you  think  that  now,  and  did  not  think  it  then,  the  next  thing 
that  strikes  me  is  to  remark  that  there  has  been  a  change  wrought 
in  you,  and  a  very  significant  change  it  is,  being  no  less  than  chang 
ing  the  negro,  in  your  estimation,  from  the  rank  of  a  man  to  that 
of  a  brute.  They  are  taking  him  down,  and  placing  him,  when 
spoken  of,  among  reptiles  and  crocodiles,  as  Judge  Douglas  himself 
expresses  it. 

Is  not  this  change  wrought  in  your  minds  a  very  important 
change?  Public  opinion  in  this  country  is  everything.  In  a  na 
tion  like  ours  this  popular  sovereignty  and  squatter  sovereignty 
have  already  wrought  a  change  in  the  public  mind  to  the  extent  I 
have  stated.  There  is  no  man  in  this  crowd  who  can  contradict  it. 

Now,  if  you  are  opposed  to  slavery  honestly,  as  much  as  anybody, 
I  ask  you  to  note  that  fact,  and  the  like  of  which  is  to  follow,  to  be 
plastered  on,  layer  after  layer,  until  very  soon  you  are  prepared  to 
deal  with  the  negro  everywhere  as  with  the  brute.  If  public  senti 
ment  has  not  been  debauched  already  to  this  point,  a  new  turn  of 
the  screw  in  that  direction  is  all  that  is  wanting;  and  this  is  con 
stantly  being  done  by  the  teachers  of  this  insidious  popular  sover 
eignty.  You  need  but  one  or  two  turns  further  until  your  minds, 
now  ripening  under  these  teachings,  will  be  ready  for  all  these  things, 
and  you  will  receive  and  support,  or  submit  to,  the  slave-trade  re 
vived  with  all  its  horrors,  a  slave  code  enforced  in  our  Territories, 
and  a  new  Dred  Scott  decision  to  bring  slavery  up  into  the  very  heart 
of  the  free  North.  This,  I  must  say,  is  but  carrying  out  those  words 
prophetically  spoken  by  Mr.  Clay  many,  many  years  ago, — I  believe 
more  than  thirty  years, — when  he  told  an  audience  that  if  they  would 
repress  all  tendencies  to  liberty  and  ultimate  emancipation,  they  must 
go  back  to  the  era  of  our  independence  and  muzzle  the  cannon 
which  thundered  its  annual  joyous  return  on  the  Fourth  of  July ; 
they  must  blow  out  the  moral  lights  around  us;  they  must  penetrate 
the  human  soul,  and  eradicate  the  love  of  liberty;  but  until  they  did 
these  things,  and  others  eloquently  enumerated  by  him,  they  could 
not  repress  all  tendencies  to  ultimate  emancipation. 

I  ask  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  a  preeminent  degree  these  popu 
lar  sovereigns  are  at  this  work:  blowing  out  the  moral  lights  around 
us;  teaching  that  the  negro  is  no  longer  a  man,  but  a  brute;  that  the 
Declaration  has  nothing  to  do  with  him;  that  he  ranks  with  the 
crocodile  and  the  reptile ;  that  man,  with  body  and  soul,  is  a  matter 
of  dollars  and  cents.  I  suggest  to  this  portion  of  the  Ohio  Republi 
cans,  or  Democrats,  if  there  be  any  present,  the  serious  consideration 
of  this  fact,  that  there  is  now  going  on  among  you  a  steady  process 
of  debauching  public  opinion  on  this  subject.  With  this,  my  friends, 
I  bid  you  adieu. 


558         ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


September  17,  1859. —  SPEECH  AT  CINCINNATI,  OHIO. 

My  Felloiv-citizens  of  the  State  of  Ohio :  This  is  the  first  time  in 
my  life  that  I  have  appeared  before  an  audience  in  so  great  a  city 
as" this.  I  therefore — though  I  am  no  longer  a  young  man — make 
this  appearance  under  some  degree  of  embarrassment.  But  I  have 
found  that  when  one  is  embarrassed,  usually  the  shortest  way  to  get 
through  with  it  is  to  quit  talking  or  thinking  about  it,  and  go  at 
something  else. 

I  understand  that  you  have  had  recently  with  you  my  very  dis 
tinguished  friend,  Judge  Douglas,  of  Illinois,  and  I  understand, 
without  having  had  an  opportunity  (not  greatly  sought,  to  be  sure) 
of  seeing  a  report  of  the  speech  that  he  made  here,  that  he  did  me  the 
honor  to  mention  my  humble  name.  I  suppose  that  he  did  so  for  the 
purpose  of  making  some  objection  to  some  sentiment  at  some  time 
expressed  b^  me.  I  should  expect,  it  is  true,  that  Judge  Doug 
las  had  reminded  you,  or  informed  you,  if  you  had  never  before 
heard  it,  that  I  had  once  in  my  life  declared  it  as  my  opinion  that 
this  government  cannot  "  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half 
free;  that  a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand," and,  as  I  had 
expressed  it,  I  did  not  expect  the  house  to  fall ;  that  I  did  not  expect 
the  Union  to  be  dissolved,  but  that  I  did  expect  it  would  cease  to 
be  divided ;  that  it  would  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other;  that 
either  the  opposition  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it, 
and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  would  rest  in  the  belief  that  it 
was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  the  friends  of  slavery 
will  push  it  forward  until  it  becomes  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States, 
old  or  new,  free  as  well  as  slave.  I  did,  fifteen  months  ago,  express 
that  opinion,  and  upon  many  occasions  Judge  Douglas  has  denounced 
it,  and  has  greatly,  intentionally  or  unintentionally,  misrepresented 
my  purpose  in  the  expression  of  that  opinion. 

I  presume,  without  having  seen  a  report  of  his  speech,  that  he  did 
so  here.  I  presume  that  he  alluded  also  to  that  opinion  in  different 
language,  having  been  expressed  at  a  subsequent  time  by  Governor 
Seward,  of  New  York,  and  that  he  took  the  two  in  a  lump  and  de 
nounced  them ;  that  he  tried  to  point  out  that  there  was  something 
couched  in  this  opinion  which  led  to  the  making  of  an  entire  uni 
formity  of  the  local  institutions  of  the  various  States  of  the  Union,  in 
utter  disregard  of  the  different  States,  which  in  their  nature  would 
seem  to  require  a  variety  of  institutions,  and  a  variety  of  laws  con 
forming  to  the  differences  in  the  nature  of  the  different  States. 

Not  only  so ;  I  presume  he  insisted  that  this  was  a  declaration  of 
war  between  the  free  and  slave  States — that  it  was  the  sounding  to 
the  onset  of  continual  war  between  the  different  States,  the  slave 
and  free  States. 

This  charge,  in  this  form,  was  made  by  Judge  Douglas  on,  I  be 
lieve,  the  9th  of  July,  1858,  in  Chicago,  in  my  hearing.  On  the  next 
evening,  I  made  some  reply  to  it.  I  informed  him  that  many  of  the 
inferences  he  drew  from  that  expression  of  mine  were  altogether 
foreign  to  any  purpose  entertained  by  me,  and  in  so  far  as  he  should 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          559 

ascribe  these  inferences  to  me,  as  my  purpose,  he  was  entirely  mis 
taken  ;  and  in  so  far  as  he  might  argue  that  whatever  might  be  my 
purpose,  actions,  conforming  to  my  views,  would  lead  to  these  results, 
he  might  argue  and  establish  if  he  could ;  but,  so  far  as  purposes 
were  concerned,  he  was  totally  mistaken  as  to  me. 

When  I  made  that  reply  to  him,  I  told  him,  on  the  question 
of  declaring  war  between  the  different  States  of  the  Union,  that  I 
had  not  said  I  did  not  expect  any  peace  upon  this  question  until 
slavery  was  exterminated  ;  that  I  had  only  said  I  expected  peace  when 
that  institution  was  put  where  the  public  mind  should  rest  in  the 
belief  that  it  was  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction  ;  that  I  believed, 
from  the  organization  of  our  government  until  a  very  recent  period 
of  time,  the  institution  had  been  placed  and  continued  upon  such  a 
basis;  that  we  had  had  comparative  peace  upon  that  question 
through  a  portion  of  that  period  of  time,  only  because  the  public 
mind  rested  in  that  belief  in  regard  to  it,  and  that  when  we  returned 
to  that  position  in  relation  to  that  matter,  I  supposed  we  should  again 
have  peace  as  we  previously  had.  I  assured  him,  as  I  now  assure 
you,  that  I  neither  then  had,  nor  have,  nor  ever  had,  any  purpose  in 
any  way  of  interfering  with  the  institution  of  slavery  where  it  exists. 
I  believe  we  have  no  power,  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  or  rather  under  the  form  of  government  under  which  we 
live,  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery,  or  any  other  of  the 
institutions  of  our  sister  States,  be  they  free  or  slave  States.  I  de 
clared  then,  and  I  now  re-declare,  that  I  have  as  little  inclination 
to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  where  it  now  exists, 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  General  Government,  or  any  other 
instrumentality,  as  I  believe  we  have  no  power  to  do  so.  I  acciden 
tally  used  this  expression:  I  had  no  purpose  of  entering  into  the 
slave  States  to  disturb  the  institution  of  slavery.  So,  upon  the  first 
occasion  that  Judge  Douglas  got  an  opportunity  to  reply  to  me,  he 
passed  by  the  whole  body  of  what  I  had  said  upon  that  subject,  and 
seized  upon  the  particular  expression  of  mine,  that  I  had  no  purpose 
of  entering  into  the  slave  States  to  disturb  the  institution  of  slavery. 
"Oh,  no,"  said  he;  "he  [Lincoln]  won't  enter  into  the  slave  States  to 
disturb  the  institution  of  slavery ;  he  is  too  prudent  a  man  to  do 
such  a  thing  as  that ;  he  only  means  that  he  will  go  on  to  the  line 
between  the  free  and  slave  States,  and  shoot  over  at  them.  This  is 
all  he  means  to  do.  He  means  to  do  them  all  the  harm  he  can,  to 
disturb  them  all  he  can,  in  such  a  way  as  to  keep  his  own  hide  in 
perfect  safety." 

Well,  now,  I  did  not  think,  at  that  time,  that  that  was  either  a  very 
dignified  or  very  logical  argument;  but  so  it  was,  and  I  had  to  get 
along  with  it  as  well  as  I  could. 

It  has  occurred  to  me  here  to-night  that  if  I  ever  do  shoot  over 
the  line  at  the  people  on  the  other  side  of  the  line,  into  a  slave 
State,  and  propose  to  do  so  keeping  my  skin  safe,  that  I  have  now 
about  the  best  chance  I  shall  ever  have.  I  should  not  wonder  if 
there  are  some  Kentuckians  about  this  audience;  we  are  close  to 
Kentucky;  and  whether  that  be  so  or  not,  we  are  on  elevated 
ground,  and  by  speaking  distinctly  I  should  not  wonder  if  some  of 


560          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

the  Kentuckians  would  hear  me  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  For 
that  reason  I  propose  to  address  a  portion  of  what  I  have  to  say  to 
the  Kentuckians. 

I  say,  then,  in  the  first  place,  to  the  Kentuckians,  that  I  am  what 
they  call,  as  I  understand  it,  a  "  Black  Republican."  I  think  slavery 
is  wrong,  morally  and  politically.  I  desire  that  it  should  be  no  fur 
ther  spread  in  these  United  States,  and  I  should  not  object  if  it 
should  gradually  terminate  in  the  whole  Union.  While  I  say  this 
for  myself,  I  say  to  you  Kentuckians  that  I  understand  you  differ 
radically  with  me  upon  this  proposition ;  that  you  believe  slavery  is 
a  good  thing ;  that  slavery  is  right ;  that  it  ought  to  be  extended 
and  perpetuated  in  this  Union.  Now,  there  being  this  broad  differ 
ence  between  us,  I  do  not  pretend,  in  addressing  myself  to  you  Ken 
tuckians,  to  attempt  proselyting  you  ;  that  would  be  a  vain  effort. 
I  do  not  enter  upon  it.  I  only  propose  to  try  to  show  you  that  you 
ought  to  nominate  for  the  next  presidency,  at  Charleston,  my  dis 
tinguished  friend,  Judge  Douglas.  In  all  that  there  is  no  real  differ 
ence  between  you  and  him  j  I  understand  he  is  as  sincerely  for  you, 
and  more  wisely  for  you,  than  you  are  for  yourselves.  I  will  try  to 
demonstrate  that  proposition.  Understand  now,  I  say  that  I  believe 
he  is  as  sincerely  for  you,  and  more  wisely  for  you,  than  you  are 
for  yourselves. 

What  do  you  want  more  than  anything  else  to  make  successful 
your  views  of  slavery  —  to  advance  the  outspread  of  it,  and  to  secure 
and  perpetuate  the  nationality  of  it?  What  do  you  want  more  than 
anything  else  ?  What  is  needed  absolutely  ?  What  is  indispensable 
to  you  ?  Why,  if  I  may  be  allowed  to  answer  the  question,  it  is  to 
retain  a  hold  upon  the  North  —  it  is  to  retain  support  and  strength 
from  the  free  States.  If  you  can  get  this  support  and  strength  from 
the  free  States,  you  can  succeed.  If  you  do  not  get  this  support  and 
this  strength  from  the  free  States,  you  are  in  the  minority,  and  you 
are  beaten  at  once. 

If  that  proposition  be  admitted, —  and  it  is  undeniable, — then  the 
next  thing  I  say  to  you  is,  that  Douglas  of  all  the  men  in  this  nation 
is  the  only  man  that  affords  you  any  hold  upon  the  free  States  5  that 
no  other  man  can  give  you  any  strength  in  the  free  States.  This 
being  so,  if  you  doubt  the  other  branch  of  the  proposition,  whether  he 
is  for  you, —  whether  he  is  really  for  you,  as  I  have  expressed  it, — I 
propose  asking  your  attention  for  a  while  to  a  few  facts. 

The  issue  between  you  and  me,  understand,  is  that  I  think  slavery 
is  wrong,  and  ought  not  to  be  outspread,  and  you  think  it  is  right, 
and  ought  to  be  extended  and  perpetuated.  I  now  proceed  to  try  to 
show  to  you  that  Douglas  is  as  sincerely  for  you,  and  more  wisely 
for  you,  than  you  are  for  yourselves. 

In  the  first  place,  we  know  that  in  a  government  like  this,  a  govern 
ment  of  the  people,  where  the  voice  of  all  the  men  of  the  country, 
substantially,  enters  into  the  administration  of  the  government,  what 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  of  it  is  public  opinion.  I  lay  down  the  propo 
sition  that  Judge  Douglas  is  not  only  the  man  that  promises  you  in 
advance  a  hold  upon  the  North,  and  support  in  the  North,  but  that  he 
constantly  molds  public  opinion  to  your  ends;  that  in  every  possible 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          561 

way  he  can,  he  molds  the  public  opinion  of  the  North  to  your  ends ; 
and  if  there  are  a  few  things  in  which  he  seems  to  be  against  you,— 
a  few  things  which  he  says  that  appear  to  be  against  you,  and  a  few 
that  he  forbears  to  say  which  you  would  like  to  have  him  say, —  you 
ought  to  remember  that  the  saying  of  the  one,  or  the  forbearing 
to  say  the  other,  would  lose  his  hold  upon  the  North,  and,  by  con 
sequence,  would  lose  his  capacity  to  serve  you. 

Upon  this  subject  of  molding  public  opinion,  I  call  your  atten 
tion  to  the  fact  —  for  a  well-established  fact  it  is  —  that  the  judge 
never  says  your  institution  of  slavery  is  wrong:  he  never  says  it  is 
right,  to*  be  sure,  but  he  never  says  it  is  wrong.  There  is  not  a 
public  man  in  the  United  States,  I  believe,  with  the  exception  of 
Senator  Douglas,  who  has  not,  at  some  time  in  his  life,  declared  his 
opinion  whether  the  thing  is  right  or  wrong ;  but  Senator  Douglas 
never  declares  it  is  wrong.  He  leaves  himself  at  perfect  liberty  to 
do  all  in  your  favor  which  he  would  be  hindered  from  doing  if  he 
were  to  declare  the  thing  to  be  wrong.  On  the  contrary,  he  takes 
all  the  chances  that  he  has  for  inveigling  the  sentiment  of  the  North, 
opposed  to  slavery,  into  your  support,  by  never  saying  it  is  right. 
This  you  ought  to  set  down  to  his  credit.  You  ought  to  give  him 
full  credit  for  this  much,  little  though  it  be  in  comparison  to  the 
whole  which  he  does  for  you. 

Some  other  things  I  will  ask  your  attention  to.  He  said  upon  the 
floor  of  the  United  States  Senate,  and  he  has  repeated  it,  as  I  under 
stand,  a  great  many  times,  that  he  does  not  care  whether  slavery  is 
"  voted  up  or  voted  down."  This  again  shows  you,  or  ought  to  show 
you,  if  you  would  reason  upon  it,  that  he  does  not  believe  it  to  be 
wrong ;  for  a  man  may  say,  when  he  sees  nothing  wrong  in  a  thing, 
that  he  does  not  care  whether  it  be  voted  up  or  voted  down ;  but  no 
man  can  logically  say  that  he  cares  not  whether  a  thing  goes  up  or 
goes  down  which  appears  to  him  to  be  wrong.  You  therefore  have 
a  demonstration  in  this,  that  to  Judge  Douglas's  mind  your  favorite 
institution,  which  you  desire  to  have  spread  out  and  made  per 
petual,  is  no  wrong. 

Another  thing  he  tells  you,  in  a  speech  made  at  Memphis,  in  Ten 
nessee,  shortly  after  the  canvass  in  Illinois,  last  year.  He  there 
distinctly  told  the  people  that  there  was  a  "  line  drawn  by  the  Al 
mighty  across  this  continent,  on  the  one  side  of  which  the  soil  must 
always  be  cultivated  by  slaves  "  ;  that  he  did  not  pretend  to  know 
exactly  where  that  line  was,  but  that  there  was  such  a  line.  I  want 
to  ask  your  attention  to  that  proposition  again  —  that  there  is  one 
portion  of  this  continent  where  the  Almighty  has  designed  the  soil 
shall  always  be  cultivated  by  slaves ;  that  its  being  cultivated  by 
slaves  at  that  place  is  right ;  that  it  has  the  direct  sympathy  and  au 
thority  of  the  Almighty.  Whenever  you  can  get  these  Northern  audi 
ences  to  adopt  the  opinion  that  slavery  is  right  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Ohio ;  whenever  you  can  get  them,  in  pursuance  of  Douglas's 
views,  to  adopt  that  sentiment,  they  will  very  readily  make  the  other 
argument,  which  is  perfectly  logical,  that  that  which  is  right  on  that 
side  of  the  Ohio  cannot  be  wrong  on  this,  and  that  if  you  have  that 
property  on  that  side  of  the  Ohio,  under  the  seal  and  stamp  of  the 
VOL.  I.— 36. 


562          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Almighty,  when  by  any  means  it  escapes  over  here,  it  is  wrong  to 
have  constitutions  and  laws  "to  devil"  you  about  it.  So  Douglas 
is  molding  the  public  opinion  of  the  North,  first  to  say  that  the 
thing  is  right  in  your  State  over  the  Ohio  River,  and  hence  to  say 
that  that  which  is  right  there  is  not  wrong  here,  and  that  all  laws 
and  constitutions  here,  recognizing  it  as  being  wrong,  are  themse]ves 
wrong,  and  ought  to  be  repealed  and  abrogated.  He  will  tell  you, 
men  of  Ohio,  that  if  you  choose  here  to  have  laws  against  slavery,  it 
is  in  conformity  to  the  idea  that  your  climate  is  not  suited  to  it;  that 
your  climate  is  not  suited  to  slave  labor,  and  therefore  you  have 
constitutions  and  laws  against  it. 

Let  us  attend  to  that  argument  for  a  little  while,  and  see  if  it  be 
sound.  You  do  not  raise  sugar-cane  (except  the  new-fashioned  sugar 
cane,  and  you  won't  raise  that  long),  but  they  do  raise  it  in  Louisi 
ana.  You  don't  raise  it  in  Ohio  because  you  can't  raise  it  profitably, 
because  the  climate  don't  suit  it.  They  do  raise  it  in  Louisiana  be 
cause  there  it  is  profitable.  Now  Douglas  will  tell  you  that  is  pre 
cisely  the  slavery  question  :  that  they  do  have  slaves  there  because 
they  are  profitable,  and  you  don't  have  them  here  because  they  are 
not  profitable.  If  that  is  so,  then  it  leads  to  dealing  with  the  one 
precisely  as  with  the  other.  Is  there,  then,  anything  in  the  constitu 
tion  or  laws  of  Ohio  against  raising  sugar-cane?  Have  you  found  it 
necessary  to  put  any  such  provision  in  your  law?  Surely  not !  No 
man  desires  to  raise  sugar-cane  in  Ohio ;  but  if  any  man  did  desire 
to  do  so,  you  would  say  it  was  a  tyrannical  law  that  forbids  his 
doing  so;  and  whenever  you  shall  agree  with  Douglas,  whenever 
your  minds  are  brought  to  adopt  his  argument,  as  surely  you  will 
have  reached  the  conclusion  that  although  slavery  is  not  profitable 
in  Ohio,  if  any  man  want  it,  it  is  wrong  to  him  not  to  let  him  have  it. 

In  this  matter  Judge  Douglas  is  preparing  the  public  mind  for 
you  of  Kentucky,  to  make  perpetual  that  good  thing  in  your  estima 
tion,  about  which  you  and  I  differ. 

In  this  connection  let  me  ask  your  attention  to  another  thing. 
I  believe  it  is  safe  to  assert  that,  five  years  ago,  no  living  man  had 
expressed  the  opinion  that  the  negro  had  no  share  in  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence.  Let  me  state  that  again :  Five  years  ago  no 
living  man  had  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  negro  had  no  share 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  If  there  is  in  this  large  audi 
ence  any  man  who  ever  knew  of  that  opinion  being  put  upon  paper 
as  much  as  five  years  ago,  I  will  be  obliged  to  him  now,  or  at  a  sub 
sequent  time,  to  show  it. 

If  that  be  true,  I  wish  you  then  to  note  the  next  fact —  that  within 
the  space  of  five  years  Senator  Douglas,  in  the  argument  of  this 
question,  has  got  his  entire  party,  so  far  as  I  know,  without  excep 
tion,  to  join  in  saying  that  the  negro  has  no  share  in  the  Declaration 
of  Independence.  If  there  be  now  in  all  these  United  States  one 
Douglas  man  that  does  not  say  this,  I  have  been  unable  upon  any 
occasion  to  scare  him  up.  Now,  if  none  of  you  said  this  five  years 
ago,  and  all  of  you  say  it  now,  that  is  a  matter  that  you  Kentuckians 
ought  to  note.  That  is  a  vast  change  in  the  Northern  public  senti 
ment  upon  that  question. 


ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN          563 

Of  what  tendency  is  that  change  ?  The  tendency  of  that  change 
is  to  bring  the  public  mind  to  the  conclusion  that  when  men  are 
spoken  of,  the  negro  is  not  meant ;  that  when  negroes  are  spoken  of, 
brutes  alone  are  contemplated.  That  change  in  public  sentiment 
has  already  degraded  the  black  man,  in  the  estimation  of  Douglas 
and  his  followers,  from  the  condition  of  a  man  of  some  sort,  and 
assigned  him  to  the  condition  of  a  brute.  Now  you  Kentuckians 
ought  to  give  Douglas  credit  for  this.  That  is  the  largest  possible 
stride  that  can  be  made  in  regard  to  the  perpetuation  of  your  good 
thing  of  slavery. 

In  Kentucky,  perhaps, — in  many  of  the  slave  States  certainly, — 
you  are  trying  to  establish  the  rightfulness  of  slavery  by  reference  to 
the  Bible.  You  are  trying  to  show  that  slavery  existed  in  the  Bible 
times  by  divine  ordinance.  Now  Douglas  is  wiser  than  you  for 
your  own  benefit,  upon  that  subject.  Douglas  knows  that  whenever 
you  establish  that  slavery  was  right  by  the  Bible,  it  will  occur  that 
that  slavery  was  the  slavery  of  the  white  man, — of  men  without  ref 
erence  to  color, —  and  he  knows  very  well  that  you  may  entertain  that 
idea  in  Kentucky  as  much  as  you  please,  but  you  will  never  win  any 
Northern  support  upon  it.  He  makes  a  wiser  argument  for  you ;  he 
makes  the  argument  that  the  slavery  of  the  black  man,  the  slavery 
of  the  man  who  has  a  skin  of  a  different  color  from  your  own,  is 
right.  He  thereby  brings  to  your  support  Northern  voters  who  could 
not  for  a  moment  be  brought  by  your  own  argument  of  the  Bible- 
right  of  slavery.  Will  you  not  give  him  credit  for  that?  Will  you 
not  say  that  in  this  matter  he  is  more  wisely  for  you  than  you  are 
for  yourselves  ? 

Now,  having  established  with  his  entire  party  this  doctrine, —  hav 
ing  been  entirely  successful  in  that  branch  of  his  efforts  in  your 
behalf, — he  is  ready  for  another. 

At  this  same  meeting  at  Memphis,  he  declared  that  in  all  con 
tests  between  the  negro  and  the  white  man,  he  was  for  the  white 
man,  but  that  in  all  questions  between  the  negro  and  the  crocodile 
he  was  for  the  negro.  He  did  not  make  that  declaration  accidentally 
at  Memphis.  He  made  it  a  great  many  times  in  the  canvass  in  Illi 
nois  last  year  (though  I  don't  know  that  it  was  reported  in  any  of  his 
speeches  there;  but  he  frequently  made  it).  I  believe  he  repeated  it 
at  Columbus,  and  I  should  not  wonder  if  he  repeated  it  here.  It  is, 
then,  a  deliberate  way  of  expressing  himself  upon  that  subject.  It 
is  a  matter  of  mature  deliberation  with  him  thus  to  express  himself 
upon  that  point  of  his  case.  It  therefore  requires  some  deliberate 
attention. 

The  first  inference  seems  to  be  that  if  you  do  not  enslave  the  negro 
you  are  wronging  the  white  man  in  some  way  or  other;  and  that 
whoever  is  opposed  to  the  negro  being  enslaved  is,  in  some  way  or 
other,  against  the  white  man.  Is  not  that  a  falsehood  ?  If  there 
was  a  necessary  conflict  between  the  white  man  and  the  negro,  I 
should  be  for  the  white  man  as  much  as  Judge  Douglas ;  but  I  say 
there  is  no  such  necessary  conflict.  I  say  that  there  is  room  enough 
for  us  all  to  be  free,  and  that  it  not  only  does  not  wrong  the  white 
man  that  the  negro  should  be  free,  but  it  positively  wrongs  the 


564          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

mass  of  the  white  men  that  the  negro  should  be  enslaved;  that  the 
mass  of  white  men  are  really  injured  by  the  effects  of  slave-labor  in 
the  vicinity  of  the  fields  of  their  own  labor. 

But  I  do  not  desire  to  dwell  upon  this  branch  of  the  question  more 
than  to  say  that  this  assumption  of  his  is  false,  and  I  do  hope  that 
that  fallacy  will  not  long  prevail  in  the  minds  of  intelligent  white 
men.  At  all  events,  you  ought  to  thank  Judge  Douglas  for  it.  It  is 
for  your  benefit  it  is  made. 

The  other  branch  of  it  is,  that  in  a  struggle  between  the  negro  and 
the  crocodile,  he  is  for  the  negro.  Well,  I  don't  know  that  there  is 
any  struggle  between  the  negro  and  the  crocodile,  either.  I  suppose 
that  if  a  crocodile  (or,  as  we  old  Ohio  River  boatmen  used  to  call 
them,  alligators)  should  come  across  a  white  man,  he  would  kill  him 
if  he  could,  and  so  he  would  a  negro.  But  what,  at  last,  is  this  pro 
position  ?  I  believe  that  it  is  a  sort  of  proposition  in  proportion, 
which  may  be  stated  thus:  "As  the  negro  is  to  the  white  man,  so  is 
the  crocodile  to  the  negro;  and  as  the  negro  may  rightfully  treat  the 
crocodile  as  a  beast  or  reptile,  so  the  white  man  may  rightfully  treat 
the  negro  as  a  beast  or  reptile. "  That  is  really  the  point  of  all  that 
argument  of  his. 

Now,  my  brother  Kentuckians,  who  believe  in  this,  you  ought  to 
thank  Judge  Douglas  for  having  put  that  in  a  much  more  taking 
way  than  any  of  yourselves  have  done. 

Again,  Douglas's  great  principle,  "  popular  sovereignty,"  as  he 
calls  it,  gives  you  by  natural  consequence  the  revival  of  the  slave- 
trade  whenever  you  want  it.  If  you  are  disposed  to  question  this, 
listen  awhile,  consider  awhile,  what  I  shall  advance  in  support  of 
that  proposition. 

He  says  that  it  is  the  sacred  right  of  the  man  who  goes  into  the 
Territories  to  have  slavery  if  he  wants  it.  Grant  that  for  argu 
ment's  sake.  Is  it  not  the  sacred  right  of  the  man  who  don't  go 
there,  equally  to  buy  slaves  in  Africa,  if  he  wants  them  ?  Can  you 
point  out  the  difference  ?  The  man  who  goes  into  the  Territories  of 
Kansas  and  Nebraska,  or  any  other  new  Territory,  with  the  sacred 
right  of  taking  a  slave  there  which  belongs  to  him,  would  certainly 
have  no  more  right  to  take  one  there  than  I  would  who  own  no  slave, 
but  who  would  desire  to  buy  one  and  take  him  there.  You  will  not 
say — you,  the  friends  of  Judge  Douglas — but  that  the  man  who 
does  not  own  a  slave,  has  an  equal  right  to  buy  one  and  take  him  to 
the  Territory  as  the  other  does  ? 

I  say  that  Douglas's  popular  sovereignty,  establishing  his  sacred 
right  in  the  people,  if  you  please,  if  carried  to  its  logical  conclusion, 
gives  equally  the  sacred  right  to  the  people  of  the  States  or  the 
Territories  themselves  to  buy  slaves,  wherever  they  can  buy  them 
cheapest;  and  if  any  man  can  show  a  distinction,  I  should  like  to 
hear  him  try  it.  If  any  man  can  show  how  the  people  of  Kansas 
have  a  better  right  to  slaves  because  they  want  them,  than  the  peo 
ple  of  Georgia  have  to  buy  them  in  Africa,  I  want  him  to  do  it.  I 
think  it  cannot  be  done.  If  it  is  "popular  sovereignty"  for  the 
people  to  have  slaves  because  they  want  them,  it  is  popular  sover 
eignty  for  them  to  buy  them  in  Africa,  because  they  desire  to  do  so. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          565 

I  know  that  Douglas  has  recently  made  a  little  effort  —  not  seem 
ing  to  notice  that  he  had  a  different  theory  —  has  made  an  effort  to 
get  rid  of  that.  He  has  written  a  letter,  addressed  to  somebody,  I 
believe,  who  resides  in  Iowa,  declaring  his  opposition  to  the  repeal  of 
the  laws  that  prohibit  the  African  slave-trade.  He  bases  his  oppo 
sition  to  such  repeal  upon  the  ground  that  these  laws  are  themselves 
one  of  the  compromises  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
Now  it  would  be  very  interesting  to  see  Judge  Douglas,  or  any  of 
his  friends,  turn  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  point 
out  that  compromise,  to  show  where  there  is  any  compromise  in  the 
Constitution,  or  provision  in  the  Constitution,  expressed  or  implied, 
by  which  the  administrators  of  that  Constitution  are  under  any 
obligation  to  repeal  the  African  slave-trade.  I  know,  or  at  least  I 
think  I  know,  that  the  framers  of  that  Constitution  did  expect  that 
the  African  slave-trade  would  be  abolished  at  the  end  of  twenty 
years,  to  which  time  their  prohibition  against  its  being  abolished 
extended.  I  think  there  is  abundant  contemporaneous  history  to 
show  that  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  expected  it  to  be  abolished. 
But  while  they  so  expected,  they  gave  nothing  for  that  expectation, 
and  they  put  no  provision  in  the  Constitution  requiring  it  should  be 
so  abolished.  The  migration  or  importation  of  such  persons  as  the 
States  shall  see  fit  to  admit  shall  not  be  prohibited,  but  a  certain  tax 
might  be  levied  upon  such  importation.  But  what  was  to  be  done 
after  that  time?  The  Constitution  is  as  silent  about  that  as  it  is 
silent,  personally,  about  myself.  There  is  absolutely  nothing  in  it 
about  that  subject — there  is  only  the  expectation  of  the  framers  of 
the  Constitution  that  the  slave-trade  would  be  abolished  at  the  end 
of  that  time,  and  they  expected  it  would  be  abolished,  owing  to 
public  sentiment,  before  that  time,  and  they  put  that  provision  in, 
in  order  that  it  should  not  be  abolished  before  that  time,  for  reasons 
which  I  suppose  they  thought  to  be  sound  ones,  but  which  I  will  not 
now  try  to  enumerate  before  you. 

But  while  they  expected  the  slave-trade  would  be  abolished  at 
that  time,  they  expected  that  the  spread  of  slavery  into  the  new 
Territories  should  also  be  restricted.  It  is  as  easy  to  prove  that 
the  framers  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  expected  that 
slavery  should  be  prohibited  from  extending  into  the  new  Terri 
tories,  as  it  is  to  prove  that  it  was  expected  that  the  slave-trade 
should  be  abolished.  Both  these  things  were  expected.  One  was 
no  more  expected  than  the  other,  and  one  was  no  more  a  compro 
mise  of  the  Constitution  than  the  other.  There  was  nothing  said  in 
the  Constitution  in  regard  to  the  spread  of  slavery  into  the  Ter 
ritories.  I  grant  that,  but  there  was  something  very  important  said 
about  it  by  the  same  generation  of  men  in  the  adoption  of  the  old 
ordinance  of  '87,  through  the  influence  of  which  you  here  in  Ohio, 
our  neighbors  in  Indiana,  we  in  Illinois,  our  neighbors  in  Michigan 
and  Wisconsin,  are  happy,  prosperous,  teeming  millions  of  free  men. 
That  generation  of  men,  though  not  to  the  full  extent  members  of 
the  convention  that  framed  the  Constitution,  were  to  some  extent 
members  of  that  convention,  holding  seats  at  the  same  time  in  one 
body  and  the  other,  so  that  if  there  was  any  compromise  on  either 


566          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

of  these  subjects,  the  strong  evidence  is  that  that  compromise  was  in 
favor  of  the  restriction  of  slavery  from  the  new  Territories. 

But  Douglas  says  that  he  is  unalterably  opposed  to  the  repeal  of 
those  laws  ;  because,  in  his  view,  it  is  a  compromise  of  the  Constitu 
tion.  You  Kentuckians,  no  doubt,  are  somewhat  offended  with 
that !  You  ought  not  to  be !  You  ought  to  be  patient !  You  ought 
to  know  that  if  he  said  less  than  that,  he  would  lose  the  power  of 
"  lugging  "  the  Northern  States  to  your  support.  Really,  what  you 
would  push  him  to  do  would  take  from  him  his  entire  power  to  serve 
you.  And  you  ought  to  remember  how  long,  by  precedent,  Judge 
Douglas  holds  himself  obliged  to  stick  by  compromises.  You  ought 
to  remember  that  by  the  time  you  yourselves  think  you  are  ready  to 
inaugurate  measures  for  the  revival  of  the  African  slave-trade,  that 
sufficient  time  will  have  arrived,  by  precedent,  for  Judge  Douglas 
to  break  through  that  compromise.  He  says  now  nothing  more 
strong  than  he  said  in  1849  when  he  declared  in  favor  of  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise — that  precisely  four  years  and  a  quarter  after  he 
declared  that  compromise  to  be  a  sacred  thing,  which  "  no  ruthless 
hand  would  ever  dared  to  touch,"  he,  himself,  brought  forward  the 
measure  ruthlessly  to  destroy  it.  By  a  mere  calculation  of  time  it 
will  only  be  four  years  more  until  he  is  ready  to  take  back  his  pro 
fession  about  the  sacredness  of  the  compromise  abolishing  the  slave- 
trade.  Precisely  as  soon  as  you  are  ready  to  have  his  services  in 
that  direction,  by  fair  calculation,  you  may  be  sure  of  having  them. 

But  you  remember  and  set  down  to  Judge  Douglas's  debt,  or  dis 
credit,  that  he,  last  year,  said  the  people  of  Territories  can,  in  spite 
of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  exclude  your  slaves  from  those  Territo 
ries;  that  he  declared  by  "  unfriendly  legislation"  the  extension  of 
your  property  into  the  new  Territories  may  be  cut  off  in  the  teeth  of 
that  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

He  assumed  that  position  at  Freeport,  on  the  27th  of  August,  1858. 
He  said  that  the  people  of  the  Territories  can  exclude  slavery,  in  so 
many  words.  You  ought,  however,  to  bear  in  mind  that  he  has 
never  said  it  since.  You  may  hunt  in  every  speech  that  he  has  since 
made,  and  he  has  never  used  that  expression  once.  He  has  never 
seemed  to  notice  that  he  is  stating  his  views  differently  from  what  he 
did  then  j  but  by  some  sort  of  accident,  he  has  always  really  stated  it 
differently.  He  has  always  since  then  declared  that  "  the  Consti 
tution  does  not  carry  slavery  into  the  Territories  of  the  United 
States  beyond  the  power  of  the  people  legally  to  control  it,  as  other 
property."  Now  there  is  a  difference  in  the  language  used  upon  that 
former  occasion  and  in  this  latter  day.  There  may  or  may  not  be  a 
difference  in  the  meaning,  but  it  is  worth  while  considering  whether 
there  is  not  also  a  difference  in  meaning. 

What  is  it  to  exclude?  Why,  it  is  to  drive  it  out.  It  is  in  some 
way  to  put  it  out  of  the  Territory.  It  is  to  force  it  across  the  line,  or 
change  its  character,  so  that  as  property  it  is  out  of  existence.  But 
what  is  the  controlling  of  it  "  as  other  property"  ?  Is  controlling  it 
as  other  property  the  same  thing  as  destroying  it,  or  driving  it  away  ? 
I  should  think  not.  I  should  think  the  controlling  of  it  as  other 
property  would  be  just  about  what  you  in  Kentucky  should  want. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          567 

I  understand  the  controlling  of  property  means  the  controlling  of  it 
for  the  benefit  of  the  owner  of  it.  While  I  have  no  doubt  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States  would  say  "  God  speed  "  to  any  of 
the  territorial  legislatures  that  should  thus  control  slave  property, 
they  would  sing  quite  a  different  tune  if  by  the  pretense  of  control 
ling  it  they  were  to  undertake  to  pass  laws"  which  virtually  excluded 
it,  and  that  upon  a  very  well  known  principle  to  all  lawyers,  that 
what  a  legislature  cannot  directly  do,  it  cannot  do  by  indirection ; 
that  as  the  legislature  has  not  the  power  to  drive  slaves  out,  they 
have  no  power  by  indirection,  by  tax,  or  by  imposing  burdens  in  any 
way  on  that  property,  to  effect  the  same  end,  and  that  any  attempt  to 
do  so  would  be  held  by  the  Dred  Scott  court  unconstitutional. 

Douglas  is  not  willing  to  stand  by  his  first  proposition  that  they 
can  exclude  it,  because  we  have  seen  that  that  proposition  amounts 
to  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  naked  absurdity  that  you  may  law 
fully  drive  out  that  which  has  a  lawful  right  to  remain.  He  admitted 
at  first  that  the  slave  might  be  lawfully  taken  into  the  Territories 
under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  yet  asserted  that  he 
might  be  lawfully  driven  out.  That  being  the  proposition,  it  is  the 
absurdity  I  have  stated.  He  is  not  willing  to  stand  in  the  face  of 
that  direct,  naked,  and  impudent  absurdity;  he  has,  therefore,  modi 
fied  his  language  into  that  of  being  "  controlled  as  other  property." 

The  Kentuckians  don't  like  this  in  Douglas  !  I  will  tell  you  where 
it  will  go.  He  now  swears  by  the  court.  He  was  once  a  leading 
man  in  Illinois  to  break  down  a  court  because  it  had  made  a  deci 
sion  he  did  not  like.  But  he  now  not  only  swears  by  the  court,  the 
courts  having  got  to  working  for  you,  but  he  denounces  all  men  that 
do  not  swear  by  the  courts  as  unpatriotic,  as  bad  citizens.  When  one 
of  these  acts  of  unfriendly  legislation  shall  impose  such  heavy  bur 
dens  as  to,  in  effect,  destroy  property  in  slaves  in  a  Territory,  and 
show  plainly  enough  that  there  can  be  no  mistake  in  the  purpose  of 
the  legislature  to  make  them  so  burdensome,  this  same  Supreme 
Court  will  decide  that  law  to  be  unconstitutional,  and  he  will  be 
ready  to  say  for  your  benefit,  "  I  swear  by  the  court;  I  give  it  up"; 
and  while  that  is  going  on  he  has  been  getting  all  his  men  to  swear 
by  the  courts,  and  to  give  it  up  with  him.  In  this  again  he  serves 
you  faithfully,  and,  as  I  say,  more  wisely  than  you  serve  yourselves. 

Again,  I  have  alluded  in  the  beginning  of  these  remarks  to  the  fact 
that  Judge  Douglas  has  made  great  complaint  of  my  having  expressed 
the  opinion  that  this  government "  cannot  endure  permanently  half 
slave  and  half  free."  He  has  complained  of  Seward  for  using  different 
language,  and  declaring  that  there  is  an  "  irrepressible  conflict "  be 
tween  the  principles  of  free  and  slave  labor.  [A  voice :  "  He  says 
it  is  not  original  with  Seward.  That  is  original  with  Lincoln."]  I 
will  attend  to  that  immediately,  sir.  Since  that  time,  Hickman,  of 
Pennsylvania,  expressed  the  same  sentiment.  He  has  never  de 
nounced  Mr.  Hickman.  Why?  There  is  a  little  chance,  notwith 
standing  that  opinion  in  the  mouth  of  Hickman,  that  he  may  yet  be 
a  Douglas  man.  That  is  the  difference.  It  is  not  unpatriotic  to  hold 
that  opinion,  if  a  man  is  a  Douglas  man. 

But  neither  I,  nor  Seward,  nor  Hickman  is  entitled  to  the  enviable 


568         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

or  unenviable  distinction  of  having  first  expressed  that  idea.  That 
same  idea  was  expressed  by  the  Richmond  "  Enquirer  "  in  Virginia, 
in  1856,  quite  two  years  before  it  was  expressed  by  the  first  of  us. 
And  while  Douglas  was  pluming  himself  that  in  his  conflict  with  my 
humble  self,  last  year,  he  had  "  squelched  out "  that  fatal  heresy,  as  he 
delighted  to  call  it,  and  had  suggested  that  if  he  only  had  had  a  chance 
to  be  in  New  York  and  meet  Seward  he  would  have  "  squelched  "  it 
there  also,  it  never  occurred  to  him  to  breathe  a  word  against  Pry  or. 
I  don't  think  that  you  can  discover  that  Douglas  ever  talked  of  going 
to  Virginia  to  "  squelch  "  out  that  idea  there.  No.  More  than  that. 
That  same  Roger  A.  Pryor  was  brought  to  Washington  City  and 
made  the  editor  of  the  par  excellence  Douglas  paper  after  making  use 
of  that  expression  which,  in  us,  is  so  unpatriotic  and  heretical.  From 
all  this  my  Kentucky  friends  may  see  that  this  opinion  is  heretical 
in  his  view  only  when  it  is  expressed  by  men  suspected  of  a  desire  that 
the  country  shall  all  become  free,  and  not  when  expressed  by  those 
fairly  known  to  entertain  the  desire  that  the  whole  country  shall  be 
come  slave.  When  expressed  by  that  class  of  men,  it  is  in  no  wise 
offensive  to  him.  In  this  again,  my  friends  of  Kentucky,  you  have 
Judge  Douglas  with  you. 

There  is  another  reason  why  you  Southern  people  ought  to  nomi 
nate  Douglas  at  your  convention  at  Charleston.  That  reason  is  the 
wonderful  capacity  of  the  man :  the  power  he  has  of  doing  what 
would  seem  to  be  impossible.  Let  me  call  your  attention  to  one  of 
these  apparently  impossible  things. 

Douglas  had  three  or  four  very  distinguished  men,  of  the  most 
extreme  antislavery  views  of  any  men  in  the  Republican  party,  ex 
pressing  their  desire  for  his  reelection  to  the  Senate  last  year.  That 
would,  of  itself,  have  seemed  to  be  a  little  wonderful,  but  that  won 
der  is  heightened  when  we  see  that  Wise,  of  Virginia,  a  man  exactly 
opposed  to  them,  a  man  who  believes  in  the  divine  right  of  slavery, 
was  also  expressing  his  desire  that  Douglas  should  be  reflected;  that 
another  man  that  may  be  said  to  be  kindred  to  Wise,  Mr.  Breckin 
ridge,  the  Vice-President,  and  of  your  own  State,  was  also  agreeing 
with  the  antislavery  men  in  the  North  that  Douglas  ought  to  be 
reflected.  Still,  to  heighten  the  wonder,  a  senator  from  Kentucky, 
whom  I  have  always  loved  with  an  affection  as  tender  and  endearing 
as  I  have  ever  loved  any  man,  who  was  opposed  to  the  antislavery 
men  for  reasons  which  seemed  sufficient  to  him,  and  equally  opposed 
to  Wise  and  Breckinridge,  was  writing  letters  into  Illinois  to  secure 
the  reelection  of  Douglas.  Now  that  all  these  conflicting  elements 
should  be  brought,  while  at  daggers'  points  with  one  another,  to 
support  him,  is  a  feat  that  is  worthy  for  you  to  note  and  consider.  It 
is  quite  probable  that  each  of  these  classes  of  men  thought,  by  the 
reelection  of  Douglas,  their  peculiar  views  would  gain  something: 
it  is  probable  that  the  antislavery  men  thought  their  views  would 
gain  something;  that  Wise  and  Breckinridge  thought  so  too,  as  re 
gards  their  opinions;  that  Mr.  Crittenden  thought  that  his  views 
would  gain  something,  although  he  was  opposed  to  both  these  other 
men.  It  is  probable  that  each  and  all  of  them  thought  that  they  were 
using  Douglas,  and  it  is  yet  an  unsolved  problem  whether  he  was  not 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          569 

using  them  all.  If  he  was,  then  it  is  for  you  to  consider  whether  that 
power  to  perform  wonders  is  one  for  you  lightly  to  throw  away. 

There  is  one  other  thing  that  I  will  say  to  you  in  this  relation.  It 
is  but  my  opinion ;  I  give  it  to  you  without  a  fee.  It  is  my  opinion 
that  it  is  for  you  to  take  him  or  be  defeated;  and  that  if  you  do  take 
him  you  may  be  beaten.  You  will  surely  be  beaten  if  you  do  not 
take  him.  We,  the  Republicans  and  others  forming  the  opposition 
of  the  country,  intend  to  "  stand  by  our  guns,"  to  be  patient  and  firm, 
and  in  the  long  run  to  beat  you  whether  you  take  him  or  not.  We 
know  that  before  we  fairly  beat  you,  we  have  to  beat  you  both  to 
gether.  We  know  that  "you  are  all  of  a  feather,"  and  that  we  have 
to  beat  you  all  together,  and  we  expect  to  do  it.  We  don't  intend  to 
be  very  impatient  about  it.  We  mean  to  be  as  deliberate  and  calm 
about  it  as  it  is  possible  to  be,  but  as  firm  and  resolved  as  it  is  possi 
ble  for  men  to  be.  When  we  do  as  we  say,  beat  you,  you  perhaps 
want  to  know  what  we  will  do  with  you. 

I  will  tell  you,  so  far  as  I  am  authorized  to  speak  for  the  opposi 
tion,  what  we  mean  to  do  with  you.  We  mean  to  treat  you,  as  near 
as  we  possibly  can,  as  Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Madison  treated 
you.  We  mean  to  leave  you  alone,  and  in  no  way  to  interfere  with 
your  institution ;  to  abide  by  all  and  every  compromise  of  the  Con 
stitution,  and,  in  a  word,  coming  back  to  the  original  proposition,  to 
treat  you,  so  far  as  degenerated  men  (if  we  have  degenerated)  may, 
according  to  the  example  of  those  noble  fathers — Washington, 
Jefferson,  and  Madison.  We  mean  to  remember  that  you  are  as 
good  as  we ;  that  there  is  no  difference  between  us  other  than  the 
difference  of  circumstances.  We  mean  to  recognize  and  bear  in 
mind  always  that  you  have  as  good  hearts  in  your  bosoms  as  other 
people,  or  as  we  claim  to  have,  and  treat  you  accordingly.  We 
mean  to  marry  your  girls  when  we  have  a  chance  — the  white  ones, 
I  mean,  and  I  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  that  I  once  did  have  a 
chance  in  that  way. 

I  have  told  you  Vhat  we  mean  to  do.  I  want  to  know,  now,  when 
that  thing  takes  place,  what  do  you  mean  to  do?  I  often  hear  it  in 
timated  that  you  mean  to  divide  the  Union  whenever  a  Republican 
or  anything  like  it  is  elected  President  of  the  United  States.  [A 
voice:  "  That  is  so."]  "  That  is  so,"  one  of  them  says  ;  I  wonder  if 
he  is  a  Kentuckian  ?  [A  voice :  "  He  is  a  Douglas  man."]  Well, 
then,  I  want  to  know  what  you  are  going  to  do  with  your  half  of  it? 
Are  you  going  to  split  the  Ohio  down  through,  and  push  your  half 
off  a  piece  ?  Or  are  you  going  to  keep  it  right  alongside  of  us  out 
rageous  fellows  ?  Or  are  you  going  to  build  up  a  wall  some  way 
between  your  country  and  ours,  by  which  that  movable  property  of 
yours  can't  come  over  here  any  more,  to  the  danger  of  your  losing  it? 
Do  you  think  you  can  better  yourselves  on  that  subject  by  leaving 
us  here  under  no  obligation  whatever  to  return  those  specimens  of 
your  movable  property  that  come  hither?  You  have  divided  the 
Union  because  we  would  not  do  right  with  you,  as  you  think,  upon 
that  subject ;  when  we  cease  to  be  under  obligations  to  do  anything 
for  you,  how  much  better  off  do  you  think  you  will  be  ?  Will  you 
make  war  upon  us  and  kill  us  all  ?  Why,  gentlemen,  I  think  you  are 


570          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

as  gallant  and  as  brave  men  as  live  ;  that  you  can  fight  as  bravely 
in  a  good  cause,  man  for  man,  as  any  other  people  living  ;  that  you 
have  shown  yourselves  capable  of  this  upon  various  occasions ;  but 
man  for  man,  you  are  not  better  than  we  are,  and  there  are  not  so 
many  of  you  as  there  are  of  us.  You  will  never  make  much  of  a 
hand  at  whipping  us.  If  we  were  fewer  in  numbers  than  you,  I  think 
that  you  could  whip  us  ;  if  we  were  equal  it  would  likely  be  a  drawn 
battle ;  but  being  inferior  in  numbers,  you  will  make  nothing  by 
attempting  to  master  us. 

But  perhaps  I  have  addressed  myself  as  long,  or  longer,  to  the 
Kentuckians  than  I  ought  to  have  done,  inasmuch  as  I  have  said 
that  whatever  course  you  take,  we  intend  in  the  end  to  beat  you.  I 
propose  to  address  a  few  remarks  to  our  friends,  by  way  of  discussing 
with  them  the  best  means  of  keeping  that  promise  that  I  have  in 
good  faith  made. 

It  may  appear  a  little  episodical  for  me  to  mention  the  topic  of 
which  I  shall  speak  now.  It  is  a  favorite  proposition  of  Douglas's 
that  the  interference  of  the  General  Government,  through  the  ordi 
nance  of  787,  or  through  any  other  act  of  the  General  Government, 
never  has  made,  nor  ever  can  make,  a  free  State;  that  the  ordinance 
of  '87  did  not  make  free  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  or  Illinois ;  that 
these  States  are  free  upon  his  "  great  principle  "  of  popular  sover 
eignty,  because  the  people  of  those  several  States  have  chosen  to 
make  them  so.  At  Columbus,  and  probably  here,  he  undertook  to 
compliment  the  people  that  they  themselves  had  made  the  State  of 
Ohio  free,  and  that  the  ordinance  of  '87  was  not  entitled  in  any  de 
gree  to  divide  the  honor  with  him.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  people 
of  the  State  of  Ohio  did  make  her  free  according  to  their  own  will 
and  judgment;  but  let  the  facts  be  remembered. 

In  1802,  I  believe,  it  was  you  who  made  your  first  constitution, 
with  the  clause  prohibiting  slavery,  and  you  did  it,  I  suppose,  very 
nearly  unanimously;  but  you  should  bear  in  mind  that  you  —  speak 
ing  of  you  as  one  people — that  you  did  so  unembarrassed  by  the 
actual  presence  of  the  institution  amongst  you;  that  you  made  it 
a  free  State,  not  with  the  embarrassment  upon  you  of  already  having 
among  you  many  slaves,  which,  if  they  had  been  here,  and  you  had 
sought  to  make  a  free  State,  you  would  not  know  what  to  do  with. 
If  they  had  been  among  you,  embarrassing  difficulties,  most  prob 
ably,  would  have  induced  you  to  tolerate  a  slave  Constitution  instead 
of  a  free  one;  as,  indeed,  these  very  difficulties  have  constrained  every 
people  on  this  continent  who  have  adopted  slavery. 

Pray,  what  was  it  that  made  you  free  ?  What  kept  you  free  ?  Did 
you  not  find  your  country  free  when  you  came  to  decide  that  Ohio 
should  be  a  free  State  ?  It  is  important  to  inquire  by  what  reason 
you  found  it  so.  Let  us  take  an  illustration  between  the  States  of 
Ohio  and  Kentucky.  Kentucky  is  separated  by  this  river  Ohio,  not 
a  mile  wide.  A  portion  of  Kentucky,  by  reason  of  the  course  of  the 
Ohio,  is  further  north  than  this  portion  of  Ohio  in  which  we  now 
stand.  Kentucky  is  entirely  covered  with  slavery  —  Ohio  is  entirely 
free  from  it.  What  made  that  difference  ?  Was  it  climate  ?  No ! 
A  portion  of  Kentucky  was  further  north  than  this  portion  of  Ohio. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          571 

Was  it  soil  ?  No !  There  is  nothing  in  the  soil  of  the  one  more 
favorable  to  slave-labor  than  the  other.  It  was  not  climate  or  soil 
that  caused  one  side  of  the  line  to  be  entirely  covered  with  slavery 
and  the  other  side  free  of  it.  What  was  it  ?  Study  over  it.  Tell  us,  if 
you  can,  in  all  the  range  of  conjecture,  if  there  be  anything  you  can 
conceive  of  that  made  that  difference,  other  than  that  there  was  no 
law  of  any  sort  keeping  it  out  of  Kentucky,  while  the  ordinance  of  '87 
kept  it  out  of  Ohio.  If  there  is  any  other  reason  than  this,  I  con 
fess  that  it  is  wholly  beyond  my  power  to  conceive  of  it.  This,  then, 
I  offer  to  combat  the  idea  that  that  ordinance  has  never  made  any 
State  free. 

I  don't  stop  at  this  illustration.  I  come  to  the  State  of  Indiana ; 
and  what  I  have  said  as  between  Kentucky  and  Ohio,  I  repeat  as 
between  Indiana  and  Kentucky;  it  is  equally  applicable.  One  addi 
tional  argument  is  applicable  also  to  Indiana.  In  her  territorial 
condition  she  more  than  once  petitioned  Congress  to  abrogate  the 
ordinance  entirely,  or  at  least  so  far  as  to  suspend  its  operation  for  a 
time,  in  order  that  they  should  exercise  the  "popular  sovereignty" 
of  having  slaves  if  they  wanted  them.  The  men  then  controlling  the 
General  Government,  imitating  the  men  of  the  Revolution,  refused 
Indiana  that  privilege.  And  so  we  have  the  evidence  that  Indiana 
supposed  she  could  have  slaves,  if  it  were  not  for  that  ordinance  ; 
that  she  besought  Congress  to  put  that  barrier  out  of  the  way;  that 
Congress  refused  to  do  so,  and  it  all  ended  at  last  in  Indiana  being  a 
free  State.  Tell  me  not  then  that  the  ordinance  of  '87  had  nothing 
to  do  with  making  Indiana  a  free  State,  when  we  find  some  men 
chafing  against  and  only  restrained  by  that  barrier. 

Come  down  again  to  our  State  of  Illinois.  The  great  Northwest 
Territory,  including  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  and  Wiscon 
sin,  was  acquired  first,  I  believe,  by  the  British  government,  in  part, 
at  least,  from  the  French.  Before  the  establishment  of  our  inde 
pendence,  it  became  a  part  of  Virginia,  enabling  Virginia  afterward 
to  transfer  it  to  the  General  Government.  There  were  French  settle 
ments  in  what  is  now  Illinois,  and  at  the  same  time  there  were 
French  settlements  in  what  is  now  Missouri — in  the  tract  of  country 
that  was  not  purchased  till  about  1803.  In  these  French  settlements 
negro  slavery  had  existed  for  many  years — perhaps  more  than  a 
hundred,  if  not  as  much  as  two  hundred,  years — at  Kaskaskia,  in 
Illinois,  and  at  St.  Genevieve,  or  Cape  Girardeau,  perhaps,  in  Mis 
souri.  The  number  of  slaves  was  not  very  great,  but  there  was  about 
the  same  number  in  each  place.  They  were  there  when  we  acquired 
the  Territory.  There  was  no  effort  made  to  break  up  the  relation 
of  master  and  slave,  and  even  the  ordinance  of  '87  was  not  so  en 
forced  as  to  destroy  that  slavery  in  Illinois  j  nor  did  the  ordinance 
apply  to  Missouri  at  all. 

What  I  want  to  ask  your  attention  to,  at  this  point,  is  that  Illinois 
and  Missouri  came  into  the  Union  about  the  same  time,  Illinois  in 
the  latter  part  of  1818,  and  Missouri,  after  a  struggle,  I  believe, 
some  time  in  1820.  They  had  been  filling  up  with  American  people 
about  the  same  period  of  time,  their  progress  enabling  them  to 
come  into  the  Union  about  the  same.  At  the  end  of  that  ten  years, 


572          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

in  which  they  had  been  so  preparing  (for  it  was  about  that  period  of 
time),  the  number  of  slaves  in  Illinois  had  actually  decreased;  while 
in  Missouri,  beginning  with  very  few,  at  the  end  of  that  ten  years 
there  were  about  ten  thousand.  This  being  so,  and  it  being  remem 
bered  that  Missouri  and  Illinois  are,  to  a  certain  extent,  in  the  same 
parallel  of  latitude, —  that  the  northern  half  of  Missouri  and  the 
southern  half  of  Illinois  are  in  the  same  parallel  of  latitude, —  so 
that  climate  would  have  the  same  effect  upon  one  as  upon  the  other ; 
and  that  in  the  soil  there  is  no  material  difference  so  far  as  bears 
upon  the  question  of  slavery  being  settled  upon  one  or  the  other; 
there  being  none  of  those  natural  causes  to  produce  a  difference  in 
filling  them,  and  yet  there  being  a  broad  difference  in  their  fill 
ing  up,  we  are  led  again  to  inquire  what  was  the  cause  of  that 
difference. 

It  is  most  natural  to  say  that  in  Missouri  there  was  no  law  to  keep 
that  country  from  filling  up  with  slaves,  while  in  Illinois  there  was 
the  ordinance  of  '87.  The  ordinance  being  there,  slavery  decreased 
during  that  ten  years — the  ordinance  not  being  in  the  other,  it  in 
creased  from  a  few  to  ten  thousand.  Can  anybody  doubt  the  reason 
of  the  difference  ? 

I  think  all  these  facts  most  abundantly  prove  that  my  friend 
Judge  Douglas's  proposition,  that  the  ordinance  of  '87,  or  the  na 
tional  restriction  of  slavery,  never  had  a  tendency  to  make  a  free 
State,  is  a  fallacy — a  proposition  without  the  shadow  or  substance 
of  truth  about  it. 

Douglas  sometimes  says  that  all  the  States  (and  it  is  part  of  that 
same  proposition  I  have  been  discussing)  that  have  become  free,  have 
become  so  upon  his  "great  principle";  that  the  State  of  Illinois  it 
self  came  into  the  Union  as  a  slave  State,  and  that  the  people,  upon 
the  "  great  principle  "  of  popular  sovereignty,  have  since  made  it  a 
free  State.  Allow  me  but  a  little  while  to  state  to  you  what  facts 
there  are  to  justify  him  in  saying  that  Illinois  came  into  the  Union 
as  a  slave  State. 

I  have  mentioned  to  you  that  there  were  a  few  old  French  slaves 
there.  They  numbered,  I  think,  one  or  two  hundred.  Besides  that, 
there  had  been  a  territorial  law  for  indenturing  black  persons. 
Under  that  law,  in  violation  of  the  ordinance  of  787,  but  without 
any  enforcement  of  the  ordinance  to  overthrow  the  system,  there 
had  been  a  small  number  of  slaves  introduced  as  indentured  per 
sons.  Owing  to  this,  the  clause  for  the  prohibition  of  slavery  was 
slightly  modified.  Instead  of  running  like  yours,  that  neither  sla 
very  nor  involuntary  servitude,  except  for  crime,  of  which  the  party 
shall  have  been  duly  convicted,  should  exist  in  the  State,  they  said 
that  neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  should  thereafter  be 
introduced,  and  that  the  children  of  indentured  servants  should  be 
born  free ;  and  nothing  was  said  about  the  few  old  French  slaves. 
Out  of  this  fact,  that  the  clause  for  prohibiting  slavery  was  modified 
because  of  the  actual  presence  of  it,  Douglas  asserts  again  and  again 
that  Illinois  came  into  the  Union  as  a  slave  State.  How  far  the  facts 
sustain  the  conclusion  that  he  draws,  it  is  for  intelligent  and  impar 
tial  men  to  decide.  I  leave  it  with  you,  with  these  remarks,  worthy 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          573 

of  being  remembered,  that  that  little  thing,  those  few  indentured 
servants  being  there,  was  of  itself  sufficient  to  modify  a  constitu 
tion  made  by  a  people  ardently  desiring  to  have  a  free  constitution  j 
showing  the  power  of  the  actual  presence  of  the  institution  of 
slavery  to  prevent  any  people,  however  anxious  to  make  a  free  State, 
from  making  it  perfectly  so.  I  have  been  detaining  you  longer  per 
haps  than  I  ought  to  do. 

I  am  in  some  doubt  whether  to  introduce  another  topic  upon  which 
I  could  talk  awhile.  [Cries  of  "  Go  on,"  and  "  Give  us  it."]  It  is 
this  then — Douglas's  popular  sovereignty,  as  a  principle,  is  simply 
this :  If  one  man  chooses  to  make  a  slave  of  another  man,  neither 
that  man  nor  anybody  else  has  a  right  to  object.  Apply  it  to  govern 
ment,  as  he  seeks  to  apply  it,  and  it  is  this :  If,  in  a  new  Territory, 
into  which  a  few  people  are  beginning  to  enter  for  the  purpose  of 
making  their  homes,  they  choose  to  either  exclude  slavery  from  their 
limits,  or  to  establish  it  there,  however  one  or  the  other  may  affect 
the  persons  to  be  enslaved,  or  the  infinitely  greater  number  of  per 
sons  who  are  afterward  to  inhabit  that  Territory,  or  the  other  mem 
bers  of  the  family  of  communities,  of  which  they  are  but  an  incipient 
member,  or  the  general  head  of  the  family  of  States  as  parent  of  all — 
however  their  action  may  affect  one  or  the  other  of  these,  there  is  no 
power  or  right  to  interfere.  That  is  Douglas's  popular  sovereignty 
applied.  Now  I  think  that  there  is  a  real  popular  sovereignty  in  the 
world.  I  think  a  definition  of  popular  sovereignty,  in  the  abstract, 
would  be  about  this  —  that  each  man  shall  do  precisely  as  he  pleases 
with  himself,  and  with  all  those  things  which  exclusively  concern 
him.  Applied  in  government,  this  principle  would  be,  that  a  general 
government  shall  do  all  those  things  which  pertain  to  it,  and  all  the 
local  governments  shall  do  precisely  as  they  please  in  respect  to  those 
matters  which  exclusively  concern  them. 

Douglas  looks  upon  slavery  as  so  insignificant  that  the  people  must 
decide  that  question  for  themselves,  and  yet  they  are  not  fit  to  decide 
who  shall  be  their  governor,  judge,  or  secretary,  or  who  shall  be  any 
of  their  officers.  These  are  vast  national  matters,  in  his  estimation ; 
but  the  little  matter  in  his  estimation  is  that  of  planting  slavery  there. 
That  is  purely  of  local  interest,  which  nobody  should  be  allowed  to 
say  a  word  about. 

Labor  is  the  great  source  from  which  nearly  all,  if  not  all,  human 
comforts  and  necessities  are  drawn.  There  is  a  difference  in  opinion 
about  the  elements  of  labor  in  society.  Some  men  assume  that  there 
is  a  necessary  connection  between  capital  and  labor,  and  that  con 
nection  draws  within  it  the  whole  of  the  labor  of  the  community. 
They  assume  that  nobody  works  unless  capital  excites  them  to  work. 
They  begin  next  to  consider  what  is  the  best  way.  They  say  there 
are  but  two  ways  —  one  is  to  hire  men  and  to  allure  them  to  labor  by 
their  consent;  the  other  is  to  buy  the  men  and  drive  them  to  it,  and 
that  is  slavery.  Having  assumed  that,  they  proceed  to  discuss  the 
question  of  whether  the  laborers  themselves  are  better  off  in  the  con 
dition  of  slaves  or  of  hired  laborers,  and  they  usually  decide  that 
they  are  better  off  in  the  condition  of  slaves. 

In  the  first  place,  I  say  that  the  whole  thing  is  a  mistake.     That 


574          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

there  is  a  certain  relation  between  capital  and  labor,  I  admit.  That 
it  does  exist,  and  rightfully  exists,  I  think  is  true.  That  men  who 
are  industrious  and  sober  and  honest  in  the  pursuit  of  their  own  in 
terests  should  after  a  while  accumulate  capital,  and  after  that  should 
be  allowed  to  enjoy  it  in  peace,  and  also  if  they  should  choose,  when 
they  have  accumulated  it,  to  use  it  to  save  themselves  from  actual 
labor,  and  hire  other  people  to  labor  for  them,  is  right.  In  doing  sor 
they  do  not  wrong  the  man  they  employ,  for  they  find  men  who  have 
not  their  own  land  to  work  upon,  or  shops  to  work  in,  and  who  are 
benefited  by  working  for  others — hired  laborers,  receiving  their  cap 
ital  for  it.  Thus  a  few  men  that  own  capital  hire  a  few  others,  and 
these  establish  the  relation  of  capital  and  labor  rightfully — a  rela 
tion  of  which  I  make  no  complaint.  But  I  insist  that  that  relation, 
after  all,  does  not  embrace  more  than  one  eighth  of  the  labor  of  the 
country. 

f  The  speaker  proceeded  to  argue  that  the  hired  laborer,  with  his 
ability  to  become  an  employer,  must  have  every  precedence  over  him 
who  labors  under  the  inducement  of  force.  He  continued :] 

I  have  taken  upon  myself,  in  the  name  of  some  of  you,  to  say  that 
we  expect  upon  these  principles  to  ultimately  beat  them.  In  order 
to  do  so,  I  think  we  want  and  must  have  a  national  policy  in  regard 
to  the  institution  of  slavery  that  acknowledges  and  deals  with  that 
institution  as  being  wrong.  Whoever  desires  the  prevention  of  the 
spread  of  slavery  and  the  nationalization  of  that  institution,  yields 
all  when  he  yields  to  any  policy  that  either  recognizes  slavery  as 
being  right,  or  as  being  an  indifferent  thing.  Nothing  will  make 
you  successful  but  setting  up  a  policy  which  shall  treat  the  thing  as 
being  wrong.  When  I  say  this,  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  this  Gen 
eral  Government  is  charged  with  the  duty  of  redressing  or  prevent 
ing  all  the  wrongs  in  the  world;  but  I  do  think  that  it  is  charged 
with  preventing  and  redressing  all  wrongs  which  are  wrongs  to  it 
self.  This  government  is  expressly  charged  with  the  duty  of  pro 
viding  for  the  general  welfare.  We  believe  that  the  spreading  out 
and  perpetuity  of  the  institution  of  slavery  impairs  the  general  wel 
fare.  We  believe — nay,  we  know — that  that  is  the  only  thing  that 
has  ever  threatened  the  perpetuity  of  the  Union  itself.  The  only 
thing  which  has  ever  menaced  the  destruction  of  the  government 
under  which  we  live,  is  this  very  thing.  To  repress  this  thing,  we 
think,  is  providing  for  the  general  welfare.  Our  friends  in  Ken 
tucky  differ  from  us.  We  need  not  make  our  argument  for  them : 
but  we  who  think  it  is  wrong  in  all  its  relations,  or  in  some  of  them 
at  least,  must  decide  as  to  our  own  actions,  and  our  own  course,  upon 
our  own  judgment. 

I  say  that  we  must  not  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in 
the  States  where  it  exists,  because  the  Constitution  forbids  it,  and  the 
general  welfare  does  not  require  us  to  do  so.  We  must  not  withhold 
an  efficient  fugitive-slave  law,  because  the  Constitution  requires  us, 
as  I  understand  it,  not  to  withhold  such  a  law.  But  we  must  pre 
vent  the  outspreading  of  the  institution,  because  neither  the  Consti 
tution  nor  general  welfare  requires  us  to  extend  it.  We  must  prevent 
the  revival  of  the  African  slave-trade,  and  the  enacting  by  Congress 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          575 

of  a  territorial  slave-code.  We  must  prevent  each  of  these  things  be 
ing  done  by  either  congresses  or  courts.  The  people  of  these  United 
States  are  the  rightful  masters  of  both  congresses  and  courts,  not  to 
overthrow  the  Constitution,  but  to  overthrow  the  men  who  pervert 
the  Constitution. 

To  do  these  things  we  must  employ  instrumentalities.  We  must 
hold  conventions  j  we  must  adopt  platforms,  if  we  conform  to  ordi 
nary  custom  ;  we  must  nominate  candidates;  and  we  must  carry  elec 
tions.  In  all  these  things,  I  think  that  we  ought  to  keep  in  view  our 
real  purpose,  and  in  none  do  anything  that  stands  adverse  to  our 
purpose.  If  we  shall  adopt  a  platform  that  fails  to  recognize  or  ex 
press  our  purpose,  or  elect  a  man  that  declares  himself  inimical  to 
our  purpose,  we  not  only  take  nothing  by  our  success,  but  we  tacitly 
admit  that  we  act  upon  no  other  principle  than  a  desire  to  have  "  the 
loaves  and  fishes,"  by  which,  in  the  end,  our  apparent  success  is  really 
an  injury  to  us. 

I  know  that  it  is  very  desirable  with  me,  as  with  everybody  else, 
that  all  the  elements  of  the  Opposition  shall  unite  in  the  next  presi 
dential  election,  and  in  all  future  time.  I  am  anxious  that  that  should 
be,  but  there  are  things  seriously  to  be  considered  in  relation  to  that 
matter.  If  the  terms  can  be  arranged,  I  am  in  favor  of  the  union. 
But  suppose  we  shall  take  up  some  man,  and  put  him  upon  one  end 
or  the  other  of  the  ticket,  who  declares  himself  against  us  in  regard 
to  the  prevention  of  the  spread  of  slavery,  who  turns  up  his  nose 
and  says  he  is  tired  of  hearing  anything  more  about  it,  who  is  more 
against  us  than  against  the  enemy — what  will  be  the  issue?  Why, 
he  will  get  no  slave  States  after  all — he  has  tried  that  already  until 
being  beat  is  the  rule  for  him.  If  we  nominate  him  upon  that 
ground,  he  will  not  carry  a  slave  State,  and  not  only  so,  but  that 
portion  of  our  men  who  are  high  strung  upon  the  principle  we  really 
fight  for  will  not  go  for  him,  and  he  won't  get  a  single  electoral  vote 
anywhere,  except,  perhaps,  in  the  State  of  Maryland.  There  is  no 
use  in  saying  to  us  that  we  are  stubborn  and  obstinate  because  we 
won't  do  some  such  thing  as  this.  We  cannot  do  it.  We  cannot  get 
our  men  to  vote  it.  I  speak  by  the  card,  that  we  cannot  give  the 
State  of  Illinois  in  such  case  by  fifty  thousand.  We  would  be  flatter 
down  than  the  "Negro  Democracy"  themselves  have  the  heart  to 
wish  to  see  us. 

After  saying  this  much,  let  me  say  a  little  on  the  other  side.  There 
are  plenty  of  men  in  the  slave  States  that  are  altogether  good 
enough  for  me  to  be  either  President  or  Vice-President,  provided 
they  will  profess  their  sympathy  with  our  purpose,  and  will  place 
themselves  on  such  ground  that  our  men,  upon  principle,  can  vote  for 
them.  There  are  scores  of  them  —  good  men  in  their  character  for  in 
telligence,  and  talent,  and  integrity.  If  such  an  one  will  place  himself 
upon  the  right  ground,  I  am  for  his  occupying  one  place  upon  the 
next  Republican  or  Opposition  ticket.  I  will  heartily  go  for  him. 
But  unless  he  does  so  place  himself,  I  think  it  is  a  matter  of  perfect 
nonsense  to  attempt  to  bring  about  a  union  upon  any  other  basis ; 
that  if  a  union  be  made,  the  elements  will  scatter  so  that  there  can  be 
no  success  for  such  a  ticket,  nor  anything  like  success.  The  good  old 


576          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

maxims  of  the  Bible  are  applicable,  and  truly  applicable,  to  human 
affairs,  and  in  this,  as  in  other  things,  we  may  say  here  that  he  who 
is  not  for  us  is  against  us;  he  who  gathereth  not  with  us  scattereth. 
I  should  be  glad  to  have  some  of  the  many  good,  and  able,  and  noble 
men  of  the  South  to  place  themselves  where  we  can  confer  upon  them 
the  high  honor  of  an  election  upon  one  or  the  other  end  of  our  ticket. 
It  would  do  my  soul  good  to  do  that  thing.  It  would  enable  us  to 
teach  them  that,  inasmuch  as  we  select  one  of  their  own  number  to 
carry  out  our  principles,  we  are  free  from  the  charge  that  we  mean 
more  than  we  say. 

But,  my  friends,  I  have  detained  you  much  longer  than  I  expected 
to  do.  I  believe  I  may  allow  myself  the  compliment  to  say  that  you 
have  stayed  and  heard  me  with  great  patience,  for  which  I  return 
you  my  most  sincere  thanks. 


September  30,  1859. — ANNUAL  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  WISCONSIN 
STATE  AGRICULTURAL  SOCIETY,  AT  MILWAUKEE,  Wis. 

Members  of  the  Agricultural  Society  and  Citizens  of  Wisconsin  : 
Agricultural  fairs  are  becoming  an  institution  of  the  country.  They 
are  useful  in  more  ways  than  one.  They  bring  us  together,  and 
thereby  make  us  better  acquainted  and  better  friends  than  we  other 
wise  would  be.  From  the  first  appearance  of  man  upon  the  earth 
down  to  very  recent  times,  the  words  "stranger"  and  "enemy"  were 
quite  or  almost  synonymous.  Long  after  civilized  nations  had  de 
fined  robbery  and  murder  as  high  crimes,  and  had  affixed  severe 
punishments  to  them,  when  practised  among  and  upon  their  own 
people  respectively,  it  was  deemed  no  offense,  but  even  meritorious, 
to  rob  and  murder  and  enslave  strangers,  whether  as  nations  or  as 
individuals.  Even  yet,  this  has  not  totally  disappeared.  The  man 
of  the  highest  moral  cultivation,  in  spite  of  all  which  abstract  prin 
ciple  can  do,  likes  him  whom  he  does  know  much  better  than  him 
whom  he  does  not  know.  To  correct  the  evils,  great  and  small,  which 
spring  from  want  of  sympathy  and  from  positive  enmity  among 
strangers,  as  nations  or  as  individuals,  is  one  of  the  highest  func 
tions  of  civilization.  To  this  end  our  agricultural  fairs  contribute 
in  no  small  degree.  They  render  more  pleasant,  and  more  strong,  and 
more  durable  the  bond  of  social  and  political  union  among  us. 
Again,  if,  as  Pope  declares,  "happiness  is  our  being's  end  and  aim," 
our  fairs  contribute  much  to  that  end  and  aim,  as  occasions  of 
recreation,  as  holidays.  Constituted  as  man  is,  he  has  positive  need 
of  occasional  recreation,  and  whatever  can  give  him  this  associated 
with  virtue  and  advantage,  and  free  from  vice  and  disadvantage, 
is  a  positive  good.  Such  recreation  our  fairs  afford.  They  are  a 
present  pleasure,  to  be  followed  by  no  pain  as  a  consequence;  they 
are  a  present  pleasure,  making  the  future  more  pleasant. 

But  the  chief  use  of  agricultural  fairs  is  to  aid  in  improving  the 
great  calling  of  agriculture  in  all  its  departments  and  minute  divi 
sions;  to  make  mutual  exchange  of  agricultural  discovery,  informa 
tion,  and  knowledge ;  so  that,  at  the  end,  all  may  know  everything 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          577 

which  may  have  been  known  to  but  one  or  to  but  few,  at  the  begin 
ning  ;  to  bring  together  especially  all  which  is  supposed  to  be  not 
generally  known  because  of  recent  discovery  or  invention. 

And  not  only  to  bring  together  and  to  impart  all  which  has  been 
accidentally  discovered  and  invented  upon  ordinary  motive,  but  by 
exciting  emulation  for  premiums,  and  for  the  pride  and  honor  of  suc 
cess, —  of  triumph,  in  some  sort, — to  stimulate  that  discovery  and 
invention  into  extraordinary  activity.  In  this  these  fairs  are  kin 
dred  to  the  patent  clause  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  to  the  department  and  practical  system  based  upon  that  clause. 

One  feature,  I  believe,  of  every  fair  is  a  regular  address.  The 
Agricultural  Society  of  the  young,  prosperous,  and  soon  to  be  great 
State  of  Wisconsin  has  done  me  the  high  honor  of  selecting  me  to 
make  that  address  upon  this  occasion — an  honor  for  which  I  make 
my  profound  and  grateful  acknowledgment. 

I  presume  I  am  not  expected  to  employ  the  time  assigned  me  in 
the  mere  flattery  of  the  farmers  as  a  class.  My  opinion  of  them  is 
that,  in  proportion  to  numbers,  they  are  neither  better  nor  worse 
than  other  people.  In  the  nature  of  things  they  are  more  numerous 
than  any  other  class ;  and  I  believe  there  really  are  more  attempts 
at  flattering  them  than  any  other,  the  reason  of  which  I  cannot  per 
ceive,  unless  it  be  that  they  can  cast  more  votes  than  any  other.  On 
reflection,  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  there  is  not  cause  of  suspicion 
against  you  in  selecting  me,  in  some  sort  a  politician  and  in  no 
sort  a  farmer,  to  address  you. 

But  farmers  being  the  most  numerous  class,  it  follows  that  their 
interest  is  the  largest  interest.  It  also  follows  that  that  interest  is 
most  worthy  of  all  to  be  cherished  and  cultivated — that  if  there  be 
inevitable  conflict  between  that  interest  and  any  other,  that  other 
should  yield. 

Again,  I  suppose  it  is  not  expected  of  me  to  impart  to  you  much 
specific  information  on  agriculture.  You  have  no  reason  to  believe, 
and  do  not  believe,  that  I  possess  it ;  if  that  were  what  you  seek  in 
this  address,  any  one  of  your  own  number  or  class  would  be  more 
able  to  furnish  it.  You,  perhaps,  do  expect  me  to  give  some  general 
interest  to  the  occasion,  and  to  make  some  general  suggestions  on 
practical  matters.  I  shall  attempt  nothing  more.  And  in  such  sug 
gestions  by  me,  quite  likely  very  little  will  be  new  to  you,  and  a  large 
part  of  the  rest  will  be  possibly  already  known  to  be  erroneous. 

My  first  suggestion  is  an  inquiry  as  to  the  effect  of  greater 
thoroughness  in  all  the  departments  of  agriculture  than  now  pre 
vails  in  the  Northwest  —  perhaps  I  might  say  in  America.  To  speak 
entirely  within  bounds,  it  is  known  that  fifty  bushels  of  wheat,  or  one 
hundred  bushels  of  Indian  corn,  can  be  produced  from  an  acre.  Less 
than  a  year  ago  I  saw  it  stated  that  a  man,  by  extraordinary  care  and 
labor,  had  produced  of  wheat  what  was  equal  to  two  hundred  bushels 
from  an  acre.  But  take  fifty  of  wheat,  and  one  hundred  of  corn,  to 
be  the  possibility,  and  compare  it  with  the  actual  crops  of  the  country. 
Many  years  ago  I  saw  it  stated,  in  a  patent-office  report,  that  eighteen 
bushels  was  the  average  crop  throughout  the  United  States;  and 
this  year  an  intelligent  farmer  of  Illinois  assured  me  that  he  did  not 
VOL.  I.— 37. 


578          ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF  ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

believe  the  land  harvested  in  that  State  this  season  had  yielded  more 
than  an  average  of  eight  bushels  to  the  acre;  much  was  cut,  and  then 
abandoned  as  not  worth  threshing,  and  much  was  abandoned  as  not 
worth  cutting.  As  to  Indian  corn,  and  indeed,  most  other  crops,  the 
case  has  not  been  much  better.  For  the  last  four  years  I  do  not  be 
lieve  the  ground  planted  with  corn  in  Illinois  has  produced  an  av 
erage  of  twenty  bushels  to  the  acre.  It  is  true  that  heretofore  we 
have  had  better  crops  with  no  better  cultivation,  but  I  believe  it  is 
also  true  that  the  soil  has  never  been  pushed  up  to  one  half  of  its 
capacity. 

What  would  be  the  effect  upon  the  farming  interest  to  push  the 
soil  up  to  something  near  its  full  capacity  ?  Unquestionably  it  will 
take  more  labor  to  produce  fifty  bushels  from  an  acre  than  it  will  to 
produce  ten  bushels  from  the  same  acre;  but  will  it  take  more  labor 
to  produce  fifty  bushels  from  one  acre  than  from  five  ?  Unquestion 
ably  thorough  cultivation  will  require  more  labor  to  the  acre ;  but 
will  it  require  more  to  the  bushel  ?  If  it  should  require  just  as  much 
to  the  bushel,  there  are  some  probable,  and  several  certain,  advan 
tages  in  favor  of  the  thorough  practice.  It  is  probable  it  would  de 
velop  those  unknown  causes  which  of  late  years  have  cut  down  our 
crops  below  their  former  average.  It  is  almost  certain,  I  think,  that 
by  deeper  plowing,  analysis  of  the  soils,  experiments  with  manures 
and  varieties  of  seeds,  observance  of  seasons,  and  the  like,  these  causes 
would  be  discovered  and  remedied.  It  is  certain  that  thorough  culti 
vation  would  spare  half,  or  more  than  half,  the  cost  of  land,  simply 
because  the  same  product  would  be  got  from  half,  or  from  less  than 
half,  the  quantity  of  land.  This  proposition  is  self-evident,  and  can 
be  made  no  plainer  by  repetitions  or  illustrations.  The  cost  of  land 
is  a  great  item,  even  in  new  countries,  and  it  constantly  grows  greater 
and  greater,  in  comparison  with  other  items,  as  the  country  grows 
older. 

It  also  would  spare  the  making  and  maintaining  of  inclosures  for  the 
same,  whether  these  inclosures  should  be  hedges,  ditches,  or  fences. 
This  again  is  a  heavy  item — heavy  at  first,  and  heavy  in  its  continual 
demand  for  repairs.  I  remember  once  being  greatly  astonished  by 
an  apparently  authentic  exhibition  of  the  proportion  the  cost  of  an 
inclosure  bears  to  all  the  other  expenses  of  the  farmer,  though  I  can 
not  remember  exactly  what  that  proportion  was.  Any  farmer,  if  he 
will,  can  ascertain  it  in  his  own  case  for  himself. 

Again,  a  great  amount  of  locomotion  is  spared  by  thorough  culti 
vation.  Take  fifty  bushels  of  wheat  ready  for  harvest,  standing 
upon  a  single  acre,  and  it  can  be  harvested  in  any  of  the  known 
ways  with  less  than  half  the  labor  which  would  be  required  if  it 
were  spread  over  five  acres.  This  would  be  true  if  cut  by  the  old 
hand-sickle ;  true,  to  a  greater  extent,  if  by  the  scythe  and  cradle ; 
and  to  a  still  greater  extent,  if  by  the  machines  now  in  use.  These 
machines  are  chiefly  valuable  as  a  means  of  substituting  animal- 
power  for  the  power  of  men  in  this  branch  of  farm- work.  In  the 
highest  degree  of  perfection  yet  reached  in  applying  the  horse-power 
to  harvesting,  fully  nine  tenths  of  the  power  is  expended  by  the 
animal  in  carrying  himself  and  dragging  the  machine  over  the  field, 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          579 

leaving  certainly  not  more  than  one  tenth  to  be  applied  directly  to 
the  only  end  of  the  whole  operation — the  gathering  in  of  the  grain, 
and  clipping  of  the  straw.  When  grain  is  very  thin  on  the  ground, 
it  is  always  more  or  less  intermingled  with  weeds,  chess,  and  the  like, 
and  a  large  part  of  the  power  is  expended  in  cutting  these.  It  is 
plain  that  when  the  crop  is  very  thick  upon  the  ground,  a  larger 
proportion  of  the  power  is  directly  applied  to  gathering  in  and  cut 
ting  it ;  and  the  smaller  to  that  which  is  totally  useless  as  an  end. 
And  what  I  have  said  of  harvesting  is  true  in  a  greater  or  less  de 
gree  of  mowing,  plowing,  gathering  in  of  crops  generally,  and  in 
deed  of  almost  all  farm-work. 

The  effect  of  thorough  cultivation  upon  the  farmer's  own  mind, 
and  in  reaction  through  his  mind  back  upon  his  business,  is  perhaps 
quite  equal  to  any  other  of  its  effects.  Every  man  is  proud  of  what 
he  does  well,  and  no  man  is  proud  of  that  he  does  not  well.  With 
the  former  his  heart  is  in  his  work,  and  he  will  do  twice  as  much  of  it 
with  less  fatigue ;  the  latter  he  performs  a  little  imperfectly,  looks  at 
it  in  disgust,  turns  from  it,  and  imagines  himself  exceedingly  tired  — 
the  little  he  has  done  comes  to  nothing  for  want  of  finishing. 

The  man  who  produces  a  good  full  crop  will  scarcely  ever  let  any 
part  of  it  go  to  waste ;  he  will  keep  up  the  inclosure "about  it,  and 
allow  neither  man  nor  beast  to  trespass  upon  it ;  he  will  gather  it  in 
due  season,  and  store  it  in  perfect  security.  Thus  he  labors  with 
satisfaction,  and  saves  himself  the  whole  fruit  of  his  labor.  The 
other,  starting  with  .no  purpose  for  a  full  crop,  labors  less,  and  with 
less  satisfaction,  allows  his  fences  to  fall,  and  cattle  to  trespass, 
gathers  not  in  due  season,  or  not  at  all.  Thus  the  labor  he  has  per 
formed  is  wasted  away,  little  by  little,  till  in  the  end  he  derives 
scarcely  anything  from  it. 

The  ambition  for  broad  acres  leads  to  poor  farming,  even  with 
men  of  energy.  I  scarcely  ever  knew  a  mammoth  farm  to  sustain 
itself,  much  less  to  return  a  profit  upon  the  outlay.  I  have  more 
than  once  known  a  man  to  spend  a  respectable  fortune  upon  one, 
fail,  and  leave  it,  and  then  some  man  of  modest  aims  get  a  small 
fraction  of  the  ground,  and  make  a  good  living  upon  it.  Mammoth 
farms  are  like  tools  or  weapons  which  are  too  heavy  to  be  handled ; 
ere  long  they  are  thrown  aside  at  a  great  loss. 

The  successful  application  of  steam-power  to  farm- work  is  a  desid 
eratum — especially  a  steam-plow.  It  is  not  enough  that  a  machine 
operated  by  steam  will  really  plow.  To  be  successful,  it  must,  all 
things  considered,  plow  better  than  can  be  done  with  animal-power. 
It  must  do  all  the  work  as  well,  and  cheaper;  or  more  rapidly,  so  as 
to  get  through  more  perfectly  in  season ;  or  in  some  way  afford  an 
advantage  over  plowing  with  animals,  else  it  is  no  success.  I  have 
never  seen  a  machine  intended  for  a  steam-plow.  Much  praise  and 
admiration  are  bestowed  upon  some  of  them,  and  they  may  be,  for 
aught  I  know,  already  successful;  but  I  have  not  perceived  the 
demonstration  of  it.  I  have  thought  a  good  deal,  in  an  abstract 
way,  about  a  steam-plow.  That  one  which  shall  be  so  contrived  as 
to  apply  the  larger  proportion  of  its  power  to  the  cutting  and  turn 
ing  the  soil,  and  the  smallest,  to  the  moving  itself  over  the  field, 


580         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

will  be  the  best  one.  A  very  small  stationary-engine  would  draw  a 
large  gang  of  plows  through  the  ground  from  a  short  distance  to 
itself;  but  when  it  is  not  stationary,  but  has  to  move  along  like 
a  horse,  dragging  the  plows  after  it,  it  must  have  additional  power 
to  carry  itself ;  and  the  difficulty  grows  by  what  is  intended  to  over 
come  it  j  for  what  adds  power  also  adds  size  and  weight  to  the  ma 
chine,  thus  increasing  again  the  demand  for  power.  Suppose  you 
construct  the  machine  so  as  to  cut  a  succession  of  short  furrows, 
say  a  rod  in  length,  transversely  to  the  course  the  machine  is  loco- 
moting,  something  like  the  shuttle  in  weaving.  In  such  case  the 
whole  machine  would  move  north  only  the  width  of  a  furrow,  while 
in  length  the  furrow  would  be  a  rod  from  east  to  west.  In  such 
case  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  power  would  be  applied  to  the 
actual  plowing.  But  in  this,  too,  there  would  be  difficulty,  which 
would  be  the  getting  of  the  plow  into  and  out  of  the  ground,  at  the 
end  of  all  these  short  furrows. 

I  believe,  however,  ingenious  men  will,  if  they  have  not  already, 
overcome  the  difficulty  I  have  suggested.  But  there  is  still  another, 
about  which  I  am  less  sanguine.  It  is  the  supply  of  fuel,  and  espe 
cially  water,  to  make  steam.  Such  supply  is  clearly  practicable; 
but  can  the  expense  of  it  be  borne?  Steamboats  live  upon  the 
water,  and  find  their  fuel  at  stated  places.  Steam-mills  and  other 
stationary  steam-machinery  have  their  stationary  supplies  of  fuel 
and  water.  Railroad-locomotives  have  their  regular  wood  and  wa 
ter  stations.  But  the  steam-plow  is  less  fortunate.  It  does  not  live 
upon  the  water,  and  if  it  be  once  at  a  water-station,  it  will  work 
away  from  it,  and  when  it  gets  away  cannot  return  without  leav 
ing  its  work,  at  a  great  expense  of  its  time  and  strength.  It  will 
occur  that  a  wagon-and-horse  team  might  be  employed  to  supply  it 
with  fuel  and  water ;  but  this,  too,  is  expensive ;  and  the  question 
recurs,  "Can  the  expense  be  borne?"  When  this  is  added  to  all 
other  expenses,  will  not  plowing  cost  more  than  in  the  old  way? 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  steam-plow  will  be  finally  successful, 
and  if  it  shall  be,  "thorough  cultivation7' — putting  the  soil  to  the 
top  of  its  capacity,  producing  the  largest  crop  possible  from  a  given 
quantity  of  ground — will  be  most  favorable  for  it.  Doing  a  large 
amount  of  work  upon  a  small  quantity  of  ground,  it  will  be  as  nearly 
as  possible  stationary  while  working,  and  as  free  as  possible  from 
locomotion,  thus  expending  its  strength  as  much  as  possible  upon 
its  work,  and  as  little  as  possible  in  traveling.  Our  thanks,  and 
something  more  substantial  than  thanks,  are  due  to  every  man  en 
gaged  in  the  effort  to  produce  a  successful  steam-plow.  Even  the 
unsuccessful  will  bring  something  to  light  which,  in  the  hands  of 
others,  will  contribute  to  the  final  success.  I  have  not  pointed  out 
difficulties  in  order  to  discourage,  but  in  order  that,  being  seen,  they 
may  be  the  more  readily  overcome. 

The  world  is  agreed  that  labor  is  the  source  from  which  human 
wants  are  mainly  supplied.  There  is  no  dispute  upon  this  point. 
From  this  point,  however,  men  immediately  diverge.  Much  disputa 
tion  is  maintained  as  to  the  best  way  of  applying  and  controlling 
the  labor  element.  By  some  it  is  assumed  that  labor  is  available 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          581 

only  in  connection  with  capital  —  that  nobody  labors,  unless  some 
body  else  owning  capital,  somehow,  by  the  use  of  it,  induces  him  to 
do  it.  Having  assumed  this,  they  proceed  to  consider  whether  it  is 
best  that  capital  shall  hire  laborers,  and  thus  induce  them  to  work 
by  their  own  consent,  or  buy  them,  and  drive  them  to  it,  without 
their  consent.  Having  proceeded  so  far,  they  naturally  conclude 
that  all  laborers  are  naturally  either  hired  laborers  or  slaves.  They 
further  assume  that  whoever  is  once  a  hired  laborer,  is  fatally  fixed 
in  that  condition  for  life ;  and  thence  again,  that  his  condition  is  as 
bad  as,  or  worse  than,  that  of  a  slave.  This  is  the  "  mud-sill "  theory. 
But  another  class  of  reasoners  hold  the  opinion  that  there  is  no  such 
relation  between  capital  and  labor  as  assumed ;  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  free  man  being  fatally  fixed  for  life  in  the  condition 
of  a  hired  laborer ;  that  both  these  assumptions  are  false,  and  all  in 
ferences  from  them  groundless.  They  hold  that  labor  is  prior  to,  and 
independent  of,  capital ;  that,  in  fact,  capital  is  the  fruit  of  labor,  and 
could  never  have  existed  if  labor  had  not  first  existed  j  that  labor  can 
exist  without  capital,  but  that  capital  could  never  have  existed  with 
out  labor.  Hence  they  hold  that  labor  is  the  superior — greatly  the 
superior — of  capital. 

They  do  not  deny  that  there  is,  and  probably  always  will  be,  a  re 
lation  between  labor  and  capital.  The  error,  as  they  hold,  is  in  assum 
ing  that  the  whole  labor  of  the  world  exists  within  that  relation.  A 
few  men  own  capital;  and  that  few  avoid  labor  themselves,  and  with 
their  capital  hire  or  buy  another  few  to  labor  for  them.  A  large 
majority  belong  to  neither  class  —  neither  work  for  others,  nor  have 
others  working  for  them.  Even  in  all  our  slave  States  except  South 
Carolina,  a  majority  of  the  whole  people  of  all  colors  are  neither 
slaves  nor  masters.  In  these  free  States,  a  large  majority  are  neither 
hirers  nor  hired.  Men,  with  their  families  —  wives,  sons,  and  daughters 
— work  for  themselves,  on  their  farms,  in  their  houses,  and  in  their 
shops,  taking  the  whole  product  to  themselves,  and  asking  no  favors 
of  capital  on  the  one  hand,  nor  of  hirelings  or  slaves  on  the  other. 
It  is  not  forgotten  that  a  considerable  number  of  persons  mingle 
their  own  labor  with  capital — that  is,  labor  with  their  own  hands, 
and  also  buy  slaves  or  hire  free  men  to  labor  for  them  ;  but  this  is 
only  a  mixed,  and  not  a  distinct,  class.  No  principle  stated  is  dis 
turbed  by  the  existence  of  this  mixed  class.  Again,  as  has  already 
been  said,  the  opponents  of  the  " mud-sill"  theory  insist  that  there 
is  not,  of  necessity,  any  such  thing  as  the  free  hired  laborer  be 
ing  fixed  to  that  condition  for  life.  There  is  demonstration  for 
saying  this.  Many  independent  men  in  this  assembly  doubtless  a 
few  years  ago  were  hired  laborers.  And  their  case  is  almost,  if  not 
quite,  the  general  rule. 

The  prudent,  penniless  beginner  in  the  world  labors  for  wages 
awhile,  saves  a  surplus  with  which  to  buy  tools  or  land  for  himself, 
then  labors  on  his  own  account  another  while,  and  at  length  hires 
another  new  beginner  to  help  him.  This,  say  its  advocates,  is  free 
labor  —  the  just,  and  generous,  and  prosperous  system,  which  opens 
the  way  for  all,  gives  hope  to  all,  and  energy,  and  progress,  and 
improvement  of  condition  to  all.  If  any  continue  through  life 


582          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

in  the  condition  of  the  hired  laborer,  it  is  not  the  fault  of  the  system, 
but  because  of  either  a  dependent  nature  which  prefers  it,  or  im 
providence,  folly,  or  singular  misfortune.  I  have  said  this  much 
about  the  elements  of  labor  generally,  as  introductory  to  the  consid 
eration  of  a  new  phase  which  that  element  is  in  process  of  assuming. 
The  old  general  rule  was  that  educated  people  did  not  perform  man 
ual  labor.  They  managed  to  eat  their  bread,  leaving  the  toil  of 
producing  it  to  the  uneducated.  This  was  not  an  insupportable  evil 
to  the  working  bees,  so  long  as  the  class  of  drones  remained  very  small. 
But  now,  especially  in  these  free  States,  nearly  all  are  educated  — 
quite  too  nearly  all  to  leave  the  labor  of  the  uneducated  in  any  wise 
adequate  to  the  support  of  the  whole.  It  follows  from  this  that 
henceforth  educated  people  must  labor.  Otherwise,  education  itself 
would  become  a  positive  and  intolerable  evil.  No  country  can  sus 
tain  in  idleness  more  than  a  small  percentage  of  its  numbers.  The 
great  majority  must  labor  at  something  productive.  From  these 
premises  the  problem  springs,  "How  can  labor  and  education  be 
the  most  satisfactorily  combined?" 

By  the  "  mud-sill "  theory  it  is  assumed  that  labor  and  education 
are  incompatible,  and  any  practical  combination  of  them  impossible. 
According  to  that  theory,  a  blind  horse  upon  a  tread-mill  is  a  perfect 
illustration  of  what  a  laborer  should  be — all  the  better  for  being 
blind,  that  he  could  not  kick  understandingly.  According  to  that 
theory,  the  education  of  laborers  is  not  only  useless  but  pernicious 
and  dangerous.  In  fact,  it  is,  in  some  sort,  deemed  a  misfortune 
that  laborers  should  have  heads  at  all.  Those  same  heads  are  re 
garded  as  explosive  materials,  only  to  be  safely  kept  in  damp  places, 
as  far  as  possible  from  that  peculiar  sort  of  fire  which  ignites  them. 
A  Yankee  who  could  invent  a  strong-handed  man  without  a  head 
would  receive  the  everlasting  gratitude  of  the  "mud-sill"  advocates. 

But  free  labor  says,  "No."  Free  labor  argues  that  as  the  Author 
of  man  makes  every  individual  with  one  head  and  one  pair  of  hands, 
it  was  probably  intended  that  heads  and  hands  should  cooperate  as 
friends,  and  that  that  particular  head  should  direct  and  control  that 
pair  of  hands.  As  each  man  has  one  mouth  to  be  fed,  and  one  pair 
of  hands  to  furnish  food,  it  was  probably  intended  that  that  particu 
lar  pair  of  hands  should  feed  that  particular  mouth  —  that  each  head 
is  the  natural  guardian,  director,  and  protector  of  the  hands  and 
mouth  inseparably  connected  with  it ;  and  that  being  so,  every  head 
should  be  cultivated  and  improved  by  whatever  will  add  to  its 
capacity  for  performing  its  charge.  In  one  word,  free  labor  insists 
on  universal  education. 

I  have  so  far  stated  the  opposite  theories  of  "  mud-sill "  and  "  free 
labor,"  without  declaring  any  preference  of  my  own  between  them. 
On  an  occasion  like  this,  I  ought  not  to  declare  any.  I  suppose,  how 
ever,  I  shall  not  be  mistaken  in  assuming  as  a  fact  that  the  people  of 
Wisconsin  prefer  free  labor,  with  its  natural  companion,  education. 

This  leads  to  the  further  reflection  that  no  other  human  occupation 
opens  so  wide  a  field  for  the  profitable  and  agreeable  combination  of 
labor  with  cultivated  thought,  as  agriculture.  I  know  nothing  so 
pleasant  to  the  mind  as  the  discovery  of  anything  that  is  at  once  new 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          583 

and  valuable  —  nothing  that  so  lightens  and  sweetens  toil  as  the 
hopeful  pursuit  of  such  discovery.  And  how  vast  and  how  varied  a 
field  is  agriculture  for  such  discovery !  The  mind,  already  trained 
to  thought  in  the  country  school,  or  higher  school,  cannot  fail  to  find 
there  an  exhaustless  source  of  enjoyment.  Every  blade  of  grass  is 
a  study;  and  to  produce  two  where  there  was  but  one  is  both  a 
profit  and  a  pleasure.  And  not  grass  alone,  but  soils,  seeds,  and 
seasons — hedges,  ditches,  and  fences — draining,  droughts,  and  irri 
gation —  plowing,  hoeing,  and  harrowing  —  reaping,  mowing,  and 
threshing  —  saving  crops,  pests  of  crops,  diseases  of  crops,  and  what 
will  prevent  or  cure  them — implements,  utensils,  and  machines,  their 
relative  merits,  and  how  to  improve  them  — hogs,  horses,  and  cattle — 
sheep,  goats,  and  poultry  —  trees,  shrubs,  fruits,  plants,  and  flowers 
—  the  thousand  things  of  which  these  are  specimens  —  each  a  world 
of  study  within  itself. 

In  all  this,  book-learning  is  available.  A  capacity  and  taste  for 
reading  gives  access  to  whatever  has  already  been  discovered  by 
others.  It  is  the  key,  or  one  of  the  keys,  to  the  already  solved  prob 
lems.  And  not  only  so :  it  gives  a  relish  and  facility  for  successfully 
pursuing  the  unsolved  ones.  The  rudiments  of  science  are  available, 
and  highly  available.  Some  knowledge  of  botany  assists  in  dealing 
with  the  vegetable  world  —  with  all  growing  crops.  Chemistry  as 
sists  in  the  analysis  of  soils,  selection  and  application  of  manures, 
and  in  numerous  other  ways.  The  mechanical  branches  of  natural 
philosophy  are  ready  help  in  almost  everything,  but  especially  in 
reference  to  implements  and  machinery. 

The  thought  recurs  that  education — cultivated  thought — can 
best  be  combined  with  agricultural  labor,  or  any  labor,  on  the  prin 
ciple  of  thorough  work;  that  careless,  half  performed,  slovenly  work 
makes  no  place  for  such  combination;  and  thorough  work,  again, 
renders  sufficient  the  smallest  quantity  of  ground  to  each  man ;  and 
this,  again,  conforms  to  what  must  occur  in  a  world  less  inclined  to 
wars  and  more  devoted  to  the  arts  of  peace  than  heretofore.  Popu 
lation  must  increase  rapidly,  more  rapidly  than  in  former  times,  and 
ere  long  the  most  valuable  of  all  arts  will  be  the  art  of  deriving  a 
comfortable  subsistence  from  the  smallest  area  of  soil.  No  com 
munity  whose  every  member  possesses  this  art,  can  ever  be  the  victim 
of  oppression  in  any  of  its  forms.  Such  community  will  be  alike 
independent  of  crowned  kings,  money  kings,  and  land  kings. 

But,  according  to  your  program^  the  awarding  of  premiums 
awaits  the  closing  of  this  address.  Considering  the  deep  interest 
necessarily  pertaining  to  that  performance,  it  would  be  no  wonder 
if  I  am  already  heard  with  some  impatience.  I  will  detain  you  but 
a  moment  longer.  Some  of  you  will  be  successful,  and  such  will  need 
but  little  philosophy  to  take  them  home  in  cheerful  spirits ;  others 
will  be  disappointed,  and  will  be  in  a  less  happy  mood.  To  such 
let  it  be  said,  "  Lay  it  not  too  much  to  heart."  Let  them  adopt  the 
maxim,  "Better  luck  next  time,"  and  then  by  renewed  exertion  make 
that  better  luck  for  themselves. 

And  by  the  successful  and  unsuccessful  let  it  be  remembered  that 
while  occasions  like  the  present  bring  their  sober  and  durable  bene- 


584          ADDEESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

fits,  the  exultations  and  mortifications  of  them  are  but  temporary  j 
that  the  victor  will  soon  be  vanquished  if  he  relax  in  his  exertion ; 
and  that  the  vanquished  this  year  may  be  victor  the  next,  in  spite  of 
all  competition. 

It  is  said  an  Eastern  monarch  once  charged  his  wise  men  to  invent 
him  a  sentence  to  be  ever  in  view,  and  which  should  be  true  and 
appropriate  in  all  times  and  situations.  They  presented  him  the 
words,  "And  this,  too,  shall  pass  away."  How  much  it  expresses! 
How  chastening  in  the  hour  of  pride !  How  consoling  in  the  depths 
of  affliction!  "And  this,  too,  shall  pass  away/7  And  yet,  let  us 
hope,  it  is  not  quite  true.  Let  us  hope,  rather,  that  by  the  best 
cultivation  of  the  physical  world  beneath  and  around  us,  and  the 
intellectual  and  moral  world  within  us,  we  shall  secure  an  individual, 
social,  and  political  prosperity  and  happiness,  whose  course  shall  be 
onward  and  upward,  and  which,  while  the  earth  endures,  shall  not 
pass  away. 

October  11,  1859. — LETTER  TO  EDWARD  WALLACE. 

CLINTON,  October  11,  1859. 
DR.  EDWARD  WALLACE. 

My  dear  Sir :  I  am  here  just  now  attending  court.  Yesterday, 
before  I  left  Springfield,  your  brother,  Dr.  William  S.  Wallace, 
showed  me  a  letter  of  yours,  in  which  you  kindly  mention  my  name, 
inquire  for  my  tariff  views,  and  suggest  the  propriety  of  my  writing 
a  letter  upon  the  subject.  I  was  an  old  Henry  Clay-Tariff- Whig. 
In  old  times  I  made  more  speeches  on  that  subject  than  any  other. 

I  have  not  since  changed  my  views.  I  believe  yet,  if  we  could  have 
a  moderate,  carefully  adjusted  protective  tariff,  so  far  acquiesced  in 
as  not  to  be  a  perpetual  subject  of  political  strife,  squabbles,  changes, 
and  uncertainties,  it  would  be  better  for  us.  Still  it  is  my  opinion 
that  just  now  the  revival  of  that  question  will  not  advance  the  cause 
itself,  or  the  man  who  revives  it. 

I  have  not  thought  much  on  the  subject  recently,  but  my  general 
impression  is  that  the  necessity  for  a  protective  tariff  will  ere  long 
force  its  old  opponents  to  take  it  up ;  and  then  its  old  friends  can 
join  in  and  establish  it  on  a  more  firm  and  durable  basis.  We,  the 
Old  Whigs,  have  been  entirely  beaten  out  on  the  tariff  question,  and 
we  shall  not  be  able  to  reestablish  the  policy  until  the  absence  of  it 
shall  have  demonstrated  the  necessity  for  it  in  the  minds  of  men  here 
tofore  opposed  to  it.  With  this  vi'ew,  I  should  prefer  to  not  now 
write  a  public  letter  on  the  subject.  I  therefore  wish  this  to  be  con 
sidered  confidential.  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  receive  a  letter  from  you. 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

November  1,  1859. —  LETTER  TO  W.  E.  FRAZER. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  November  1,  1859. 
W.  E.  FRAZER,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  24th  ult.  was  forwarded  to  me  from 
Chicago.  It  certainly  is  important  to  secure  Pennsylvania  for  the 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          585 

Republicans  in  the  next  presidential  contest,  and  not  unimportant 
to  also  secure  Illinois.  As  to  the  ticket  you  name,  I  shall  be  heartily 
for  it  after  it  shall  have  been  fairly  nominated  by  a  Republican  na 
tional  convention ;  and  I  cannot  be  committed  to  it  before.  For  my 
single  self,  I  have  enlisted  for  the  permanent  success  of  the  Repub 
lican  cause ;  and  for  this  object  I  shall  labor  faithfully  in  the  ranks, 
unless,  as  I  think  not  probable,  the  judgment  of  the  party  shall  as 
sign  me  a  different  position.  If  the  Republicans  of  the  great  State 
of  Pennsylvania  shall  present  Mr.  Cameron  as  their  candidate  for 
the  presidency,  such  an  indorsement  for  his  fitness  for  the  place 
could  scarcely  be  deemed  insufficient.  Still,  as  I  would  not  like  the 
public  to  know,  so  I  would  not  like  myself  to  know,  I  had  entered  a 
combination  with  any  man  to  the  prejudice  of  all  others  whose 
friends  respectively  may  consider  them  preferable. 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

November  13,  1859. —  LETTER  TO  JAMES  A.  BRIGGS. 

DANVILLE,  ILLINOIS,  November  13,  1859. 
JAMES  A.  BRIGGS,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  1st,  closing  with  my  proposition  for  com 
promise,  was  duly  received.  I  will  be  on  hand,  and  in  due  time  will 
notify  you  of  the  exact  day.  I  believe,  after  all,  I  shall  make  a  polit 
ical  speech  of  it.  You  have  no  objection  ?  I  would  like  to  know  in 
advance  whether  I  am  also  to  speak  or  lecture  in  New  York.  Very, 
very  glad  your  election  went  right.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

December  1-5,  1859. — SPEECHES  IN  KANSAS. 

[In  response  to  invitations  from  Republicans  of  the  then  Territory, 
Mr.  Lincoln  made  a  visit  to  Kansas  in  December,  1859,  and  made 
speeches  at  El  wood  (opposite  St.  Joseph,  Mo.),  at  Troy,  Doniphan, 
Atchison,  and  Leavenworth,  Kansas.  Among  his  papers  were  a  num 
ber  of  disconnected  sheets  of  autograph  manuscript,  which  contained 
internal  evidence  that  they  were  portions  of  the  addresses  made  by 
him  on  these  occasions.  Though  the  fragments  seem  to  belong  to 
different  addresses,  the  topics  treated  in  them  justify  their  presenta 
tion  in  the  order  here  arranged,  as  the  general  line  of  argument  fol 
lowed  by  him.] 

Introduction. 

Purpose  of  the  Republican  organization. —  The  Republican  party 
believe  there  is  danger  that  slavery  will  be  further  extended,  and 
ultimately  made  national  in  the  United  States  ;  and  to  prevent  this 
incidental  and  final  consummation,  is  the  purpose  of  this  organi 
zation. 

Chief  danger  to  that  purpose. — A  congressional  slave  code  for  the 
Territories,  and  the  revival  of  the  African  trade,  and  a  second  Dred 
Scott  decision,  are  not  just  now  the  chief  danger  to  our  purpose. 


586         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

These  will  press  us  in  due  time,  but  they  are  not  quite  ready  yet — 
they  know  that,  as  yet,  we  are  too  strong  for  them.  The  insidious 
Douglas  popular  sovereignty,  which  prepares  the  way  for  this  ulti 
mate  danger,  it  is  which  just  now  constitutes  our  chief  danger. 

Popular  Sovereignty. — I  say  Douglas  popular  sovereignty;  for 
there  is  a  broad  distinction  between  real  popular  sovereignty  and 
Douglas  popular  sovereignty.  That  the  nation  shall  control  what 
concerns  it ;  that  a  State,  or  any  minor  political  community,  shall  con 
trol  what  exclusively  concerns  it;  and  that  an  individual  shall  con 
trol  what  exclusively  concerns  him, — is  a  real  popular  sovereignty, 
which  no  Republican  opposes. 

But  this  is  not  Douglas  popular  sovereignty:-  Douglas  popular 
sovereignty,  as  a  matter  of  principle,  simply  is:  "If  one  man  would 
enslave  another,  neither  that  other  nor  any  third  man  has  a  right 
to  object." 

Douglas  popular  sovereignty,  as  he  practically  applies  it,  is:  "If 
any  organized  political  community,  however  new  and  small,  would 
enslave  men  or  forbid  their  being  enslaved  within  its  own  territorial 
limits;  however  the  doing  the  one  or  the  other  may  affect  the  men 
sought  to  be  enslaved,  or  the  vastly  superior  number  of  men  who 
are  afterward  to  come  within  those  limits,  or  the  family  of  com 
munities  of  which  it  is  but  a  member,  or  the  head  of  that  family, 
as  the  present  and  common  guardian  of  the  whole — however  any 
or  all  these  are  to  be  affected,  neither  any  nor  all  may  interf ere." 

This  is  Douglas  popular  sovereignty.  He  has  great  difficulty  with 
it.  His  speeches  and  letters  and  essays  and  explanations  explana 
tory  of  explanations  explained  upon  it,  are  legion.  The  most 
lengthy,  and  as  I  suppose  the  most  maturely  considered,  is  that 
recently  published  in  "Harper's  Magazine."  It  has  two  leading 
objects:  the  first,  to  appropriate  the  authority  and  reverence  due 
the  great  and  good  men  of  the  Revolution  to  his  popular  sover 
eignty  ;  and,  secondly,  to  show  that  the  Dred  Scott  decision  has  not 
entirely  squelched  his  popular  sovereignty. 

Before  considering  these  main  objects,  I  wish  to  consider  a  few 
minor  points  of  the  copyright  essay. 

Last  year  Governor  Seward  and  myself,  at  different  times  and 
occasions,  expressed  the  opinion  that  slavery  is  a  durable  element 
of  discord,  and  that  we  shall  not  have  peace  with  it  until  it  either 
masters  or  is  mastered  by  the  free  principle.  This  gave  great  offense 
to  Judge  Douglas,  and  his  denunciations  of  it,  and  absurd  infer 
ences  from  it,  have  never  ceased.  Almost  at  the  very  beginning 
of  the  copyright  essay  he  quotes  the  language  respectively  of 
Seward  and  myself — not  quite  accurately,  but  substantially,  in  my 
case — upon  this  point,  and  repeats  his  absurd  and  extravagant 
inference.  For  lack  of  time  I  omit  much  which  I  might  say  here 
with  propriety,  and  content  myself  with  two  remarks  only  upon  this 
point.  The  first  is,  that  inasmuch  as  Douglas  in  this  very  essay 
tells  us  slavery  agitation  began  in  this  country  in  1699,  and  has  not 
yet  ceased;  has  lasted  through  a  hundred  and  sixty  years,  through 
ten  entire  generations  of  men, — it  might  have  occurred  to  even  him 
that  slavery  in  its  tendency  to  agitation  and  discord  has  something 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          587 

slightly  durable  about  it.  The  second  remark  is  that  Judge  Doug 
las  might  have  noted,  if  he  would,  while  he  was  diving  so  deeply 
into  history,  the  historical  faet«that  the  only  comparative  peace  we 
have  had  with  slavery  during  that  hundred  and  sixty  years  was  in 
the  period  from  the  Revolution  to  1820,  precisely  the  period  through 
which  we  were  closing  out  the  African  slave-trade,  abolishing  slavery 
in  several  of  the  States,  and  restraining  the  spread  of  it  into  new 
ones  by  the  ordinance  of  787,  precisely  the  period  in  which  the 
public  mind  had  reason  to  rest,  and  did  rest,  in  the  belief  that 
slavery  was  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction. 

Another  point,  which  for  the  present  I  shall  touch  only  hastily,  is 
Judge  Douglas's  assumption  that  the  States  and  Territories  differ 
only  in  the  fact  that  the  States  are  in  the  Union,  and  the  Territories 
are  not  in  it.  But  if  this  be  the  only  difference,  why  not  instantly 
bring  the  Territories  in  ?  Why  keep  them  out  ?  Do  you  say  they 
are  unfitted  for  it  ?  What  unfits  them  ?  Especially  what  unfits  them 
for  any  duty  in  the  Union,  after  they  are  fit,  if  they  choose,  to  plant 
the  soil  they  sparsely  inhabit  with  slavery,  beyond  the  power  of  their 
millions  of  successors  to  eradicate  it,  and  to  the  durable  discord  of 
the  Union  ?  What  function  of  sovereignty,  out  of  the  Union  or  in  it, 
is  so  portentous  as  this  ?  What  function  of  government  requires 
such  perfect  maturity,  in  numbers  and  everything  else,  among  those 
who  exercise  it  I  It  is  a  concealed  assumption  of  Douglas's  popular 
sovereignty  that  slavery  is  a  little,  harmless,  indifferent  thing,  having 
no  wrong  in  it,  and  no  power  for  mischief  about  it.  If  all  men  looked 
upon  it  as  he  does,  his  policy  in  regard  to  it  might  do.  But  neither 
all,  nor  half  the  world,  so  look  upon  it. 

Near  the  close  of  the  essay  in  "  Harper's  Magazine  "  Douglas  tells 
us  that  his  popular  sovereignty  pertains  to  a  people  only  after  they 
are  regularly  organized  into  a  political  community ;  and  that  Con 
gress  in  its  discretion  must  decide  when  they  are  fit  in  point  of  num 
bers  to  be  so  organized.  Now  I  should  like  for  him  to  point  out  in 
the  Constitution  any  clause  conferring  that  discretion  upon  Congress, 
which,  when  pointed  out,  will  not  be  equally  a  power  in  Congress  to 
govern  them,  in  its  discretion,  till  they  are  admitted  as  a  State.  Will 
he  try  ?  He  intimates  that  before  the  exercise  of  that  discretion, 
their  number  must  be  ten,  fifteen,  or  twenty  thousand.  Well,  what 
is  to  be  done  for  them,  or  with  them,  or  by  them,  before  they  number 
ten  thousand  ?  If  any  one  of  them  desires  to  have  slaves,  is  any  other 
one  bound  to  help  him,  or  at  liberty  to  hinder  him  ?  Is  it  his  plan 
that  any  time  before  they  reach  the  required  numbers,  those  who  are 
on  hand  shall  be  driven  out  as  trespassers  ?  If  so,  it  will  probably 
be  a  good  while  before  a  sufficient  number  to  organize  will  get  in. 

But  plainly  enough  this  conceding  to  Congress  the  discretion  as 
to  when  a  community  shall  be  organized,  is  a  total  surrender  of  his 
popular  sovereignty.  He  says  himself  it  does  not  pertain  to  a  peo 
ple  until  they  are  organized  j  and  that  when  they  shall  be  organized 
is  in  the  discretion  of  Congress.  Suppose  Congress  shall  choose  to 
not  organize  them  until  they  are  numerous  enough  to  come  into 
the  Union  as  a  State.  By  his  own  rule,  his  popular  sovereignty  is 
derived  from  Congress,  and  cannot  be  exercised  by  the  people  till 


588          ADDRESSES  AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Congress  chooses  to  confer  it.  After  toiling  through  nineteen  mor 
tal  pages  of  "  Harper/'  to  show  that  Congress  cannot  keep  the  people 
of  a  new  country  from  excluding  slavery,  in  a  single  closing  para 
graph  he  makes  the  whole  thing  depend  on  Congress  at  last.  And 
should  Congress  refuse  to  organize,  how  will  that  affect  the  question 
of  planting  slavery  in  a  new  country!  If  individuals  choose  to 
plant  it,  the  people  cannot  prevent  them,  for  they  are  not  yet  clothed 
with  popular  sovereignty.  If  it  be  said  that  it  cannot  be  planted,  in 
fact,  without  protective  law,  that  assertion  is  already  falsified  by 
history;  for  it  was  originally  planted  on  this  continent  without 
protective  law. 

And,  by  the  way,  it  is  probable  that  no  act  of  territorial  organi 
zation  could  be  passed  by  the  present  Senate  j  and  almost  certainly 
not  by  both  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives.  If  an  act  de 
clared  the  right  of  Congress  to  exclude  slavery,  the  Republicans 
would  vote  for  it,  and  both  wings  of  the  Democracy  against  it.  If  it 
denied  the  power  to  either  exclude  or  protect  it,  the  Douglasites  would 
vote  for  it,  and  both  the  Republicans  and  slave-coders  against  it.  If 
it  denied  the  power  to  exclude,  and  asserted  the  power  to  protect, 
the  slave-coders  would  vote  for  it,  and  the  Republicans  and  Douglas 
ites  against  it. 

You  are  now  a  part  of  a  people  of  a  Territory,  but  that  Territory 
is  soon  to  be  a  State  of  the  Union.  Both  in  your  individual  and 
collective  capacities,  you  have  the  same  interest  in  the  past,  the  pres 
ent,  and  the  future  of  the  United  States  as  any  other  portion  of  the 
people.  Most  of  you  came  from  the  States,  and  all  of  you  soon  will 
be  citizens  of  the  common  Union.  What  I  shall  now  address  to  you 
will  have  neither  greater  nor  less  application  to  you  than  to  any 
other  people  of  the  Union. 

You  are  gathered  to-day  as  a  Republican  convention — Republican 
in  the  party  sense,  and,  as  we  hope,  in  the  true,  original  sense  of  the 
word  republican. 

I  assume  that  Republicans  throughout  the  nation  believe  they  are 
right,  and  are  earnest  and  determined  in  their  cause. 

Let  them  then  keep  constantly  in  view  that  the  chief  object  of 
their  organization  is  to  prevent  the  spread  and  nationalization  of 
slavery.  With  this  ever  distinctly  before  us,  we  can  always  better 
see  at  what  point  our  cause  is  most  in  danger. 

We  are,  as  I  think,  in  the  present  temper  or  state  of  public  sen 
timent,  in  no  danger  from  the  open  advocates  of  a  congressional 
slave  code  for  the  Territories,  and  of  the  revival  of  the  African  slave- 
trade.  As  yet  we  are  strong  enough  to  meet  and  master  any  com 
bination  openly  formed  on  those  grounds.  It  is  only  the  insidious 
position  of  Douglas  that  endangers  our  cause.  That  position  is 
simply  an  ambuscade.  By  entering  into  contest  with  our  open  ene 
mies,  we  are  to  be  lured  into  his  train ;  and  then,  having  lost  our 
own  organization  and  arms,  we  are  to  be  turned  over  to  those  same 
open  enemies. 

Douglas's  position  leads  to  the  nationalization  of  slavery  as  surely 
as  does  that  of  Jeff  Davis  and  Mason  of  Virginia.  The  two  posi 
tions  are  but  slightly  different  roads  to  the  same  place  —  with  this 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          589 

difference,  that  the  nationalization  of  slavery  can  be  reached  by 
Douglas's  route,  and  never  can  be  by  the  other. 

I  have  said  that  in  our  present  moral  tone  and  temper  we  are 
strong  enough  for  our  open  enemies,  and  so  we  are.  But  the  chief 
effect  of  Douglasism  is  to  change  that  tone  and  temper.  Men  who 
support  the  measures  of  a  political  leader  do,  almost  of  necessity,  adopt 
the  reasoning  and  sentiments  the  leader  advances  in  support  of  them. 
The  reasoning  and  sentiments  advanced  by  Douglas  in  support  of 
his  policy  as  to  slavery  all  spring  from  the  view  that  slavery  is  not 
wrong.  In  the  first  place,  he  never  says  it  is  wrong.  He  says  he 
does  not  care  whether  it  shall  be  voted  down  or  voted  up.  He  says 
whoever  wants  slavery  has  a  right  to  have  it.  He  says  the  question 
whether  people  will  have  it  or  not  is  simply  a  question  of  dollars 
and  cents.  He  says  the  Almighty  has  drawn  a  line  across  the  con 
tinent,  on  one  side  of  which  the  soil  must  be  cultivated  by  slave 
labor. 

Now  let  the  people  of  the  free  States  adopt  these  sentiments,  and 
they  will  be  unable  to  see  a  single  reason  for  maintaining  their  pro 
hibitions  of  slavery  in  their  own  States.  "  What !  do  you  mean  to 
say  that  anything  in  these  sentiments  requires  us  to  believe  it  will 
be  the  interest  of  Northern  States  to  have  slavery ! "  No.  But  I  do 
mean  to  say  that  although  it  is  not  the  interest  of  Northern  States 
to  grow  cotton,  none  of  them  have,  or  need,  any  law  against  it  j  and 
it  would  be  tyranny  to  deprive  any  one  man  of  the  privilege  to  grow 
cotton  in  Illinois.  There  are  many  individual  men  in  all  the  free 
States  who  desire  to  have  slaves ;  and  if  you  admit  that  slavery  is 
not  wrong,  it  is  also  but  tyranny  to  deny  them  the  privilege.  It  is 
no  just  function  of  government  to  prohibit  what  is  not  wrong. 

Again,  if  slavery  is  right — ordained  by  the  Almighty — on  one  side 
of  a  line  dividing  sister  States  of  a  common  Union,  then  it  is  posi 
tively  wrong  to  harass  and  bedevil  the  owners  of  it  with  constitu 
tions  and  laws  and  prohibitions  of  it  on  the  other  side  of  the  line. 
In  short,  there  is  no  justification  for  prohibiting  slavery  anywhere, 
save  only  in  the  assumption  that  slavery  is  wrong  •  and  whenever 
the  sentiment  that  slavery  is  wrong  shall  give  way  in  the  North,  all 
legal  prohibitions  of  it  will  also  give  way. 

If  it  be  insisted  that  men  may  support  Douglas's  measures  with 
out  adopting  his  sentiments,  let  it  be  tested  by  what  is  actually  pass 
ing  before  us.  You  can  even  now  find  no  Douglas  man  who  will 
disavow  any  one  of  these  sentiments ;  and  none  but  will  actually  in 
dorse  them  if  pressed  to  the  point. 

Five  years  ago  no  living  man  had  placed  on  record,  nor,  as  I  believe, 
verbally  expressed,  a  denial  that  negroes  have  a  share  in  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence.  Two  or  three  years  since,  Douglas  began  to 
deny  it ;  and  now  every  Douglas  man  in  the  nation  denies  it. 

To  the  same  effect  is  the  absurdity  compounded  of  support  to  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  and  legislation  unfriendly  to  slavery  by  the  Ter 
ritories — the  absurdity  which  asserts  that  a  thing  may  be  lawfully 
driven  from  a  place,  at  which  place  it  has  a  lawful  right  to  remain. 
That  absurd  position  will  not  be  long  maintained  by  any  one.  The 
Dred  Scott  half  of  it  will  soon  master  the  other  half.  The  process  will 


590          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

probably  be  about  this :  some  territorial  legislature  will  adopt  un 
friendly  legislation ;  the  Supreme  Court  will  decide  that  legislation 
to  be  unconstitutional,  and  then  the  advocates  of  the  present  com 
pound  absurdity  will  acquiesce  in  the  decision.  The  only  effect  of 
that  position  now  is  to  prepare  its  advocates  for  such  acquiescence 
when  the  time  comes.  Like  wood  for  ox-bows,  they  are  merely  being 
soaked  in  it  preparatory  to  the  bending.  The  advocates  of  a  slave 
code  are  not  now  strong  enough  to  master  us ;  and  they  never  will 
be,  unless  recruits  enough  to  make  them  so  be  tolled  in  through  the 
gap  of  Douglasism.  Douglas,  on  the  sly,  is  effecting  more  for  them 
than  all  their  open  advocates.  He  has  reason  to  be  provoked  that 
they  will  not  understand  him,  and  recognize  him  as  their  best  friend. 
He  cannot  be  more  plain,  without  being  so  plain  as  to  lure  no  one 
into  their  trap — so  plain  as  to  lose  his  power  to  serve  them  profit 
ably.  Take  other  instances.  Last  year  both  Governor  Seward  and 
myself  expressed  the  belief  that  this  government  cannot  endure  per 
manently  half  slave  and  half  free.  This  gave  great  offense  to  Doug 
las,  and  after  the  fall  election  in  Illinois  he  became  quite  rampant 
upon  it.  At  Chicago,  St.  Louis,  Memphis,  and  New  Orleans,  he  de 
nounced  it  as  a  "  fatal  heresy."  With  great  pride  he  claimed  that  he 
had  crushed  it  in  Illinois,  and  modestly  regretted  that  he  could  not 
have  been  in  New  York  to  crush  it  there  too.  How  the  heresy  is 
fatal  to  anything,  or  what  the  thing  is  to  which  it  is  fatal,  he  has 
never  paused  to  tell  us.  At  all  events,  it  is  a  fatal  heresy  in  his  view 
when  expressed  by  a  Northern  man.  Not  so  when  expressed  by  men 
of  the  South.  In  1856,  Roger  A.  Pryor,  editor  of  the  Richmond  "  En 
quirer,"  expressed  the  same  belief  in  that  paper,  quite  two  years 
before  it  was  expressed  by  either  Seward  or  me.  But  Douglas 
perceived  no  "heresy"  in  him — talked  not  of  going  to  Virginia  to 
crush  it  out ;  nay,  more,  he  now  has  that  same  Mr.  Pryor  at  Wash 
ington,  editing  the  "States"  newspaper  as  his  especial  organ. 

This  brings  us  to  see  that  in  Douglas's  view  this  opinion  is  a 
"  fatal  heresy  "  when  expressed  by  men  wishing  to  have  the  nation 
all  free,  and  it  is  no  heresy  at  all  when  expressed  by  men  wishing  to 
have  it  all  slave.  Douglas  has  cause  to  complain  that  the  South  will 
not  note  this  and  give  him  credit  for  it. 

At  Memphis  Douglas  told  his  audience  that  he  was  for  the  negro 
against  the  crocodile,  but  for  the  white  man  against  the  negro.  This 
was  not  a  sudden  thought  hastily  thrown  off  at  Memphis.  He  said 
the  same  thing  many  times  in  Illinois  last  summer  and  autumn, 
though  I  am  not  sure  it  was  reported  then. 

It  is  a  carefully  formed  illustration  of  the  estimate  he  places  upon 
the  negro  and  the  manner  he  would  have  him  dealt  with.  It  is 
a  sort  of  proposition  in  proportion.  "As  the  negro  is  to  the  croco 
dile,  so  the  white  man  is  to  the  negro."  As  the  negro  ought  to  treat 
the  crocodile  as  a  beast,  so  the  white  man  ought  to  treat  the  negro  as 
a  beast.  Gentlemen  of  the  South,  is  not  that  satisfactory  ?  Will  you 
give  Douglas  no  credit  for  impressing  that  sentiment  on  the  North 
ern  mind  for  your  benefit  ?  Why,  you  should  magnify  him  to  the 
utmost,  in  order  that  he  may  impress  it  the  more  deeply,  broadly, 
and  surely. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          591 

A  hope  is  often  expressed  that  all  the  elements  of  opposition  to 
the  so-called  Democracy  may  unite  in  the  next  presidential  election  • 
and  to  favor  this  it  is  suggested  that  at  least  one  candidate  on  the 
opposition  national  ticket  must  be  resident  in  the  slave  States.  I 
strongly  sympathize  with  this  hope;  and  the  particular  suggestion 
presents  no  difficulty  to  me.  There  are  very  many  men  in  the 
slave  States  who  as  men  and  statesmen  and  patriots  are  quite  accept 
able  to  me  for  either  President  or  Vice- President.  But  there  is  a 
difficulty  of  another  sort ;  and  I  think  it  most  prudent  for  us  to  face 
that  difficulty  at  once.  Will  those  good  men  of  the  South  occupy  any 
ground  upon  which  we  of  the  free  States  can  vote  for  them  ?  There 
is  the  rub.  They  seem  to  labor  under  a  huge  mistake  in  regard  to 
us.  They  say  they  are  tired  of  slavery  agitation.  We  think  the 
slaves,  and  free  white  laboring-men  too,  have  more  reason  to  be 
tired  of  slavery  than  masters  have  to  be  tired  of  agitation  about  it. 
In  Kentucky  a  Democratic  candidate  for  Congress  takes  ground 
against  a  congressional  slave-code  for  the  Territories,  whereupon 
his  opponent,  in  full  hope  to  unite  with  Republicans  in  1860,  takes 
ground  in  favor  of  such  slave-code.  Such  hope,  under  such  circum 
stances,  is  delusion  gross  as  insanity  itself.  Rational  men  can  only 
entertain  it  in  the  strange  belief  that  Republicans  are  not  in  earnest 
for  their  principles;  that  they  are  really  devoted  to  no  principle  of 
their  own,  but  are  ready  for,  and  anxious  to  jump  to,  any  position 
not  occupied  by  the  Democracy.  This  mistake  must  be  dispelled. 
For  the  sake  of  their  principles,  in  forming  their  party,  they  broke 
and  sacrificed  the  strongest  mere  party  ties  and  advantages  which 
can  exist.  Republicans  believe  that  slavery  is  wrong ;  and  they  insist, 
and  will  continue  to  insist,  upon  a  national  policy  which  recognizes 
it  and  deals  with  it  as  a  wrong.  There  can  be  no  letting  down  about 
this.  Simultaneously  with  such  letting  down  the  Republican  organ 
ization  would  go  to  pieces,  and  half  its  elements  would  go  in  a 
different  direction,  leaving  an  easy  victory  to  the  common  enemy. 
No  ingenuity  of  political  trading  could  possibly  hold  it  together. 
About  this  there  is  no  joke,  and  can  be  no  trifling.  Understanding 
this,  that  Republicanism  can  never  mix  with  territorial  slave-codes 
becomes  self-evident. 

In  this  contest  mere  men  are  nothing.  We  could  come  down  to 
Douglas  quite  as  well  as  to  any  other  man  standing  with  him,  and 
better  than  to  any  other  standing  below  or  beyond  him.  The  simple 
problem  is :  will  any  good  and  capable  man  of  the  South  allow  the 
Republicans  to  elect  him  on  their  own  platform  f  If  such  man  can 
be  found,  I  believe  the  thing  can  be  done.  It  can  be  done  in  no 
other  way. 

What  do  we  gain,  say  some,  by  such  a  union J?  Certainly  not 
everything ;  but  still  something,  and  quite  all  that  we  for  our  lives 
can  possibly  give.  In  yielding  a  share  of  the  high  honors  and 
offices  to  you,  you  gain  the  assurance  that  ours  is  not  a  mere  strug 
gle  to  secure  those  honors  and  offices  for  one  section.  You  gain  the 
assurance  that  we  mean  no  more  than  we  say  in  our  platforms,  else 
we  would  not  intrust  you  to  execute  them.  You  gain  the  assurance 
that  we  intend  no  invasion  of  your  rights  or  your  honor,  else  we 


592          ADDRESSES    AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

would  not  make  one  of  you  the  executor  of  the  laws  and  commander 
of  the  army  and  navy. 

As  a  matter  of  mere  partizan  policy,  there  is  no  reason  for  and 
much  against  any  letting  down  of  the  Republican  party  in  order  to 
form  a  union  with  the  Southern  opposition.  By  no  possibility  can  a 
union  ticket  secure  a  simple  electoral  vote  in  the  South,  unless  the 
Republican  platform  be  so  far  let  down  as  to  lose  every  electoral 
vote  in  the  North ;  and  even  at  that,  not  a  single  vote  would  be  se 
cured  in  the  South,  unless  by  bare  possibility  those  of  Maryland. 
There  is  no  successful  basis  of  union  but  for  some  good  Southern 
man  to  allow  us  of  the  North  to  elect  him  square  on  our  platform. 
Plainly  it  is  that  or  nothing. 

The  St.  Louis  "  Intelligencer "  is  out  in  favor  of  a  good  man  for 
President,  to  be  run  without  a  platform.  Well,  I  am  not  wedded  to 
the  formal  written  platform  system;  but  a  thousand  to  one  the  edi 
tor  is  not  himself  in  favor  of  his  plan,  except  with  the  qualification 
that  he  and  his  sort  are  to  select  and  name  the  "  good  man."  To 
bring  him  to  the  test,  is  he  willing  to  take  Seward  without  a  plat 
form  ?  Oh,  no ;  Seward's  antecedents  exclude  him,  say  you.  Well,  is 
your  good  man  without  antecedents  ?  If  he  is,  how  shall  the  nation 
know  that  he  is  a  good  man  ?  The  sum  of  the  matter  is  that,  in  the 
absence  of  formal  written  platforms,  the  antecedents  of  candidates 
become  their  platforms.  On  just  such  platforms  all  our  earlier  and 
better  Presidents  were  elected,  but  this  by  no  means  facilitates  a 
union  of  men  who  differ  in  principles. 

Nor  do  I  believe  we  can  ever  advance  our  principles  by  supporting 
men  who  oppose  our  principles.  Last  year,  as  you  know,  we  Repub 
licans  in  Illinois  were  advised  by  numerous  and  respectable  outsiders 
to  reelect  Douglas  to  the  Senate  by  our  votes.  I  never  questioned 
the  motives  of  such  advisers,  nor  the  devotion  to  the  Republican 
cause  of  such  as  professed  to  be  Republicans.  But  I  never  for  a  mo 
ment  thought  of  following  the  advice,  and  have  never  yet  regretted 
that  we  did  not  follow  it.  True,  Douglas  is  back  in  the  Senate  in 
spite  of  us  j  but  we  are  clear  of  him  and  his  principles,  and  we  are 
uncrippled  and  ready  to  fight  both  him  and  them  straight  along  till 
they  shall  be  finally  "  closed  out."  Had  we  followed  the  advice,  there 
would  now  be  no  Republican  party  in  Illinois,  and  none  to  speak  of 
anywhere  else.  The  whole  thing  would  now  be  floundering  along 
after  Douglas  upon  the  Dred  Scott  and  crocodile  theory.  It  would 
have  been  the  grandest  "haul"  for  slavery  ever  yet  made.  Our 
principles  would  still  live,  and  ere  long  would  produce  a  party ;  but 
we  should  have  lost  all  our  past  labor  and  twenty  years  of  time  by 
the  folly. 

Take  an  illustration.  About  a  year  ago  all  the  Republicans  in 
Congress  voted  for  what  was  called  the  Crittenden-Montgomery  bill ; 
and  forthwith  Douglas  claimed,  and  still  claims,  that  they  were  all 
committed  to  his  "  gur-reat  pur-rinciple."  And  Republicans  have 
been  so  far  embarrassed  by  the  claim  that  they  have  ever  since 
been  protesting  that  they  were  not  so  committed,  and  trying  to  explain 
why.  Some  of  the  very  newspapers  which  advised  Douglas's  return 
to  the  Senate  by  Republican  votes  have  been  largely  and  con  tin- 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN         593 

uously  engaged  in  these  protests  and  explanations.  For  such  let  us 
state  a  question  in  the  rule  of  three.  If  voting  for  the  Crittenden- 
Montgomery  bill  entangle  the  Republicans  with  Douglas's  dogmas 
for  one  year,  how  long  would  voting  for  Douglas  himself  so  entangle 
them  ? 

It  is  nothing  to  the  contrary  that  Republicans  gained  something 
by  electing  Haskins,  Hickman,  and  Davis.  They  were  comparatively 
small  men.  I  mean  no  disrespect ;  they  may  have  large  merit ;  but 
Republicans  can  dally  with  them,  and  absorb  or  expel  them  at  pleas 
ure.  If  they  dally  with  Douglas,  he  absorbs  them. 

We  want,  and  must  have,  a  national  policy  as  to  slavery  which 
deals  with  it  as  being  a  wrong.  Whoever  would  prevent  slavery 
becoming  national  and  perpetual  yields  all  when  he  yields  to  a 
policy  which  treats  it  either  as  being  right,  or  as  being  a  matter  of 
indifference. 

We  admit  that  the  United  States  General  Government  is  not  charged 
with  the  duty  of  redressing  or  preventing  all  the  wrongs  in  the 
world.  But  the  government  rightfully  may,  and  subject  to  the  Con 
stitution  ought  to,  redress  and  prevent  all  wrongs  which  are  wrongs 
to  the  nation  itself.  It  is  expressly  charged  with  the  duty  of  pro 
viding  for  the  general  welfare.  We  think  slavery  impairs  and  en 
dangers  the  general  welfare.  Those  who  do  not  think  this  are  not 
of  us,  and  we  cannot  agree  with  them.  We  must  shape  our  own 
course  by  our  own  judgment. 

We  must  not  disturb  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists,  because 
the  Constitution  and  the  peace  of  the  country  both  forbid  us.  We 
must  not  withhold  an  efficient  fugitive-slave  law,  because  the  Con 
stitution  demands  it. 

But  we  must,  by  a  national  policy,  prevent  the  spread  of  slavery 
into  new  Territories,  or  free  States,  because  the  Constitution  does 
not  forbid  us,  and  the  general  welfare  does  demand  such  prevention. 
We  must  prevent  the  revival  of  the  African  slave-trade,  because  the 
Constitution  does  not  forbid  us,  and  the  general  welfare  does  require 
the  prevention.  We  must  prevent  these  things  being  done  by  either 
congresses  or  courts.  The  people — the  people — are  the  rightful  mas 
ters  of  both  congresses  and  courts, —  not  to  overthrow  the  Constitu 
tion,  but  to  overthrow  the  men  who  pervert  it. 

To  effect  our  main  object  we  have  to  employ  auxiliary  means. 
We  must  hold  conventions,  adopt  platforms,  select  candidates,  and 
carry  elections.  At  every  step  we  must  be  true  to  the  main  purpose. 
If  we  adopt  a  platform  falling  short  of  our  principle,  or  elect  a  man 
rejecting  our  principle,  we  not  only  take  nothing  affirmative  by  our 
success,  but  we  draw  upon  us  the  positive  embarrassment  of  seeming 
ourselves  to  have  abandoned  our  principle. 

That  our  principle,  however  baffled  or  delayed,  will  finally  tri 
umph,  I  do  not  permit  myself  to  doubt.  Men  will  pass  away — die, 
die  politically  and  naturally;  but  the  principle  will  live,  and  live 
forever.  Organizations  rallied  around  that  principle  may,  by  their 
own  dereliction,  go  to  pieces,  thereby  losing  all  their  time  and  labor ; 
but  the  principle  will  remain,  and  will  reproduce  another,  and 
another,  till  the  final  triumph  will  come. 
VOL.  I.— 38. 


594          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

But  to  "bring  it  soon,  we  must  save  our  labor  already  performed— 
our  organization,  which  has  cost  us  so  much  time  and  toil  to  create. 
We  must  keep  our  principle  constantly  in  view,  and  never  be  false 
to  it. 

And  as  to  men  for  leaders,  we  must  remember  that  "  He  that  is 
not  for  us  is  against  us  ;  and  he  that  gathereth  not  with  us  scat- 
tereth." 

December  9,  1859. — LETTER  TO  N.  B.  JUDD. 

SPRINGFIELD,  December  9,  1859. 
HON.  N.  B.  JUDD. 

My  dear  Sir :  I  have  just  reached  home  from  Kansas  and  found 
your  long  letter  of  the  1st  inst.  It  has  a  tone  of  blame  toward 
myself  which  I  think  is  not  quite  just;  but  I  will  not  stand  upon 
that,  but  will  consider  a  day  or  two,  and  put  something  in  the 
best  shape  I  can,  and  send  it  to  you.  A  great  difficulty  is  that 
they  make  no  distinct  charge  against  you  which  I  can  contradict. 
You  did  vote  for  Trumbull  against  me;  and,  although  I  think, 
and  have  said  a  thousand  times,  that  was  no  injustice  to  me,  I 
cannot  change  the  fact,  nor  compel  people  to  cease  speaking  of 
it.  Ever  since  that  matter  occurred,  I  have  constantly  labored, 
as  I  believe  you  know,  to  have  all  recollection  of  it  dropped. 

The  vague  charge  that  you  played  me  false  last  year  I  believe  to 
be  false  and  outrageous;  but  it  seems  I  can  make  no  impression  by 
expressing  that  belief.  I  made  a  special  job  of  trying  to  impress 
that  upon  Baker,  Bridges,  and  Wilson  here  last  winter.  They  all 
well  know  that  I  believe  no  such  charge  against  you.  But  they 
chose  to  insist  that  they  know  better  about  it  than  I  do. 

As  to  the  charge  of  your  intriguing  for  Trumbull  against  mer 
I  believe  as  little  of  that  as  any  other  charge.  If  Trumbull  and 
I  were  candidates  for  the  same  office,  you  would  have  a  right  to 
prefer  him,  and  I  should  not  blame  you  for  it;  but  all  my  acquain 
tance  with  you  induces  me  to  believe  you  would  not  pretend  to  be  for 
me  while  really  for  him.  But  I  do  not  understand  Trumbull  and 
myself  to  be  rivals.  You  know  I  am  pledged  to  not  enter  a  strug 
gle  with  him  for  the  seat  in  the  Senate  now  occupied  by  him; 
and  yet  I  would  rather  have  a  full  term  in  the  Senate  than  in  the 
presidency.  Your  friend  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

P.  S. — I  omitted  to  say  that  I  have,  in  no  single  instance,  per 
mitted  a  charge  such  as  alluded  to  above  to  go  uncontradicted  when 
made  in  my  presence.  A.  L. 

December  14,  1859. — LETTER  TO  N.  B.  JUDD. 

SPRINGFIELD,  December  14,  1859. 

Dear  Judd :  Herewith  is  the  letter  of  our  old  Whig  friends,  and 
my  answer,  sent  as  you  requested.  I  showed  both  to  Dubois,  and  he 
feared  the  clause  about  leave  to  publish,  in  the  answer,  would  not 
be  quite  satisfactory  to  you.  I  hope  it  will  be  satisfactory,  as  I 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN          595 

would  rather  not  seem  to  come  "before  the  public  as  a  volunteer ;  still 
if,  after  considering  this,  you  still  deem  it  important,  you  may  sub 
stitute  the  inclosed  slip  by  pasting  it  down  over  the  original  clause. 

I  find  some  of  our  friends  here  attach  more  consequence  to 
getting  the  national  convention  into  our  State  than  I  did,  or  do. 
Some  of  them  made  me  promise  to  say  so  to  you.  As  to  the  time,  it 
must  certainly  be  after  the  Charleston  fandango ;  and  I  think,  within 
bounds  of  reason,  the  later  the  better. 

As  to  that  matter  about  the  committee,  in  relation  to  appointing 
delegates  by  general  convention,  or  by  districts,  I  shall  attend  to  it 
as  well  as  I  know  how,  which,  God  knows,  will  not  be  very  well. 
Write  me  if  you  can  find  anything  to  write.  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

[Inclosure.] 
SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  14,  1859. 

MESSRS.  GEORGE  W.  DOLE,  G.  S.  HUBBARD,  AND  W.  H.  BROWN. 

Gentlemen:  Your  letter  of  the  12th  instant  is  received.  To  your 
question :  "In  the  election  of  senator  in  1854  [1855  you  mean],  when 
Mr.  Trumbull  was  the  successful  candidate,  was  there  any  unfairness 
in  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Judd  toward  you,  or  anything  blamable  on 
his  part  ? "  I  answer,  I  have  never  believed,  and  do  not  now  believe, 
that  on  that  occasion  there  was  any  unfairness  in  the  conduct  of  Mr. 
Judd  toward  me,  or  anything  blamable  on  his  part.  Without  de 
ception,  he  preferred  Judge  Trumbull  to  myself,  which  was  his  clear 
right,  morally  as  well  as  legally. 

To  your  question :  "  During  the  canvass  of  last  year,  did  he  do  his 
whole  duty  toward  you  and  the  Republican  party?"  I  answer,  I 
have  always  believed,  and  now  believe,  that  during  that  canvass  he 
did  his  whole  duty  toward  me  and  the  Republican  party. 

To  your  question :  "  Do  you  know  of  anything  unfair  in  his  con 
duct  toward  yourself  in  any  way  ? "  I  answer,  I  neither  know  nor 
suspect  anything  unfair  in  his  conduct  toward  myself  in  any  way. 

I  take  pleasure  in  adding  that  of  all  the  avowed  friends  I  had  in 
the  canvass  of  last  year,  I  do  not  suspect  a  single  one  of  having  acted 
treacherously  to  me,  or  to  our  cause ;  and  that  there  is  not  one  of  them 
in  whose  honor  and  integrity  I  have  more  confidence  to-day  than  in 
that  of  Mr.  Judd. 

You  can  use  your  discretion  as  to  whether  you  make  this  public. 
Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

December  19,  1859. — LETTER  TO  G.  M.  PARSONS  AND  OTHERS. 
SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  19,  1859. 

MESSRS.  G.   M.  PARSONS,   AND   OTHERS,    Central   Executive    Com 
mittee,  etc. 
Gentlemen:  Your  letter  of  the  7th  instant,  accompanied  by  a  similar 

one  from  the  governor-elect,  the  Republican  State  officers,  and  the 


596          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

Republican  members  of  the  State  Board  of  Equalization  of  Ohio, 
both  requesting  of  me,  for  publication  in  permanent  form,  copies  of 
the  political  debates  between  Senator  Douglas  and  myself  last  year, 
has  been  received.  With  my  grateful  acknowledgments  to  both  you 
and  them  for  the  very  nattering  terms  in  which  the  request  is  com 
municated,  I  transmit  you  the  copies.  The  copies  I  send  you  are 
as  reported  and  printed  by  the  respective  friends  of  Senator  Douglas 
and  myself,  at  the  time — that  is,  his  by  his  friends,  and  mine  by  mine. 
It  would  be  an  unwarrantable  liberty  for  us  to  change  a  word  or 
a  letter  in  his,  and  the  changes  I  have  made  in  mine,  you  perceive, 
are  verbal  only,  and  very  few  in  number.  I  wish  the  reprint  to  be 
precisely  as  the  copies  I  send,  without  any  comment  whatever. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

December  20,  1859. — LETTER  TO  J.  W.  FELL. 

SPRINGFIELD,  December  20,  1859. 
J.  W.  FELL,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir  :  Herewith  is  a  little  sketch,  as  you  requested.  There 
is  not  much  of  it,  for  the  reason,  I  suppose,  that  there  is  not  much 
of  me.  If  anything  be  made  out  of  it,  I  wish  it  to  be  modest,  and 
not  to  go  beyond  the  material.  If  it  were  thought  necessary  to  in 
corporate  anything  from  any  of  my  speeches,  I  suppose  there  would 
be  no  objection.  Of  course  it  must  not  appear  to  have  been  written 
by  myself.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

I  was  born  February  12,  1809,  in  Hardin  County,  Kentucky.  My 
parents  were  both  born  in  Virginia,  of  undistinguished  families  — 
second  families,  perhaps  I  should  say.  My  mother,  who  died  in  my 
tenth  year,  was  of  a  family  of  the  name  of  Hanks,  some  of  whom 
now  reside  in  Adams,  and  others  in  Macon  County,  Illinois.  My 
paternal  grandfather,  Abraham  Lincoln,  emigrated  from  Rocking- 
ham  County,  Virginia,  to  Kentucky  about  1781  or  1782,  where  a  year 
or  two  later  he  was  killed  by  the  Indians,  not  in  battle,  but  by  stealth, 
when  he  was  laboring  to  open  a  farm  in  the  forest.  His  ancestors, 
who  were  Quakers,  went  to  Virginia  from  Berks  County,  Pennsylva 
nia.  An  effort  to  identify  them  with  the  New  England  family  of 
the  same  name  ended  in  nothing  more  definite  than  a  similarity  of 
Christian  names  in  both  families,  such  as  Enoch,  Levi,  Mordecai,  Solo 
mon,  Abraham,  and  the  like. 

My  father,  at  the  death  of  his  father,  was  but  six  years  of  age,  and 
he  grew  up  literally  without  education.  He  removed  from  Kentucky 
to  what  is  now  Spencer  County,  Indiana,  in  my  eighth  year.  We 
reached  our  new  home  about  the  time  the  State  came  into  the  Union. 
It  was  a  wild  region,  with  many  bears  and  other  wild  animals  still 
in  the  woods.  There  I  grew  up.  There  were  some  schools,  so  called, 
but  no  qualification  was  ever  required  of  a  teacher  beyond  "  readin', 
writin7,  and  cipherin' "  to  the  rule  of  three.  If  a  straggler  supposed  to 
understand  Latin  happened  to  sojourn  in  the  neighborhood,  he  was 
looked  upon  as  a  wizard.  There  was  absolutely  nothing  to  excite 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEBS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          597 

ambition  for  education.  Of  course,  when  I  came  of  a^e  I  did  not 
know  much.  Still,  somehow,  I  could  read,  write,  and  cipher  to  the 
rule  of  three,  but  that  was  all.  I  have  not  been  to  school  since. 
The  little  advance  I  now  have  upon  this  store  of  education,  I  have 
picked  up  from  time  to  time  under  the  pressure  of  necessity. 

I  was  raised  to  farm  work,  which  I  continued  till  I  was  twenty- 
two.  At  twenty-one  I  came  to  Illinois,  Macon  County.  Then  I  got 
to  New  Salem,  at  that  time  in  Sangamon,  now  in  Menard  County, 
where  I  remained  a  year  as  a  sort  of  clerk  in  a  store.  Then  came 
the  Black  Hawk  war ;  and  I  was  elected  a  captain  of  volunteers,  a 
success  which  gave  me  more  pleasure  than  any  I  have  had  since. 
I  went  the  campaign,  was  elated,  ran  for  the  legislature  the  same 
year  (1832),  and  was  beaten — the  only  time  I  ever  have  been  beaten 
by  the  people.  The  next  and  three  succeeding  biennial  elections  I 
was  elected  to  the  legislature.  I  was  not  a  candidate  afterward. 
During  this  legislative  period  I  had  studied  law,  and  removed  to 
Springfield  to  practise  it.  In  1846  I  was  once  elected  to  the  lower 
House  of  Congress.  Was  not  a  candidate  for  reelection.  From  1849 
to  1854,  both  inclusive,  practised  law  more  assiduously  than  ever 
before.  Always  a  Whig  in  politics ;  and  generally  on  the  Whig 
electoral  tickets,  making  active  canvasses.  I  was  losing  interest  in 
politics  when  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  compromise  aroused  me 
again.  What  I  have  done  since  then  is  pretty  well  known. 

If  any  personal  description  of  me  is  thought  desirable,  it  may  be 
said  I  am,  in  height,  six  feet  four  inches,  nearly ;  lean  in  flesh,  weigh 
ing  on  an  average  one  hundred  and  eighty  pounds;  dark  com 
plexion,  with  coarse  black  hair  and  gray  eyes.  No  other  marks  or 
brands  recollected.  Yours  truly, 

HON.  J.  W.  FELL.  A.  LINCOLN. 


January  24,  1860. — LETTER  TO  J.  W.  SHEAHAN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  January  24,  1860. 
JAMES  W.  SHEAHAN,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  21st,  requesting  copies  of  my  speeches 
now  in  progress  of  publication  in  Ohio,  is  received.  I  have  no  such 
copies  now  at  my  control,  having  sent  the  only  set  I  ever  had  to 
Ohio.  Mr.  George  M.  Parsons  has  taken  an  active  part  among 
those  who  have  the  matter  in  charge  in  Ohio;  and  I  understand 
Messrs.  Follett,  Foster  &  Co.  are  to  be  the  publishers.  I  make  no 
objection  to  any  satisfactory  arrangement  you  may  make  with  Mr. 
Parsons  and  the  publishers ;  and  if  it  will  facilitate  you,  you  are  at 
liberty  to  show  them  this  note. 

You  labor  under  a  mistake  somewhat  injurious  to  me,  if  you  sup 
pose  I  have  revised  the  speeches  in  any  just  sense  of  the  word.  I 
only  made  some  small  verbal  corrections,  mostly  such  as  an  intelli 
gent  reader  would  make  for  himself,  not  feeling  justified  to  do  more 
when  republishing  the  speeches  along  with  those  of  Senator  Doug 
las,  his  and  mine  being  mutually  answers  and  replies  to  one  another. 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


598          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


February  5,  I860.— LETTER  TO  N.  B.  JUDD. 

SPRINGFIELD,  February  5,  1860. 
HON.  N.  B.  JUDD. 

My  dear  Sir :  Your  two  letters  were  duly  received.  Whether  Mr. 
Storrs  shall  come  to  Illinois  and  assist  in  our  approaching  campaign, 
is  a  question  of  dollars  and  cents.  Can  we  pay  him  ?  If  we  can,  that 
is  the  sole  question.  I  consider  his  services  very  valuable. 

A  day  or  so  before  you  wrote  about  Mr.  Herndon,  Dubois  told  me 
that  he  (Herndon)  had  been  talking  to  William  Jayne  in  the  way  you 
indicate.  At  first  sight  afterward,  I  mentioned  it  to  him ;  he  rather 
denied  the  charge,  and  I  did  not  press  him  about  the  past,  but  got 
his  solemn  pledge  to  say  nothing  of  the  sort  in  the  future.  I  had 
done  this  before  I  received  your  letter.  I  impressed  upon  him  as 
well  as  I  could,  first,  that  such  [sic]  was  untrue  and  unjust  to  you;  and, 
second,  that  I  would  be  held  responsible  for  what  he  said.  Let  this 
be  private. 

Some  folks  are  pretty  bitter  toward  me  about  the  Dole,  Hubbard, 
and  Brown  letter.  Yours  as  ever,  ^  LINCOLN 

February  9,  1860. — LETTER  TO  N.  B.  JUDD. 

SPRINGFIELD,  February  9,  1860. 
HON.  N.  B.  JUDD. 

Dear  Sir :  I  am  not  in  a  position  where  it  would  hurt  much  for 
me  to  not  be  nominated  on  the  national  ticket  j  but  I  am  where  it 
would  hurt  some  for  me  to  not  get  the  Illinois  delegates.  What  I 
expected  when  I  wrote  the  letter  to  Messrs.  Dole  and  others  is  now 
happening.  Your  discomfited  assailants  are  most  bitter  against  me ; 
and  they  will,  for  revenge  upon  me,  lay  to  the  Bates  egg  in  the 
South,  and  to  the  Seward  egg  in  the  North,  and  go  far  toward 
squeezing  me  out  in  the  middle  with  nothing.  Can  you  not  help  me 
a  little  in  this  matter  in  your  end  of  the  vineyard  ?  I  mean  this  to 
be  private.  Yours  as  ever,  A  LlNCOLN> 

February  9,  1860. — LETTER  TO  J.  M.  LUCAS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  February  9,  1860. 
J.  M.  LUCAS,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir:  Your  late  letter,  suggesting,  among  other  things, 
that  I  might  aid  your  election  as  postmaster,  by  writing  to  Mr. 
Burlingame,  was  duly  received  the  day  the  Speaker  was  elected; 
so  that  I  had  no  hope  a  letter  of  mine  could  reach  Mr.  B.  before 
your  case  would  be  decided,  as  it  turned  out  in  fact  it  could  not. 
We  are  all  much  gratified  here  to  see  you  are  elected.  We  con 
sider  you  our  peculiar  friend  at  court. 

I  shall  be  glad  to  receive  a  letter  from  you  at  any  time  you  can 
find  leisure  to  write  one.  Yours  very  truly,  ^  LINCOLN 


ADDRESSES    AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          599 


February  27,  1860. — ADDRESS  AT  COOPER  INSTITUTE,  NEW  YORK. 

Mr.  President  and  Fellow-citizens  of  New  York:  The  facts  with 
which  I  shall  deal  this  evening  are  mainly  old  and  familiar  ;  nor  is 
there  anything  new  in  the  general  use  I  shall  make  of  them.  If 
there  shall  be  any  novelty,  it  will  be  in  the  mode  of  presenting  the 
facts,  and  the  inferences  and  observations  following  that  presenta 
tion.  In  his  speech  last  autumn  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  as  reported  in 
the  "  New- York  Times,"  Senator  Douglas  said : 

Our  fathers,  when  they  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live,  un 
derstood  this  question  just  as  well,  and  even  better,  than  we  do  now. 

I  fully  indorse  this,  and  I  adopt  it  as  a  text  for  this  discourse.  I 
so  adopt  it  because  it  furnishes  a  precise  and  an  agreed  starting-point 
for  a  discussion  between  Republicans  and  that  wing  of  the  Democ 
racy  headed  by  Senator  Douglas.  It  simply  leaves  the  inquiry; 
What  was  the  understanding  those  fathers  had  of  the  question  men 
tioned  ? 

What  is  the  frame  of  government  under  which  we  live!  The 
answer  must  be,  "  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  That  Con 
stitution  consists  of  the  original,  framed  in  1787,  and  under  which 
the  present  government  first  went  into  operation,  and  twelve  subse 
quently  framed  amendments,  the  first  ten  of  which  were  framed 
in  1789. 

Who  were  our  fathers  that  framed  the  Constitution  ?  I  suppose 
the  "  thirty-nine  "  who  signed  the  original  instrument  may  be  fairly 
called  our  fathers  who  framed  that  part  of  the  present  government. 
It  is  almost  exactly  true  to  say  they  framed  it,  and  it  is  altogether 
true  to  say  they  fairly  represented  the  opinion  and  sentiment  of  the 
whole  nation  at  that  time.  Their  names,  being  familiar  to  nearly  all, 
and  accessible  to  quite  all,  need  not  now  be  repeated. 

I  take  these  "  thirty-nine,"  for  the  present,  as  being  "  our  fathers 
who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live."  What  is  the 
question  which,  according  to  the  text,  those  fathers  understood  "  just 
as  well,  and  even  better,  than  we  do  now "  f 

It  is  this :  Does  the  proper  division  of  local  from  Federal  authority, 
or  anything  in  the  Constitution,  forbid  our  Federal  Government  to 
control  as  to  slavery  in  our  Federal  Territories  ? 

Upon  this,  Senator  Douglas  holds  the  affirmative,  and  Republicans 
the  negative.  This  affirmation  and  denial  form  an  issue ;  and  this 
issue  —  this  question  —  is  precisely  what  the  text  declares  our  fathers 
understood  "  better  than  we."  Let  us  now  inquire  whether  the 
"  thirty-nine,"  or  any  of  them,  ever  acted  upon  this  question ;  and  if 
they  did,  how  they  acted  upon  it  —  how  they  expressed  that  better 
understanding.  In  1784,  three  years  before  the  Constitution,  the 
United  States  then  owning  the  Northwestern  Territory,  and  no  other, 
the  Congress  of  the  Confederation  had  before  them  the  question  of 
prohibiting  slavery  in  that  Territory ;  and  four  of  the  "  thirty-nine  " 
who  afterward  framed  the  Constitution  were  in  that  Congress,  and 
voted  on  that  question.  Of  these,  Roger  Sherman,  Thomas  Mifflin, 


600          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

and  Hugh  Williamson  voted  for  the  prohibition,  thus  showing  that, 
in  their  understanding,  no  line  dividing  local  from  Federal  authority, 
nor  anything  else,  properly  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  con 
trol  as  to  slavery  in  Federal  territory.  The  other  of  the  four,  James 
McHenry,  voted  against  the  prohibition,  showing  that  for  some  cause 
he  thought  it  improper  to  vote  for  it. 

In  1787,  still  before  the  Constitution,  but  while  the  convention  was 
in  session  framing  it,  and  while  the  Northwestern  Territory  still  was 
the  only  Territory  owned  by  the  United  States,  the  same  question  of 
prohibiting  slavery  in  the  Territory  again  came  before  the  Congress 
of  the  Confederation;  and  two  more  of  the  "thirty-nine"  who  after 
ward  signed  the  Constitution  were  in  that  Congress,  and  voted  on 
the  question.  They  were  William  Blount  and  William  Few  ;  and 
they  both  voted  for  the  prohibition — thus  showing  that  in  their 
understanding  no  line  dividing  local  from  Federal  authority,  nor 
anything  else,  properly  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control 
as  to  slavery  in  Federal  territory.  This  time  the  prohibition  be 
came  a  law,  being  part  of  what  is  now  well  known  as  the  ordinance 
of  '87. 

The  question  of  Federal  control  of  slavery  in  the  Territories  seems 
not  to  have  been  directly  before  the  convention  which  framed  the 
original  Constitution;  and  hence  it  is  not  recorded  that  the  "thirty- 
nine,"  or  any  of  them,  while  engaged  on  that  instrument,  expressed 
any  opinion  on  that  precise  question. 

In  1789,  by  the  first  Congress  which  sat  under  the  Constitution, 
an  act  was  passed  to  enforce  the  ordinance  of  '87,  including  the  pro 
hibition  of  slavery  in  the  Northwestern  Territory.  The  bill  for  this 
act  was  reported  by  one  of  the  "thirty-nine" — Thomas  Fitzsimmons, 
then  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  from  Pennsylvania. 
It  went  through  all  its  stages  without  a  word  of  opposition,  and 
finally  passed  both  branches  without  ayes  and  nays,  which  is  equiv 
alent  to  a  unanimous  passage.  In  this  Congress  there  were  sixteen 
of  the  thirty-nine  fathers  who  framed  the  original  Constitution. 
They  were  John  Langdon,  Nicholas  Gilman,  Wm.  S.  Johnson,  Roger 
Sherman,  Robert  Morris,  Thos.  Fitzsimmons,  William  Few,  Abra 
ham  Baldwin,  Rufus  King,  William  Paterson,  George  Clymer, 
Richard  Bassett,  George  Read,  Pierce  Butler,  Daniel  Carroll,  and 
James  Madison. 

This  shows  that,  in  their  understanding,  no  line  dividing  local 
from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything  in  the  Constitution,  properly 
forbade  Congress  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Federal  territory;  else 
both  their  fidelity  to  correct  principle,  and  their  oath  to  support  the 
Constitution,  would  have  constrained  them  to  oppose  the  prohibition. 

Again,  George  Washington,  another  of  the  "thirty-nine/'  was 
then  President  of  the  United  States,  and  as  such  approved  and 
signed  the  bill,  thus  completing  its  validity  as  a  law,  and  thus  show 
ing  that,  in  his  understanding,  no  line  dividing  local  from  Federal 
authority,  nor  anything  in  the  Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal 
Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  Federal  territory. 

No  great  while  after  the  adoption  of  the  original  Constitution, 
North  Carolina  ceded  to  the  Federal  Government  the  country  now 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          601 

constituting  the  State  of  Tennessee;  and  a  few  years  later  Georgia 
ceded  that  which  now  constitutes  the  States  of  Mississippi  and 
Alabama.  In  both  deeds  of  cession  it  was  made  a  condition  by 
the  ceding  States  that  the  Federal  Government  should  not  pro 
hibit  slavery  in  the  ceded  country.  Besides  this,  slavery  was 
then  actually  in  the  ceded  country.  Under  these  circumstances, 
Congress,  on  taking  charge  of  these  countries,  did  not  absolutely 
prohibit  slavery  within  them.  But  they  did  interfere  with  it — take 
control  of  it— even  there,  to  a  certain  extent.  In  1798  Congress 
organized  the  Territory  of  Mississippi.  In  the  act  of  organization 
they  prohibited  the  bringing  of  slaves  into  the  Territory  from  any 
place  without  the  United  States,  by  fine,  and  giving  freedom  to 
slaves  so  brought.  This  act  passed  both  branches  of  Congress 
without  yeas  and  nays.  In  that  Congress  were  three  of  the 
"thirty-nine"  who  framed  the  original  Constitution.  They  were 
John  Langdon,  George  Read,  and  Abraham  Baldwin.  They  all  prob 
ably  voted  for  it.  Certainly  they  would  have  placed  their  opposition 
to  it  upon  record  if,  in  their  understanding,  any  line  dividing  local 
from  Federal  authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution,  properly 
forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  Federal 
territory. 

In  1803  the  Federal  Government  purchased  the  Louisiana  country. 
Our  former  territorial  acquisitions  came  from  certain  of  our  own 
States ;  but  this  Louisiana  country  was  acquired  from  a  foreign  na 
tion.  In  1804  Congress  gave  a  territorial  organization  to  that  part 
of  it  which  now  constitutes  the  State  of  Louisiana.  New  Orleans, 
lying  within  that  part,  was  an  old  and  comparatively  large  city. 
There  were  other  considerable  towns  and  settlements,  and  slavery 
was  extensively  and  thoroughly  intermingled  with  the  people.  Con 
gress  did  not,  in  the  Territorial  Act,  prohibit  slavery ;  but  they  did 
interfere  with  it — take  control  of  it — in  a  more  marked  and  exten 
sive  way  than  they  did  in  the  case  of  Mississippi.  The  substance  of 
the  provision  therein  made  in  relation  to  slaves  was : 

1st.  That  no  slave  should  be  imported  into  the  Territory  from 
foreign  parts. 

2d.  That  no  slave  should  be  carried  into  it  who  had  been  im 
ported  into  the  United  States  since  the  first  day  of  May,  1798. 

3d.  That  no  slave  should  be  carried  into  it,  except  by  the  owner, 
and  for  his  own  use  as  a  settler ;  the  penalty  in  all  the  cases  being  a 
fine  upon  the  violator  of  the  law,  and  freedom  to  the  slave. 

This  act  also  was  passed  without  ayes  or  nays.  In  the  Congress 
which  passed  it  there  were  two  of  the  "  thirty-nine."  They  were 
Abraham  Baldwin  and  Jonathan  Dayton.  As  stated  in  the  case  of 
Mississippi,  it  is  probable  they  both  voted  for  it.  They  would  not 
have  allowed  it  to  pass  without  recording  their  opposition  to  it  if, 
in  their  understanding,  it  violated  either  the  line  properly  dividing 
local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any  provision  of  the  Constitution. 

In  1819-20  came  and  passed  the  Missouri  question.  Many  votes 
were  taken,  by  yeas  and  nays,  in  both  branches  of  Congress,  upon 
the  various  phases  of  the  general  question.  Two  of  the  u  thirty- 
nine" —  Rufus  King  and  Charles  Pinckney — were  members  of  that 


602          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Congress.  Mr.  King  steadily  voted  for  slavery  prohibition  and 
against  all  compromises,  while  Mr.  Pinckney  as  steadily  voted 
against  slavery  prohibition  and  against  all  compromises.  By  this, 
Mr.  King  showed  that,  in  his  understanding,  no  line  dividing  local 
from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything  in  the  Constitution,  was  vio 
lated  by  Congress  prohibiting  slavery  in  Federal  territory ;  while 
Mr.  Pinckney,  by  his  votes,  showed  that,  in  his  understanding,  there 
was  some  sufficient  reason  for  opposing  such  prohibition  in  that  case. 

The  cases  I  have  mentioned  are  the  only  acts  of  the  "  thirty-nine," 
or  of  any  of  them,  upon  the  direct  issue,  which  I  have  been  able  to 
discover. 

To  enumerate  the  persons  who  thus  acted  as  being  four  in  1784, 
two  in  1787,  seventeen  in  1789,  three  in  1798,  two  in  1804,  and  two 
in  1819-20,  there  would  be  thirty  of  them.  But  this  would  be 
counting  John  Langdon,  Roger  Sherman,  William  Few,  Rufus  King, 
and  George  Read  each  twice,  and  Abraham  Baldwin  three  times. 
The  true  number  of  those  of  the  "  thirty-nine  "  whom  I  have  shown 
to  have  acted  upon  the  question  which,  by  the  text,  they  understood 
better  than  we,  is  twenty-three,  leaving  sixteen  not  shown  to  have 
acted  upon  it  in  any  way. 

Here,  then,  we  have  twenty-three  out  of  our  thirty-nine  fathers 
"  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live/7  who  have,  upon 
their  official  responsibility  and  their  corporal  oaths,  acted  upon  the 
very  question  which  the  text  affirms  they  "understood  just  as  well, 
and  even  better,  than  we  do  now  "  ;  and  twenty-one  of  them  —  a  clear 
majority  of  the  whole  "thirty-nine" —  so  acting  upon  it  as  to  make 
them  guilty  of  gross  political  impropriety  and  wilful  perjury  if,  in 
their  understanding,  any  proper  division  between  local  and  Federal 
authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution  they  had  made  themselves, 
and  sworn  to  support,  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as 
to  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories.  Thus  the  twenty-one  acted  ; 
and,  as  actions  speak  louder  than  words,  so  actions  under  such  re 
sponsibility  speak  still  louder. 

Two  of  the  twenty-three  voted  against  congressional  prohibition 
of  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories,  in  the  instances  in  which  they 
acted  upon  the  question.  But  for  what  reasons  they  so  voted  is  not 
known.  They  may  have  done  so  because  they  thought  a  proper  di 
vision  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  some  provision  or  principle 
of  the  Constitution,  stood  in  the  way;  or  they  may,  without  any 
such  question,  have  voted  against  the  prohibition  on  "what  appeared 
to  them  to  be  sufficient  grounds  of  expediency.  No  one  who  has 
sworn  to  support  the  Constitution  can  conscientiously  vote  for  what 
he  understands  to  be  an  unconstitutional  measure,  however  expedi 
ent  he  may  think  it;  but  one  may  and  ought  to  vote  against  a  mea 
sure  which  he  deems  constitutional  if,  at  the  same  time,  he  deems  it 
inexpedient.  It,  therefore,  would  be  unsafe  to  set  down  even  the 
two  who  voted  against  the  prohibition  as  having  done  so  because, 
in  their  understanding,  any  proper  division  of  local  from  Federal 
authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  Federal  territory. 

The  remaining  sixteen  of  the  "  thirty-nine,"  so  far  as  I  have  dis- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          603 

covered,  have  left  no  record  of  their  understanding  upon  the  direct 
question  of  Federal  control  of  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories. 
But  there  is  much  reason  to  believe  that  their  understanding  upon 
that  question  would  not  have  appeared  different  from  that  of  their 
twenty -three  compeers,  had  it  been  manifested  at  all. 

For  the  purpose  of  adhering  rigidly  to  the  text,  I  have  purposely 
omitted  whatever  understanding  may  have  been  manifested  by  any 
person,  however  distinguished,  other  than  the  thirty-nine  fathers 
who  framed  the  original  Constitution ;  and,  for  the  same  reason,  I 
have  also  omitted  whatever  understanding  may  have  been  manifested 
by  any  of  the  "  thirty-nine7'  even  on  any  other  phase  of  the  general 
question  of  slavery.  If  we  should  look  into  their  acts  and  declara 
tions  on  those  other  phases,  as  the  foreign  slave-trade,  and  the 
morality  and  policy  of  slavery  generally,  it  would  appear  to  us  that 
on  the  direct  question  of  Federal  control  of  slavery  in  Federal  Terri 
tories,  the  sixteen,  if  they  had  acted  at  all,  would  probably  have  acted 
just  as  the  twenty-three  did.  Among  that  sixteen  were  several  of 
the  most  noted  antislaverv  men  of  those  times, — as  Dr.  Franklin, 
Alexander  Hamilton,  and  (jrouverneur  Morris, — while  there  was  not 
one  now  known  to  have  been  otherwise,  unless  it  maybe  John  Rut- 
ledge,  of  South  Carolina. 

The  sum  of  the  whole  is  that  of  our  thirty-nine  fathers  who  framed 
the  original  Constitution,  twenty-one — a  clear  majority  of  the  whole 
— certainly  understood  that  no  proper  division  of  local  from  Federal 
authority,  nor  any  part  of  the  Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal 
Government  to  control  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories;  while  all 
the  rest  had  probably  the  same  understanding.  Such,  unquestiona 
bly,  was  the  understanding  of  our  fathers  who  framed  the  original 
Constitution;  and  the  text  affirms  that  they  understood  the  question 
"  better  than  we." 

But,  so  far,  I  have  been  considering  the  understanding  of  the 
question  manifested  by  the  framers  of  the  original  Constitution.  In 
and  by  the  original  instrument,  a  mode  was  provided  for  amending 
it;  and,  as  I  have  already  stated,  the  present  frame  of  "the  govern 
ment  under  which  we  live"  consists  of  that  original,  and  twelve 
amendatory  articles  framed  and  adopted  since.  Those  who  now  in 
sist  that  Federal  control  of  slavery  in  Federal  Territories  violates  the 
Constitution,  point  us  to  the  provisions  which  they  suppose  it  thus 
violates ;  and,  as  I  understand,  they  all  fix  upon  provisions  in  these 
amendatory  articles,  and  not  in  the  original  instrument.  The  Su 
preme  Court,  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  plant  themselves  upon  the  fifth 
amendment,  which  provides  that  no  person  shall  be  deprived  of  "  life, 
liberty,  or  property  without  due  process  of  law";  while  Senator 
Douglas  and  his  peculiar  adherents  plant  themselves  upon  the  tenth 
amendment,  providing  that  "the  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United 
States  by  the  Constitution  "  "are  reserved  to  the  States  respectively, 
or  to  the  people." 

Now,  it  so  happens  that  these  amendments  were  framed  by  the  first 
Congress  which  sat  under  the  Constitution — the  identical  Congress 
which  passed  the  act,  already  mentioned,  enforcing  the  prohibition  of 
slavery  in  the  Northwestern  Territory.  Not  only  was  it  the  same 


604          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Congress,  but  they  were  the  identical,  same  individual  men  who,  at 
the  same  session,  and  at  the  same  time  within  the  session,  had  under 
consideration,  and  in  progress  toward  maturity,  these  constitutional 
amendments,  and  this  act  prohibiting  slavery  in  all  the  territory  the 
nation  then  owned.  The  constitutional  amendments  were  intro 
duced  before,  and  passed  after,  the  act  enforcing  the  ordinance  of 
'87;  so  that,  during  the  whole  pendency  of  the  act  to  enforce  the 
ordinance,  the  constitutional  amendments  were  also  pending. 

The  seventy-six  members  of  that  Congress,  including  sixteen  of 
the  framers  of  the  original  Constitution,  as  before  stated,  were  pre 
eminently  our  fathers  who  framed  that  part  of  "the  government 
under  which  we  live  "  which  is  now  claimed  as  forbidding  the  Federal 
Government  to  control  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories. 

Is  it  not  a  little  presumptuous  in  any  one  at  this  day  to  affirm  that 
the  two  things  which  that  Congress  deliberately  framed,  and  carried 
to  maturity  at  the  same  time,  are  absolutely  inconsistent  with  each 
other?  And  does  not  such  affirmation  become  impudently  absurd 
when  coupled  with  the  other  affirmation,  from  the  same  mouth,  that 
those  who  did  the  two  things  alleged  to  be  inconsistent,  understood 
whether  they  really  were  inconsistent  better  than  we — better  than 
he  who  affirms  that  they  are  inconsistent? 

It  is  surely  safe  to  assume  that  the  thirty -nine  framers  of  the  origi 
nal  Constitution,  and  the  seventy-six  members  of  the  Congress  which 
framed  the  amendments  thereto,  taken  together,  do  certainly  include 
those  who  may  be  fairly  called  "our  fathers  who  framed  the  gov 
ernment  under  which  we  live."  And  so  assuming,  I  defy  any  man 
to  show  that  any  one  of  them  ever,  in  his  whole  life,  declared  that,  in 
his  understanding,  any  proper  division  of  local  from  Federal  au 
thority,  or  any  part  of  the  Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories.  I  go  a  step 
further.  I  defy  any  one  to  show  that  any  living  man  in  the  whole 
world  ever  did,  prior  to  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  (and 
I  might  almost  say  prior  to  the  beginning  of  the  last  half  of  the 
present  century),  declare  that,  in  his  understanding,  any  proper  di 
vision  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any  part  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the 
Federal  Territories.  To  those  who  now  so  declare  I  give  not  only 
"  our  fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live,"  but 
with  them  all  other  living  men  within  the  century  in  which  it  was 
framed,  among  whom  to  search,  and  they  shall  not  be  able  to  find 
the  evidence  of  a  single  man  agreeing  with  them. 

Now,  and  here,  let  me  guard  a  little  against  being  misunderstood. 
I  do  not  mean  to  say  we  are  bound  to  follow  implicitly  in  whatever 
our  fathers  did.  To  do  so  would  be  to  discard  all  the  lights  of  cur 
rent  experience — to  reject  all  progress,  all  improvement.  What  I 
do  say  is  that  if  we  would  supplant  the  opinions  and  policy  of  our 
fathers  in  any  case,  we  should  do  so  upon  evidence  so  conclusive, 
and  argument  so  clear,  that  even  their  great  authority,  fairly  con 
sidered  and  weighed,  cannot  stand ;  and  most  surely  not  in  a  case 
whereof  we  ourselves  declare  they  understood  the  question  better 
than  we. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          605 

If  any  man  at  this  day  sincerely  believes  that  a  proper  division  of 
local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any  part  of  the  Constitution,  forbids 
the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the  Federal  Ter 
ritories,  he  is  right  to  say  so,  and  to  enforce  his  position  by  all  truth 
ful  evidence  and  fair  argument  which  he  can.  But  he  has  no  right 
to  mislead  others,  who  have  less  access  to  history,  and  less  leisure  to 
study  it,  into  the  false  belief  that  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the 
government  under  which  we  live  "  were  of  the  same  opinion — thus 
substituting  falsehood  and  deception  for  truthful  evidence  and  fair 
argument.  If  any  man  at  this  day  sincerely  believes  u  our  fathers 
who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live  "  used  and  applied 
principles,  in  other  cases,  which  ought  to  have  led  them  to  under 
stand  that  a  proper  division  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  some 
part  of  the  Constitution,  forbids  the  Federal  Government  to  control 
as  to  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories,  he  is  right  to  say  so.  But  he 
should,  at  the  same  time,  brave  the  responsibility  of  declaring  that, 
in  his  opinion,  he  understands  their  principles  better  than  they  did 
themselves ;  and  especially  should  he  not  shirk  that  responsibility 
by  asserting  that  they  "  understood  the  question  just  as  well,  and 
even  better,  than  we  do  now." 

But  enough !  Let  all  who  believe  that  "  our  fathers  who  framed 
the  government  under  which  we  live  understood  this  question  just 
as  well,  and  even  better,  than  we  do  now,"  speak  as  they  spoke,  and 
act  as  they  acted  upon  it.  This  is  all  Republicans  ask — all  Repub 
licans  desire — in  relation  to  slavery.  As  those  fathers  marked  it, 
so  let  it  be  again  marked,  as  an  evil  not  to  be  extended,  but  to  be 
tolerated  and  protected  only  because  of  and  so  far  as  its  actual  pres 
ence  among  us  makes  that  toleration  and  protection  a  necessity. 
Let  all  the  guaranties  those  fathers  gave  it  be  not  grudgingly,  but 
fully  and  fairly,  maintained.  For  this  Republicans  contend,  and 
with  this,  so  far  as  I  know  or  believe,  they  will  be  content. 

And  now,  if  they  would  listen, — as  I  suppose  they  will  not, — I 
would  address  a  few  words  to  the  Southern  people. 

I  would  say  to  them :  You  consider  yourselves  a  reasonable  and  a 
just  people ;  and  I  consider  that  in  the  general  qualities  of  reason 
and  justice  you  are  not  inferior  to  any  other  people.  Still,  when  you 
speak  of  us  Republicans,  you  do  so  only  to  denounce  us  as  reptiles, 
or,  at  the  best,  as  no  better  than  outlaws.  You  will  grant  a  hearing 
to  pirates  or  murderers,  but  nothing  like  it  to  "  Black  Republicans." 
In  all  your  contentions  with  one  another,  each  of  you  deems  an  un 
conditional  condemnation  of  "  Black  Republicanism "  as  the  first 
thing  to  be  attended  to.  Indeed,  such  condemnation  of  us  seems  to 
be  an  indispensable  prerequisite — license,  so  to  speak — among  you 
to  be  admitted  or  permitted  to  speak  at  all.  Now  can  you  or  not 
be  prevailed  upon  to  pause  and  to  consider  whether  this  is  quite  just 
to  us,  or  even  to  yourselves?  Bring  forward  your  charges  and 
specifications,  and  then  be  patient  long  enough  to  hear  us  deny  or 
justify. 

You  say  we  are  sectional.  We  deny  it.  That  makes  an  issue; 
and  the  burden  of  proof  is  upon  you.  You  produce  your  proof;  and 
what  is  it  ?  Why,  that  our  party  has  no  existence  in  your  section 


606          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

— gets  no  votes  in  your  section.  The  fact  is  substantially  true ;  but 
does  it  prove  the  issue  ?  If  it  does,  then  in  case  we  should,  without 
change  of  principle,  begin  to  get  votes  in  your  section,  we  should 
thereby  cease  to  be  sectional.  You  cannot  escape  this  conclusion  j 
and  yet,  are  you  willing  to  abide  by  it  ?  If  you  are,  you  will  prob 
ably  soon  find  that  we  have  ceased  to  be  sectional,  for  we  shall  get 
votes  in  your  section  this  very  year.  You  will  then  begin  to  dis 
cover,  as  the  truth  plainly  is,  that  your  proof  does  not  touch  the 
issue.  The  fact  that  we  get  no  votes  in  your  section  is  a  fact  of  your 
making,  and  not  of  ours.  And  if  there  be  fault  in  that  fact,  that 
fault  is  primarily  yours,  and  remains  so  until  you  show  that  we  re 
pel  you  by  some  wrong  principle  or  practice.  If  we  do  repel  you  by 
any  wrong  principle  or  practice,  the  fault  is  ours ;  but  this  brings 
you  to  where  you  ought  to  have  started  —  to  a  discussion  of  the 
right  or  wrong  of  our  principle.  If  our  principle,  put  in  practice, 
would  wrong  your  section  for  the  benefit  of  ours,  or  for  any  other 
object,  then  our  principle,  and  we  with  it,  are  sectional,  and  are  justly 
opposed  and  denounced  as  such.  Meet  us,  then,  on  the  question 
of  whether  our  principle,  put  in  practice,  would  wrong  your  section ; 
and  so  meet  us  as  if  it  were  possible  that  something  may  be  said  on 
our  side.  Do  you  accept  the  challenge  ?  No !  Then  you  really  be 
lieve  that  the  principle  which  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the  govern 
ment  under  which  we  live  "  thought  so  clearly  right  as  to  adopt  it, 
and  indorse  it  again  and  again,  upon  their  official  oaths,  is  in  fact 
so  clearly  wrong  as  to  demand  your  condemnation  without  a  mo 
ment's  consideration. 

Some  of  you  delight  to  flaunt  in  our  faces  the  warning  against 
sectional  parties  given  by  Washington  in  his  Farewell  Address.  Less 
than  eight  years  before  Washington  gave  that  warning,  he  had,  as 
President  of  the  United  States,  approved  and  signed  an  act  of  Con 
gress  enforcing  the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Northwestern  Ter 
ritory,  which  act  embodied  the  policy  of  the  government  upon  that 
subject  up  to  and  at  the  very  moment  he  penned  that  warning;  and 
about  one  year  after  he  penned  it,  he  wrote  Lafayette  that  he 
considered  that  prohibition  a  wise  measure,  expressing  in  the  same 
connection  his  hope  that  we  should  at  some  time  have  a  confederacy 
of  free  States. 

Bearing  this  in  mind,  and  seeing  that  sectionalism  has  since  arisen 
upon  this  same  subject,  is  that  warning  a  weapon  in  your  hands 
against  us,  or  in  our  hands  against  you  ?  Could  Washington  him 
self  speak,  would  he  cast  the  blame  of  that  sectionalism  upon  us,  who 
sustain  his  policy,  or  upon  you,  who  repudiate  it  ?  We  respect  that 
warning  of  Washington,  and  we  commend  it  to  you,  together  with 
his  example  pointing  to  the  right  application  of  it. 

But  you  say  you  are  conservative  —  eminently  conservative — 
while  we  are  revolutionary,  destructive,  or  something  of  the  sort. 
What  is  conservatism  ?  Is  it  not  adherence  to  the  old  and  tried, 
against  the  new  and  untried  ?  We  stick  to,  contend  for,  the  identical 
old  policy  on  the  point  in  controversy  which  was  adopted  by  "  our 
fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live  n  ;  while 
you  with  one  accord  reject,  and  scout,  and  spit  upon  that  old  policy, 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          607 

and  insist  upon  substituting  something  new.  True,  you  disagree 
among  yourselves  as  to  what  that  substitute  shall  be.  You  are 
divided  on  new  propositions  'and  plans,  but  you  are  unanimous  in 
rejecting  and  denouncing  the  old  policy  of  the  fathers.  Some  of  you 
are  for  reviving  the  foreign  slave-trade ;  some  for  a  congressional 
slave  code  for  the  Territories ;  some  for  Congress  forbidding  the 
Territories  to  prohibit  slavery  within  their  limits j  some  for  main 
taining  slavery  in  the  Territories  through  the  judiciary ;  some  for 
the  "  gur-reat  pur-rinciple  "  that "  if  one  man  would  enslave  another, 
no  third  man  should  object/'  fantastically  called  "popular  sover 
eignty  " ;  but  never  a  man  among  you  is  in  favor  of  Federal  prohibition 
of  slavery  in  Federal  Territories,  according  to  the  practice  of  "  our 
fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live."  Not  one 
of  all  your  various  plans  can  show  a  precedent  or  an  advocate  in  the 
century  within  which  our  government  originated.  Consider,  then, 
whether  your  claim  of  conservatism  for  yourselves,  and  your  charge 
of  destructiveness  against  us,  are  based  on  the  most  clear  and  stable 
foundations. 

Again,  you  say  we  have  made  the  slavery  question  more  prominent 
than  it  formerly  was.  We  deny  it.  "We  admit  that  it  is  more  promi 
nent,  but  we  deny  that  we  made  it  so.  It  was  not  we,  but  you,  who 
discarded  the  old  policy  of  the  fathers.  We  resisted,  and  still  resist, 
your  innovation  ;  and*  thence  comes  the  greater  prominence  of  the 
question.  Would  you  have  that  question  reduced  to  its  former  pro 
portions  ?  Go  back  to  that  old  policy.  What  has  been  will  be  again, 
under  the  same  conditions.  If  you  would  have  the  peace  of  the  old 
times,  readopt  the  precepts  and  policy  of  the  old  times. 

You  charge  that  we  stir  up  insurrections  among  your  slaves.  We 
deny  it ;  and  what  is  your  proof  ?  Harper's  Ferry !  John  Brown ! ! 
John  Brown  was  no  Republican  ;  and  you  have  failed  to  implicate  a 
single  Republican  in  his  Harper's  Ferry  enterprise.  If  any  member 
of  our  party  is  guilty  in  that  matter,  you  know  it,  or  you  do  not  know 
it.  If  you  do  know  it,  you  are  inexcusable  for  not  designating  the 
man  and  proving  the  fact.  If  you  do  not  know  it,  you  are  inexcus 
able  for  asserting  it,  and  especially  for  persisting  in  the  assertion 
after  you  have  tried  and  failed  to  make  the  proof.  You  need  not  be 
told  that  persisting  in  a  charge  which  one  does  not  know  to  be  true, 
is  simply  malicious  slander. 

Some  of  you  admit  that  no  Republican  designedly  aided  or  encour 
aged  the  Harper's  Ferry  affair,  but  still  insist  that  our  doctrines  and 
declarations  necessarily  lead  to  such  results.  We  do  not  believe  it. 
We  know  we  hold  no  doctrine,  and  make  no  declaration,  which  were 
not  held  to  and  made  by  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the  government 
under  which  we  live."  You  never  dealt  fairly  by  us  in  relation  to 
this  affair.  When  it  occurred,  some  important  State  elections  were 
near  at  hand,  and  you  were  in  evident  glee  with  the  belief  that,  by 
charging  the  blame  upon  us,  you  could  get  an  advantage  of  us  in 
those  elections.  The  elections  came,  and  your  expectations  were  not 
quite  fulfilled.  Every  Republican  man  knew  that,  as  to  himself  at 
least,  your  charge  was  a  slander,  and  he  was  not  much  inclined  by 
it  to  cast  his  vote  in  your  favor.  Republican  doctrines  and  declara- 


608         ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

tions  are  accompanied  with  a  continual  protest  against  any  inter 
ference  whatever  with  your  slaves,  or  with  you  about  your  slaves. 
Surely,  this  does  not  encourage  them  to  revolt.  True,  we  do,  in 
common  with  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the  government  under 
which  we  live,"  declare  our  belief  that  slavery  is  wrong;  but  the 
slaves  do  not  hear  us  declare  even  this.  For  anything  we  say  or  do, 
the  slaves  would  scarcely  know  there  is  a  Republican  party.  I  be 
lieve  they  would  not,  in  fact,  generally  know  it  but  for  your  misrep 
resentations  of  us  in  their  hearing.  In  your  political  contests 
among  yourselves,  each  faction  charges  the  other  with  sympathy 
with  Black  Republicanism ;  and  then,  to  give  point  to  the  charge, 
defines  Black  Republicanism  to  simply  be  insurrection,  blood,  and 
thunder  among  the  slaves. 

Slave  insurrections  are  110  more  common  now  than  they  were  be 
fore  the  Republican  party  was  organized.  What  induced  the  South 
ampton  insurrection,  twenty-eight  years  ago,  in  which  at  least  three 
times  as  many  lives  were  lost  as  at  Harper's  Ferry?  You  can  scarcely 
stretch  your  very  elastic  fancy  to  the  conclusion  that  Southampton 
was  "  got  up  by  Black  Republicanism."  In  the  present  state  of  things 
in  the  United  States,  I  do  not  think  a  general,  or  even  a  very  exten 
sive,  slave  insurrection  is  possible.  The  indispensable  concert  of 
action  cannot  be  attained.  The  slaves  have  no  means  of  rapid 
communication ;  nor  can  incendiary  freemen,  black  or  white,  sup 
ply  it.  The  explosive  materials  are  everywhere  in  parcels;  but 
there  neither  are,  nor  can  be  supplied,  the  indispensable  connecting 
trains. 

Much  is  said  by  Southern  people  about  the  affection  of  slaves  for 
their  masters  and  mistresses ;  and  a  part  of  it,  at  least,  is  true.  A 
plot  for  an  uprising  could  scarcely  be  devised  and  communicated  to 
twenty  individuals  before  some  one  of  them,  to  save,  the  life  of  a 
favorite  master  or  mistress,  would  divulge  it.  This  is  the  rule ;  and 
the  slave  revolution  in  Hayti  was  not  an  exception  to  it,  but  a  case 
occurring  under  peculiar  circumstances.  The  gunpowder  plot  of 
British  history,  though  not  connected  with  slaves,  was  more  in  point. 
In  that  case,  only  about  twenty  were  admitted  to  the  secret;  and  yet 
one  of  them,  in  his  anxiety  to  save  a  friend,  betrayed  the  plot  to  that 
friend,  and,  by  consequence,  averted  the  calamity.  Occasional  poi 
sonings  from  the  kitchen,  and  open  or  stealthy  assassinations  in  the 
field,  and  local  revolts  extending  to  a  score  or  so,  will  continue  to 
occur  as  the  natural  results  of  slavery ;  but  no  general  insurrection 
of  slaves,  as  I  think,  can  happen  in  this  country  for  a  long  time. 
Whoever  much  fears,  or  much  hopes,  for  such  an  event,  will  be  alike 
disappointed. 

In  the  language  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  uttered  many  years  ago,  "  It  is 
still  in  our  power  to  direct  the  process  of  emancipation  and  depor 
tation  peaceably,  and  in  such  slow  degrees,  as  that  the  evil  will  wear 
off  insensibly;  and  their  places  be,  pan  passu, ,  filled  up  by  free  white 
laborers.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  left  to  force  itself  on,  human  nature 
must  shudder  at  the  prospect  held  up/j 

Mr.  Jefferson  did  not  mean  to  say,"nor  do  I,  that  the  power  of 
emancipation  is  in  the  Federal  Government.  He  spoke  of  Virginia; 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          609 

and,  as  to  the  power  of  emancipation,  I  speak  of  the  slaveholding 
States  only.  The  Federal  Government,  however,  as  we  insist,  has  the 
power  of  restraining  the  extension  of  the  institution — the  power  to 
insure  that  a  slave  insurrection  shall  never  occur  on  any  American 
soil  which  is  now  free  from  slavery. 

John  Brown's  effort  was  peculiar.  It  was  not  a  slave  insurrection. 
It  was  an  attempt  by  white  men  to  get  up  a  revolt  among  slaves,  in 
which  the  slaves  refused  to  participate.  In  fact,  it  was  so  absurd 
that  the  slaves,  with  all  their  ignorance,  saw  plainly  enough  it  could 
not  succeed.  That  affair,  in  its  philosophy,  corresponds  with  the 
many  attempts,  related  in  history,  at  the  assassination  of  kings  and 
emperors.  An  enthusiast  broods  over  the  oppression  of  a  people  till 
he  fancies  himself  commissioned  by  Heaven  to  liberate  them.  He 
ventures  the  attempt,  which  ends  in  little  else  than  his  own  execution. 
Orsini's  attempt  on  Louis  Napoleon,  and  John  Brown's  attempt  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  were,  in  their  philosophy,  precisely  the  same.  The 
eagerness  to  cast  blame  on  old  England  in  the  one  case,  and  on  New 
England  in  the  other,  does  not  disprove  the  sameness  of  the  two 
things. 

And  how  much  would  it  avail  you,  if  you  could,  by  the  use  of 
John  Brown,  Helper's  Book,  and  the  like,  break  up  the  Republican 
organization?  Human  action  can  be  modified  to  some  extent,  but 
human  nature  cannot  be  changed.  There  is  a  judgment  and  a  feel 
ing  against  slavery  in  this  nation,  which  cast  at  least  a  million  and 
a  half  of  votes.  You  cannot  destroy  that  judgment  and  feeling — 
that  sentiment — by  breaking  up  the  political  organization  which 
rallies  around  it.  You  can  scarcely  scatter  and  disperse  an  army 
which  has  been  formed  into  order  in  the  face  of  your  heaviest  fire; 
but  if  you  could,  how  much  would  you  gain  by  forcing  the  sentiment 
which  created  it  out  of  the  peaceful  channel  of  the  ballot-box  into 
some  other  channel  ?  "What  would  that  other  channel  probably  be  ? 
Would  the  number  of  John  Browns  be  lessened  or  enlarged  by  the 
operation  1 

But  you  will  break  up  the  Union  rather  than  submit  to  a  denial  of 
your  constitutional  rights. 

That  has  a  somewhat  reckless  sound ;  but  it  would  be  palliated,  if 
not  fully  justified,  were  we  proposing,  by  the  mere  force  of  numbers, 
to  deprive  you  of  some  right  plainly  written  down  in  the  Constitution. 
But  we  are  proposing  no  such  thing. 

When  you  make  these  declarations  you  have  a  specific  and  well- 
understood  allusion  to  an  assumed  constitutional  right  of  yours  to 
take  slaves  into  the  Federal  Territories,  and  to  hold  them  there  as 
property.  But  no  such  right  is  specifically  written  in  the  Constitu 
tion.  That  instrument  is  literally  silent  about  any  such  right.  We, 
on  the  contrary,  deny  that  such  a  right  has  any  existence  in  the 
Constitution,  even  by  implication. 

Your  purpose,  then,  plainly  stated,  is  that  you  will  destroy  the 
government,  unless  you  be  allowed  to  construe  and  force  the  Consti 
tution  as  you  please,  on  all  points  in  dispute  between  you  and  us. 
You  will  rule  or  ruin  in  all  events. 

This,  plainly  stated,  is  your  language.  Perhaps  you  will  say  the 
VOL.  I.— 39 


610          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Supreme  Court  has  decided  the  disputed  constitutional  question  in 
your  favor.  Not  quite  so.  But  waiving  the  lawyer's  distinction 
between  dictum  and  decision,  the  court  has  decided  the  question 
for  you  in  a  sort  of  way.  The  court  has  substantially  said,  it  is 
your  constitutional  right  to  take  slaves  into  the  Federal  Territories, 
and  to  hold  them  there  as  property.  When  I  say  the  decision  was 
made  in  a  sort  of  way,  I  mean  it  was  made  in  a  divided  court,  by  a 
bare  majority  of  the  judges,  and  they  not  quite  agreeing  with  one 
another  in  the  reasons  for  making  it ;  that  it  is  so  made  as  that  its 
avowed  supporters  disagree  with  one  another  about  its  meaning,  and 
that  it  was  mainly  based  upon  a  mistaken  statement  of  fact — the 
statement  in  the  opinion  that  "  the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is 
distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution." 

An  inspection  of  the  Constitution  will  show  that  the  right  of  prop 
erty  in  a  slave  is  not  "  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  n  in  it.  Bear 
in  mind,  the  judges  do  not  pledge  their  judicial  opinion  that  such 
right  is  impliedly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution ;  but  they  pledge  their 
veracity  that  it  is  "  distinctly  and  expressly"  affirmed  there — "  dis 
tinctly,"  that  is,  not  mingled  with  anything  else — "  expressly,"  that 
is,  in  words  meaning  just  that,  without  the  aid  of  any  inference,  and 
susceptible  of  no  other  meaning. 

If  they  had  only  pledged  their  judicial  opinion  that  such  right  is 
affirmed  in  the  instrument  by  implication,  it  would  be  open  to  others 
to  show  that  neither  the  word  "  slave '?  nor  "  slavery  "  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Constitution,  nor  the  word  "  property  n  even,  in  any  connection 
with  language  alluding  to  the  things  slave,  or  slavery  j  and  that 
wherever  in  that  instrument  the  slave  is  alluded  to,  he  is  called  a 
"person";  and  wherever  his  master's  legal  right  in  relation  to  him 
is  alluded  to,  it  is  spoken  of  as  "  service  or  labor  which  may  be  due  n 
— as  a  debt  payable  in  service  or  labor.  Also  it  would  be  open  to 
show,  by  contemporaneous  history,  that  this  mode  of  alluding  to 
slaves  and  slavery,  instead  of  speaking  of  them,  was  employed  on 
purpose  to  exclude  from  the  Constitution  the  idea  that  there  could 
be  property  in  man. 

To  show  all  this  is  easy  and  certain. 

When  this  obvious  mistake  of  the  judges  shall  be  brought  to  their 
notice,  is  it  not  reasonable  to  expect  that  they  will  withdraw  the  mis 
taken  statement,  and  reconsider  the  conclusion  based  upon  it  ? 

And  then  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  "  our  fathers  who  framed 
the  government  under  which  we  live  " —  the  men  who  made  the  Con 
stitution —  decided  this  same  constitutional  question  in  our  favor 
long  ago  :  decided  it  without  division  among  themselves  when  mak 
ing  the  decision;  without  division  among  themselves  about  the 
meaning  of  it  after  it  was  made,  and,  so  far  as  any  evidence  is  leftr 
without  basing  it  upon  any  mistaken  statement  of  facts. 

Under  all  these  circumstances,  do  you  really  feel  yourselves  justified 
to  break  up  this  government  unless  such  a  court  decision  as  yours  is 
shall  be  at  once  submitted  to  as  a  conclusive  and  final  rule  of  polit 
ical  action  ?  But  you  will  not  abide  the  election  of  a  Republican 
president !  In  that  supposed  event,  you  say,  you  will  destroy  the 
Union  j  and  then,  you  say,  the  great  crime  of  having  destroyed  it 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          611 

will  be  upon  us  !  That  is  cool.  A  highwayman  holds  a  pistol  to  my 
ear,  and  mutters  through  his  teeth,  "  Stand  and  deliver,  or  I  shall 
kill  you,  and  then  you  will  be  a  murderer  !  " 

To  be  sure,  what  the  robber  demanded  of  me — my  money — was 
my  own  ;  and  I  had  a  clear  right  to  keep  it ;  but  it  was  no  more  my 
own  than  my  vote  is  my  own;  and  the  threat  of  death  to  me,  to  ex 
tort  my  money,  and  the  threat  of  destruction  to  the  Union,  to  extort 
my  vote,  can  scarcely  be  distinguished  in  principle. 

A  few  words  now  to  Republicans.  It  is  exceedingly  desirable  that 
all  parts  of  this  great  Confederacy  shall  be  at  peace,  and  in  harmony 
one  with  another.  Let  us  Republicans  do  our  part  to  have  it  so. 
Even  though  much  provoked,  let  us  do  nothing  through  passion  and 
ill  temper.  Even  though  the  Southern  people  will  not  so  much  as 
listen  to  us,  let  us  calmly  consider  their  demands,  and  yield  to  them 
if,  in  our  deliberate  view  of  our  duty,  we  possibly  can.  Judging  by 
all  they  say  and  do,  and  by  the  subject  and  nature  of  their  contro 
versy  with  us,  let  us  determine,  if  we  can,  what  will  satisfy  them. 

Will  they  be  satisfied  if  the  Territories  be  unconditionally  sur 
rendered  to  them?  We  know  they  will  not.  In  all  their  present 
complaints  against  us,  the  Territories  are  scarcely  mentioned.  In 
vasions  and  insurrections  are  the  rage  now.  Will  it  satisfy  them 
if,  in  the  future,  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  invasions  and  insur 
rections  ?  We  know  it  will  not.  We  so  know,  because  we  know  we 
never  had  anything  to  do  with  invasions  and  insurrections  ;  and  yet 
this  total  abstaining  does  not  exempt  us  from  the  charge  and  the 
denunciation. 

The  question  recurs,  What  will  satisfy  them  ?  Simply  this :  we 
must  not  only  let  them  alone,  but  we  must  somehow  convince  them 
that  we  do  let  them  alone.  This,  we  know  by  experience,  is  no 
easy  task.  We  have  been  so  trying  to  convince  them  from  the  very 
beginning  of  our  organization,  but  with  no  success.  In  all  our  plat 
forms  and  speeches  we  have  constantly  protested  our  purpose  to  let 
them  alone ;  but  this  has  had  no  tendency  to  convince  them.  Alike 
unavailing  to  convince  them  is  the  fact  that  they  have  never  detected 
a  man  of  us  in  any  attempt  to  disturb  them. 

These  natural  and  apparently  adequate  means  all  failing,  what 
will  convince  them  ?  This,  and  this  only :  cease  to  call  slavery  wrong, 
and  join  them  in  calling  it  right.  And  this  must  be  done  thoroughly 
— done  in  acts  as  well  as  in  words.  Silence  will  not  be  tolerated — 
we  must  place  ourselves  avowedly  with  them.  Senator  Douglas's 
new  sedition  law  must  be  enacted  and  enforced,  suppressing  all  dec 
larations  that  slavery  is  wrong,  whether  made  in  politics,  in  presses, 
in  pulpits,  or  in  private.  We  must  arrest  and  return  their  fugitive 
slaves  with  greedy  pleasure.  We  must  pull  down  our  free-State  con 
stitutions.  The  whole  atmosphere  must  be  disinfected  from  all  taint 
of  opposition  to  slavery,  before  they  will  cease  to  believe  that  all 
their  troubles  proceed  from  us. 

I  am  quite  aware  they  do  not  state  their  case  precisely  in  this  way. 
Most  of  them  would  probably  say  to  us,  "  Let  us  alone ;  do  nothing 
to  us,  and  say  what  you  please  about  slavery."  But  we  do  let 
them  alone, —  have  never  disturbed  them, —  so  that,  after  all,  it  is 


612          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

what  we  say  which  dissatisfies  them.  They  will  continue  to  accuse 
us  of  doing,  until  we  cease  saying. 

I  am  also  aware  they  have  not  as  yet  in  terms  demanded  the 
overthrow  of  our  free-State  constitutions.  Yet  those  constitutions 
declare  the  wrong  of  slavery  with  more  solemn  emphasis  than  do  all 
other  sayings  against  it ;  and  when  all  these  other  sayings  shall  have 
been  silenced,  the  overthrow  of  these  constitutions  will  be  demanded, 
and  nothing  be  left  to  resist  the  demand.  It  is  nothing  to  the  con 
trary  that  they  do  not  demand  the  whole  of  this  just  now.  Demand 
ing  what  they  do,  and  for  the  reason  they  do,  they  can  voluntarily 
stop  nowhere  short  of  this  consummation.  Holding,  as  they  do, 
that  slavery  is  morally  right  and  socially  elevating,  they  cannot 
cease  to  demand  a  full  national  recognition  of  it  as  a  legal  right 
and  a  social  blessing. 

Nor  can  we  justifiably  withhold  this  on  any  ground  save  our  con 
viction  that  slavery  is  wrong.  If  slavery  is  right,  all  words,  acts, 
laws,  and  constitutions  against  it  are  themselves  wrong,  and  should 
be  silenced  and  swept  away.  If  it  is  right,  we  cannot  justly  object 
to  its  nationality — its  universality  5  if  it  is  wrong,  they  cannot  justly 
insist  upon  its  extension  —  its  enlargement.  All  they  ask  we  could 
readily  grant,  if  we  thought  slavery  right;  all  we  ask  they  could  as 
readily  grant,  if  they  thought  it  wrong.  Their  thinking  it  right  and 
our  thinking  it  wrong  is  the  precise  fact  upon  which  depends  the 
whole  controversy.  Thinking  it  right,  as  they  do,  they  are  not  to 
blame  for  desiring  its  full  recognition  as  being  right  ;  but  thinking 
it  wrong,  as  we  do,  can  we  yield  to  them  ?  Can  we  cast  our  votes 
with  their  view,  and  against  our  own  ?  In  view  of  our  moral, 
social,  and  political  responsibilities,  can  we  do  this  ? 

Wrong  as  we  think  slavery  is,  we  can  yet  afford  to  let  it  alone 
where  it  is,  because  that  much  is  due  to  the  necessity  arising  from 
its  actual  presence  in  the  nation ;  but  can  we,  while  our  votes  will 
prevent  it,  allow  it  to  spread  into  the  national  Territories,  and  to 
overrun  us  here  in  these  free  States  ?  If  our  sense  of  duty  forbids 
this,  then  let  us  stand  by  our  duty  fearlessly  and  effectively.  Let 
us  be  diverted  by  none  of  those  sophistical  contrivances  wherewith 
we  are  so  industriously  plied  and  belabored — contrivances  such  as 
groping  for  some  middle  ground  between  the  right  and  the  wrong  : 
vain  as  the  search  for  a  man  who  should  be  neither  a  living  man 
nor  a  dead  man;  such  as  a  policy  of  "don't  care'7  on  a  question 
about  which  all  true  men  do  care;  such  as  Union  appeals  beseeching 
true  Union  men  to  yield  to  Disunionists,  reversing  the  divine  rule, 
and  calling,  not  the  sinners,  but  the  righteous  to  repentance;  such 
as  invocations  to  Washington,  imploring  men  to  unsay  what  Wash 
ington  said  and  undo  what  Washington  did. 

Neither  let  us  be  slandered  from  our  duty  by  false  accusations 
against  us,  nor  frightened  from  it  by  menaces  of  destruction  to  the 
government,  nor  of  dungeons  to  ourselves.  Let  us  have  faith  that 
right  makes  might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us  to  the  end  dare  to  do  our 
duty  as  we  understand  it. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          613 


March  5,  1860. — ABSTRACT  OF  SPEECH  AT  HARTFORD,  CONN. 

Slavery  is  the  great  political  question  of  the  nation.  Though  all 
desire  its  settlement,  it  still  remains  the  all-pervading  question  of 
the  day.  It  has  been  so  especially  for  the  past  six  years.  It  is  in 
deed  older  than  the  Revolution — rising,  subsiding,  then  rising  again, 
till  '54,  since  which  time  it  has  been  constantly  augmenting.  Those 
who  occasioned  the  Lecompton  imbroglio  now  admit  that  they  see 
no  end  to  it.  It  had  been  their  cry  that  the  vexed  question  was  just 
about  to  be  settled — "  the  tail  of  this  hideous  creature  is  just  going 
out  of  sight."  That  cry  is  played  put,  and  has  ceased. 

Why,  when  all  desire  to  have  this  controversy  settled,  can  we  not 
settle  it  satisfactorily  ?  One  reason  is,  we  want  it  settled  in  dif 
ferent  ways.  Each  faction  has  a  different  plan — they  pull  different 
ways,  and  neither  has  a  decided  majority.  In  my  humble  opinion, 
the  importance  and  magnitude  of  the  question  is  underrated,  even 
by  our  wisest  men.  If  I  be  right,  the  first  thing  is  to  get  a  just  esti 
mate  of  the  evil ;  then  we  can  provide  a  cure. 

One  sixth,  and  a  little  more,  of  the  population  of  the  United  States 
are  slaves,  looked  upon  as  property,  as  nothing  but  property.  The 
cash  value  of  these  slaves,  at  a  moderate  estimate,  is  $2,000,000,000. 
This  amount  of  property  value  has  a  vast  influence  on  the  minds  of 
its  owners,  very  naturally.  The  same  amount  of  property  would 
have  an  equal  influence  upon  us  if  owned  in  the  North.  "  Human 
nature  is  the  same  —  people  at  the  South  are  the  same  as  those  at 
the  North,  barring  the  difference  in  circumstances.  Public  opinion 
is  founded,  to  a  great  extent,  on  a  property  basis.  What  lessens  the 
value  of  property  is  opposed ;  what  enhances  its  value  is  favored. 
Public  opinion  at  the  South  regards  slaves  as  property,  and  insists 
upon  treating  them  like  other  property. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  free  States  carry  on  their  government  on 
the  principle  of  the  equality  of  men.  We  think  slavery  is  morally 
wrong,  and  a  direct  violation  of  that  principle.  We  all  think  it 
wrong.  It  is  clearly  proved,  I  think,  by  natural  theology,  apart 
from  revelation.  Every  man,  black,  white,  or  yellow,  has  a  mouth 
to  be  fed,  and  two  hands  with  which  to  feed  it  —  and  bread  should 
be  allowed  to  go  to  that  mouth  without  controversy. 

Slavery  is  wrong  in  its  effect  upon  white  people  and  free  labor. 
It  is  the  only  thing  that  threatens  the  Union.  It  makes  what  Sen 
ator  Seward  has  been  much  abused  for  calling  an  "irrepressible 
conflict."  When  they  get  ready  to  settle  it,  we  hope  they  will  let 
us  know.  Public  opinion  settles  every  question  here;  any  policy  to 
be  permanent  must  have  public  opinion  at  the  bottom — something 
in  accordance  with  the  philosophy  of  the  human  mind  as  it  is. 
The  property  basis  will  have  its  weight.  The  love  of  property  and 
a  consciousness  of  right  or  wrong  have  conflicting  places  in  our 
organization,  which  often  make  a  man's  course  seem  crooked,  his 
conduct  a  riddle. 

Some  men  would  make  it  a  question  of  indifference,  neither  right 
nor  wrong,  merely  a  question  of  dollars  and  cents;  —  the  Almighty 


614          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

has  drawn  a  line  across  the  land,  below  which  it  must  be  cultivated 
by  slave  labor,  above  which  by  free  labor.  They  would  say:  "If 
the  question  is  between  the  white  man  and  the  negro,  I  am  for  the 
white  man;  if  between  the  negro  and  the  crocodile,  I  am  for  the 
negro."  There  is  a  strong  effort  to  make  this  policy  of  indifference 
prevail,  but  it  cannot  be  a  durable  one.  A  " don't  care"  policy  won't 
prevail,  for  everybody  does  care. 

Is  there  a  Democrat,  especially  one  of  the  Douglas  wing,  but  will 
declare  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  has  no  application  to 
the  negro?  It  would  be  safe  to  offer  a  moderate  premium  for  such 
a  man.  I  have  asked  this  question  in  large  audiences  where  they 
were  in  the  habit  of  answering  right  out,  but  no  one  would  say 
otherwise.  Not  one  of  them  said  it  five  years  ago.  I  never  heard 
it  till  I  heard  it  from  the  lips  of  Judge  Douglas.  True;  some  men 
boldly  took  the  bull  by  the  horns  and  said  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  was  not  true !  They  did  n't  sneak  around  the  question. 
I  say  I  heard  first  from  Douglas  that  the  Declaration  did  not  apply 
to  the  black  man.  Not  a  man  of  them  said  it  till  then — they  all  say 
it  now.  This  is  a  long  stride  toward  establishing  the  policy  o*f 
indifference — one  more  such  stride,  I  think,  would  do  it. 

The  proposition  that  there  is  a  struggle  between  the  white  man 
and  the  negro  contains  a  falsehood.  There  is  no  struggle.  If  there 
was,  I  should  be  for  the  white  man.  If  two  men  are  adrift  at  sea 
on  a  plank  which  will  bear  up  but  one,  the  law  justifies  either  in 
pushing  the  other  off.  I  never  had  to  struggle  to  keep  a  negro  from 
enslaving  me,  nor  did  a  negro  ever  have  to  fight  to  keep  me  from 
enslaving  him.  They  say,  between  the  crocodile  and  the  negro, 
they  go  for  the  negro.  The  logical  proportion  is,  therefore,  as  a 
white  man  is  to  a  negro,  so  is  a  negro  to  a  crocodile,  or  as  a  negro 
may  treat  the  crocodile,  so  the  white  man  may  treat  the  negro.  The 
"don't  care'?  policy  leads  just  as  surely  to  nationalizing  slavery  as 
Jeff  Davis  himself,  but  the  doctrine  is  more  dangerous  because 
more  insidious. 

If  the  Republicans,  who  think  slavery  is  wrong,  get  possession  of 
the  General  Government,  we  may  not  root  out  the  evil  at  once,  but 
may  at  least  prevent  its  extension.  If  I  find  a  venomous  snake  lying 
on  the  open  prairie,  I  seize  the  first  stick  and  kill  him  at  once;"  but 
if  that  snake  is  in  bed  with  my  children,  I  must  be  more  cautious;  — 
I  shall,  in  striking  the  snake,  also  strike  the  children,  or  arouse  the 
reptile  to  bite  the  children.  Slavery  is  the  venomous  snake  in  bed 
with  the  children.  But  if  the  question  is  whether  to  kill  it  on  the 
prairie  or  put  it  in  bed  with  other  children,  I  am  inclined  to  think 
we  'd  kill  it. 

Another  illustration.  When  for  the  first  time  I  met  Mr.  Clay,  the 
other  day  in  the  cars,  in  front  of  us  sat  an  old  gentleman  with  an 
enormous  wen  upon  his  neck.  Everybody  would  say  the  wen  was 
a  great  evil,  and  would  cause  the  man's  death  after  a  while ;  but  you 
could  n't  cut  it  out,  for  he  'd  bleed  to  death  in  a  minute.  But  would 
you  ingraft  the  seeds  of  that  wen  on  the  necks  of  sound  and  healthy 
men1?  He  must  endure  and  be  patient,  hoping  for  possible  relief. 
The  wen  represents  slavery  on  the  neck  of  this  country.  This  only 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          615 

applies  to  those  who  think  slavery  is  wrong.  Those  who  think  it 
right  would  consider  the  snake  a  jewel  and  the  wen  an  ornament. 

We  want  those  Democrats  who  think  slavery  wrong,  to  quit 
voting  with  those  who  think  it  right.  They  don't  treat  it  as  they 
do  other  wrongs — they  won't  oppose  it  in  the  free  States,  for  it 
is  n't  there;  nor  in  the  slave  States,  for  it  is  there;  —  don't  want  it  in 
politics,  for  it  makes  agitation  j  not  in  the  pulpit,  for  it  is  n't  reli 
gion;  not  in  a  tract  society,  for  it  makes  a  fuss — there  is  no  place 
for  its  discussion.  Are  they  quite  consistent  in  this? 

If  those  Democrats  really  think  slavery  wrong,  they  will  be  much 
pleased  when  earnest  men  in  the  slave  States  take  up  a  plan  of 
gradual  emancipation,  and  go  to  work  energetically  and  very  kindly 
to  get  rid  of  the  evil.  Now  let  us  test  them.  Frank  Blair  tried  it ; 
and  he  ran  for  Congress  in  '58,  and  got  beaten.  Did  the  Democracy 
feel  bad  about  it  ?  I  reckon  not.  I  guess  you  all  flung  up  your  hats 
and  shouted,  "Hurrah  for  the  Democracy!" 

He  went  on  to  speak  of  the  manner  in  which  slavery  was  treated 
by  the  Constitution.  The  word  "  slave  "  is  nowhere  used ;  the  supply 
of  slaves  was  to  be  prohibited  after  1808 ;  they  stopped  the  spread 
of  it  in  the  Territories ;  seven  of  the  States  abolished  it.  He  argued 
very  conclusively  that  it  was  then  regarded  as  an  evil  which  would 
eventually  be  got  rid  of,  and  that  they  desired,  once  rid  of  it,  to  have 
nothing  in  the  Constitution  to  remind  them  of  it.  The  Republicans 
go  back  to  first  principles,  and  deal  with  it  as  a  wrong.  Mason,  of 
Virginia,  said  openly  that  the  framers  of  our  government  were  anti- 
slavery.  Hammond,  of  South  Carolina,  said,  "  Washington  set  this 
evil  example."  Bully  Brooks  said,  "At  the  time  the  Constitution 
was  formed,  no  one  supposed  slavery  would  last  till  now."  We  stick 
to  the  policy  of  our  fathers. 

The  Democracy  are  given  to  bushwhacking.  After  having  their 
errors  and  misstatements  continually  thrust  in  their  faces,  they  pay 
no  heed,  but  go  on  howling  about  Seward  and  the  "  irrepressible  con 
flict."  That  is  bushwhacking.  So  with  John  Brown  and  Harper's 
Ferry.  They  charge  it  upon  the  Republican  party,  and  ignomini- 
ously  fail  in  all  attempts  to  substantiate  the  charge.  Yet  they  go 
on  with  their  bushwhacking,  the  pack  in  full  cry  after  John  Brown. 
The  Democrats  had  just  been  whipped  in  Ohio  and  Pennsylvania, 
and  seized  upon  the  unfortunate  Harper's  Ferry  affair  to  influence 
other  elections  then  pending.  They  said  to  each  other,  "  Jump  in ; 
now 's  your  chance";  and  were  sorry  there  were  not  more  killed. 
But  they  did  n't  succeed  well.  Let  them  go  on  with  their  howling. 
They  will  succeed  when  by  slandering  women  you  get  them  to  love 
you,  and  by  slandering  men  you  get  them  to  vote  for  you. 

Mr.  Lincoln  then  took  up  the  Massachusetts  shoemakers'  strike, 
treating  it  in  a  humorous  and  philosophical  manner,  and  exposing  to 
ridicule  the  foolish  pretense  of  Senator  Douglas  —  that  the  strike 
arose  from  "  this  unfortunate  sectional  warfare."  Mr.  Lincoln  thanked 
God  that  we  have  a  system  of  labor  where  there  can  be  a  strike. 
Whatever  the  pressure,  there  is  a  point  where  the  workman  may 
stop.  He  did  n't  pretend  to  be  familiar  with  the  subject  of  the  shoe 


616          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABBAHAM   LINCOLN 

strike  —  probably  knew  as  little  about  it  as  Senator  Douglas  him 
self.  Shall  we  stop  making  war  upon  the  South  ?  "We  never  have 
made  war  upon  them.  If  any  one  has,  he  had  better  go  and  hang 
himself  and  save  Virginia  the  trouble.  If  you  give  up  your  convic 
tions  and  call  slavery  right,  as  they  do,  you  let  slavery  in  upon  you 
—  instead  of  white  laborers  who  can  strike,  you  '11  soon  have  black 
laborers  who  can't  strike. 

I  have  heard  that  in  consequence  of  this  "  sectional  warfare,"  as 
Douglas  calls  it,  Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia,  had  appeared  in  a  suit 
of  homespun.  Now,  up  in  New  Hampshire,  the  woolen  and  cotton 
mills  are  all  busy,  and  there  is  no  strike —  they  are  busy  making  the 
very  goods  Senator  Mason  has  quit  buying !  To  carry  out  his  idea, 
he  ought  to  go  barefoot !  If  that 's  the  plan,  they  should  begin  at 
the  foundation,  and  adopt  the  well-known  "  Georgia  costume"  of  a 
shirt-collar  and  pair  of  spurs. 

It  reminded  him  of  the  man  who  had  a  poor,  old,  lean,  bony, 
spavined  horse,  with  swelled  legs.  He  was  asked  what  he  was  going 
to  do  with  such  a  miserable  beast — the  poor  creature  would  die. 
"  Do!"  said  he.  "  1 'm  going  to  fat  him  up ;  don't  you  see  that  I  have 
got  him  seal  fat  as  high  as  the  knees  ? "  Well,  they  have  got  the 
Union  dissolved  up  to  the  ankle,  but  no  further ! 

All  portions  of  this  Confederacy  should  act  in  harmony  and  with 
careful  deliberation.  The  Democrats  cry  "  John  Brown  invasion.^ 
We  are  guiltless  of  it,  but  our  denial  does  not  satisfy  them.  Nothing 
will  satisfy  them  but  disinfecting  the  atmosphere  entirely  of  all  op 
position  to  slavery.  They  have  not  demanded  of  us  to  yield  the 
guards  of  liberty  in  our  State  constitutions,  but  it  will  naturally  come 
to  that  after  a  while.  If  we  give  up  to  them,  we  cannot  refuse  even 
their  utmost  request.  If  slavery  is  right,  it  ought  to  be  extended ; 
if  not,  it  ought  to  be  restricted — there  is  no  middle  ground.  Wrong 
as  we  think  it,  we  can  afford  to  let  it  alone  where  it  of  necessity  now 
exists ;  but  we  cannot  afford  to  extend  it  into  free  territory  and 
around  our  own  homes.  Let  us  stand  against  it ! 

The  "  Union  "  arrangements  are  all  a  humbug  —  they  reverse  the 
scriptural  order,  calling  the  righteous,  and  not  sinners,  to  repentance. 
Let  us  not  be  slandered  or  intimidated  to  turn  from  our  duty.  Eter 
nal  right  makes  might ;  as  we  understand  our  duty,  let  us  do  it ! 


March  6,  1860. —  SPEECH  AT  NEW  HAVEN,  CONN. 

Mr.  President  and  Felloiv-citizens  of  New  Haven:  If  the  Republi 
can  party  of  this  nation  shall  ever  have  the  national  house  in 
trusted  to  its  keeping,  it  will  be  the  duty  of  that  party  to  attend 
to  all  the  affairs  of  national  housekeeping.  Whatever  matters  of 
importance  may  come  up,  whatever  difficulties  may  arise,  in  the 
way  of  its  administration  of  the  government,  that  party  will  then 
have  to  attend  to :  it  will  then  be  compelled  to  attend  to  other  ques 
tions  besides  this  question  which  now-assumes  an  overwhelming 
importance — the  question  of  slavery.  It  is  true  that  in  the  organi 
zation  of  the  Republican  party  this  question  of  slavery  was  more 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          617 

important  than  any  other;  indeed,  so  much  more  important  has  it 
become  that  no  other  national  question  can  even  get  a  hearing  just 
at  present.  The  old  question  of  tariff —  a  matter  that  will  remain 
one  of  the 'chief  affairs  of  national  housekeeping  to  all  time;  the 
question  of  the  management  of  financial  affairs;  the  question  of 
the  disposition  of  the  public  domain:  how  shall  it  be  managed  for 
the  purpose  of  getting  it  well  settled,  and  of  making  there  the  homes 
of  a  free  and  happy  people — these  will  remain  open  and  require 
attention  for  a  great  while  yet,  and  these  questions  will  have  to 
be  attended  to  by  whatever  party  has  the  control  of  the  govern 
ment.  Yet  just  now  they  cannot  even  obtain  a  hearing,  and  I  do 
not  purpose  to  detain  you  upon  these  topics,  or  what  sort  of  hear 
ing  they  should  have  when  opportunity  shall  come.  For  whether 
we  will  or  not,  the  question  of  slavery  is  the  question,  the  all- 
absorbing  topic,  of  the  day.  It  is  true  that  all  of  us — and  by  that 
I  mean  not  the  Republican  party  alone,  but  the  whole  American 
people  here  and  elsewhere — all  of  us  wish  this  question  settled; 
wish  it  out  of  the  way.  It  stands  in  the  way  and  prevents  the 
adjustment  and  the  giving  of  necessary  attention  to  other  questions 
of  national  housekeeping.  The  people  of  the  whole  nation  agree 
that  this  question  ought  to  be  settled,  and  yet  it  is  not  settled ;  and 
the  reason  is  that  they  are  not  yet  agreed  how  it  shall  be  settled. 
All  wish  it  done,  but  some  wish  one  way  and  some  another,  and 
some  a  third,  or  fourth,  or  fifth;  different  bodies  are  pulling  in 
different  directions,  and  none  of  them  having  a  decided  majority 
are  able  to  accomplish  the  common  object. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1854,  a  new  policy  was  inaugurated 
with  the  avowed  object  and  confident  promise  that  it  would  entirely 
and  forever  put  an  end  to  the  slavery  agitation.  It  was  again  and 
again  declared  that  under  this  policy,  when  once  successfully  estab 
lished,  the  country  would  be  forever  rid  of  this  whole  question.  Yet 
under  the  operation  of  that  policy  this  agitation  has  not  only  not 
ceased,  but  it  has  been  constantly  augmented.  And  this,  too,  although 
from  the  day  of  its  introduction  its  friends,  who  promised  that  it 
would  wholly  end  all  agitation,  constantly  insisted,  down  to  the  time 
that  the  Lecompton  bill  was  introduced,  that  it  was  working  admira 
bly,  and  that  its  inevitable  tendency  was  to  remove  the  question  for 
ever  from  the  politics  of  the  country.  Can  you  call  to  mind  any 
Democratic  speech,  made  after  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
down  to  the  time  of  the  Lecompton  bill,  in  which  it  was  not  predicted 
that  the  slavery  agitation  was  just  at  an  end;  that  "the  Abolition 
excitement  was  played  out,"  "  the  Kansas  question  was  dead,"  athey 
have  made  the  most  they  can  out  of  this  question  and  it  is  now  for 
ever  settled  "I  But  since  the  Lecompton  bill,  no  Democrat  within 
my  experience  has  ever  pretended  that  he  could  see  the  end.  That 
cry  has  been  dropped.  They  themselves  do  not  pretend  now  that 
the  agitation  of  this  subject  has  come  to  an  end  yet.  The  truth  is 
that  this  question  is  one  of  national  importance,  and  we  cannot  help 
dealing  with  it;  we  must  do  something  about  it,  whether  we  will  or 
not.  We  cannot  avoid  it;  the  subject  is  one  we  cannot  avoid  con< 
sidering;  we  can  no  more  avoid  it  than  a  man  can  live  without  eat- 


618          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

ing.  It  is  upon  usj  it  attaches  to  the  body  politic  as  much  and  as 
closely  as  the  natural  wants  attach  to  our  natural  bodies.  Now  I 
think  it  important  that  this  matter  should  be  taken  up  in  earnest 
and  really  settled.  And  one  way  to  bring  about  a  true  settlement  of 
the  question  is  to  understand  its  true  magnitude. 

There  have  been  many  efforts  to  settle  it.  Again  and  again  it  has 
been  fondly  hoped  that  it  was  settled,  but  every  time  it  breaks  out 
afresh,  and  more  violently  than  ever.  It  was  settled,  our  fathers 
hoped,  by  the  Missouri  Compromise,  but  it  did  not  stay  settled. 
Then  the  compromises  of  1850  were  declared  to  be  a  full  and  final 
settlement  of  the  question.  The  two  great  parties,  each  in  national 
convention,  adopted  resolutions  declaring  that  the  settlement  made 
by  the  compromise  of  1850  was  a  finality  —  that  it  would  last  for 
ever.  Yet  how  long  before  it  was  unsettled  again  ?  It  broke  out 
again  in  1854,  and  blazed  higher  and  raged  more  furiously  than  ever 
before,  and  the  agitation  has  not  rested  since. 

These  repeated  settlements  must  have  some  fault  about  them. 
There  must  be  some  inadequacy  in  their  very  nature  to  the  purpose 
for  which  they  were  designed.  We  can  only  speculate  as  to  where 
that  fault — that  inadequacy  is,  but  we  may  perhaps  profit  by  past 
experience. 

I  think  that  one  of  the  causes  of  these  repeated  failures  is  that  our 
best  and  greatest  men  have  greatly  underestimated  the  size  of  this 
question.  They  have  constantly  brought  forward  small  cures  for 
great  sores — plasters  too  small  to  cover  the  wound.  That  is  one 
reason  that  all  settlements  have  proved  so  temporary,  so  evanescent. 

Look  at  the  magnitude  of  this  subject.  One  sixth  of  our  popula 
tion,  in  round  numbers — not  quite  one  sixth,  and  yet  more  than  a 
seventh  —  about  one  sixth  of  the  whole  population  of  the  United 
States,  are  slaves.  The  owners  of  these  slaves  consider  them  prop 
erty.  The  effect  upon  the  minds  of  the  owners  is  that  of  property,  and 
nothing  else ;  it  induces  them  to  insist  upon  all  that  will  favorably 
affect  its  value  as  property,  to  demand  laws  and  institutions  and  a 
public  policy  that  shall  increase  and  secure  its  value,  and  make  it 
durable,  lasting,  and  universal.  The  effect  on  the  minds  of  the 
owners  is  to  persuade  them  that  there  is  no  wrong  in  it.  The  slave 
holder  does  not  like  to  be  considered  a  mean  fellow  for  holding  that 
species  of  property,  and  hence  he  has  to  struggle  within  himself,  and 
sets  about  arguing  himself  into  the  belief  that  slavery  is  right.  The 
property  influences  his  mind.  The  dissenting  minister  who  argued 
some  theological  point  with  one  of  the  established  church  was  always 
met  by  the  reply,  "I  can't  see  it  so."  He  opened  the  Bible  and 
pointed  him  to  a  passage,  but  the  orthodox  minister  replied,  "  I  can't 
see  it  so."  Then  he  showed  him  a  single  word — "  Can  you  see  that?" 
"  Yes,  I  see  it,"  was  the  reply.  The  dissenter  laid  a  guinea  over  the 
word,  and  asked,  "Do  you  see  it  now?"  So  here.  Whether  the 
owners  of  this  species  of  property  do  really  see  it  as  it  is,  it  is  not 
for  me  to  say  ;  but  if  they  do,  they  see  it  as  it  is  through  two  billions 
of  dollars,  and  that  is  a  pretty  thick  coating.  Certain  it  is  that  they 
do  not  see  it  as  we  see  it.  Certain  it  is  that  this  two  thousand  mil 
lion  of  dollars  invested  in  this  species  of  property  is  all  so  concen- 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          619 

trated  that  the  mind  can  grasp  it  at  once.  This  immense  pecuniary 
interest  has  its  influence  upon  their  minds. 

But  here  in  Connecticut  and  at  the  North  slavery  does  not  exist, 
and  we  see  it  through  no  such  medium.  To  us  it  appears  natural  to 
think  that  slaves  are  human  beings;  men,  not  property;  that  some 
of  the  things,  at  least,  stated  about  men  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  apply  to  them  as  well  as  to  us.  I  say  we  think,  most  of 
us,  that  this  charter  of  freedom  applies  to  the  slave  as  well  as  to 
ourselves ;  that  the  class  of  arguments  put  forward  to  batter  down 
that  idea  are  also  calculated  to  break  down  the  very  idea  of  free 
government,  even  for  white  men,  and  to  undermine  the  very  founda 
tions  of  free  society.  We  think  slavery  a  great  moral  wrong,  and 
while  we  do  not  claim  the  right  to  touch  it  where  it  exists,  we  wish 
to  treat  it  as  a  wrong  in  the  Territories,  where  our  votes  will  reach  it. 
We  think  that  a  respect  for  ourselves,  a  regard  for  future  generations 
and  for  the  God  that  made  us,  require  that  we  put  down  this  wrong 
where  our  votes  will  properly  reach  it.  We  think  that  species  of 
labor  an  injury  to  free  white  men — in  short,  we  think  slavery  a 
great  moral,  social,  and  political  evil,  tolerable  only  because,  and  so 
far  as,  its  actual  existence  makes  it  necessary  to  tolerate  it,  and  that 
beyond  that  it  ought  to  be  treated  as  a  wrong. 

Now  these  two  ideas — the  property  idea  that  slavery  is  right  and 
the  idea  that  it  is  wrong  —  come  into  collision,  and  do  actually  pro 
duce  that  irrepressible  conflict  which  Mr.  Seward  has  been  so  roundly 
abused  for  mentioning.  The  two  ideas  conflict,  and  must  forever 
conflict. 

Again,  in  its  political  aspect  does  anything  in  any  way  endanger 
the  perpetuity  of  this  Union  but  that  single  thing — slavery?  Many 
of  our  adversaries  are  anxious  to  claim  that  they  are  specially  de 
voted  to  the  Union,  and  take  pains  to  charge  upon  us  hostility  to 
the  Union.  Now  we  claim  that  we  are  the  only  true  Union  men, 
and  we  put  to  them  this  one  proposition :  What  ever  endangered 
this  Union  save  and  except  slavery  ?  Did  any  other  thing  ever 
cause  a  moment's  fear  ?  All  men  must  agree  that  this  thing  alone 
has  ever  endangered  the  perpetuity  of  the  Union.  But  if  it  was 
threatened  by  any  other  influence,  would  not  all  men  say  that  the 
best  thing  that  could  be  done,  if  we  could  not  or  ought  not  to  destroy 
it,  would  be  at  least  to  keep  it  from  growing  any  larger?  Can  any 
man  believe  that  the  way  to  save  the  Union  is  to  extend  and  in 
crease  the  only  thing  that  threatens  the  Union,  and  to  suffer  it  to 
grow  bigger  and  bigger  ? 

Whenever  this  question  shall  be  settled,  it  must  be  settled  on  some 
philosophical  basis.  No  policy  that  does  not  rest  upon  philosophical 
public  opinion  can  be  permanently  maintained.  And  hence  there  are 
but  two  policies  in  regard  to  slavery  that  can  be  at  all  maintained. 
The  first,  based  on  the  property  view  that  slavery  is  right,  con 
forms  to  that  idea  throughout,  and  demands  that  we  shall  do  every 
thing  for  it  that  we  ought  to  do  if  it  were  right.  We  must  sweep 
away  all  opposition,  for  opposition  to  the  right  is  wrong ;  we  must 
agree  that  slavery  is  right,  and  we  must  adopt  the  idea  that  prop 
erty  has  persuaded  the  owner  to  believe,  that  slavery  is  morally  right 


620         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

and  socially  elevating.  This  gives  a  philosophical  basis  for  a  per 
manent  policy  of  encouragement. 

The  other  policy  is  one  that  squares  with  the  idea  that  slavery  is 
wrong,  and  it  consists  in  doing  everything  that  we  ought  to  do  if  it 
is  wrong.  Now  I  don't  wish  to  be  misunderstood,  nor  to  leave  a  gap 
down  to  be  misrepresented,  even.  I  don't  mean  that  we  ought  to 
attack  it  where  it  exists.  To  me  it  seems  that  if  we  were  to  form 
a  government  anew,  in  view  of  the  actual  presence  of  slavery  we 
should  find  it  necessary  to  frame  just  such  a  government  as  our 
fathers  did:  giving  to  the  slaveholder  the  entire  control  where  the 
system  was  established,  while  we  possess  the  power  to  restrain  it 
from  going  outside  those  limits.  From  the  necessities  of  the  case 
we  should  be  compelled  to  form  just  such  a  government  as  our 
blessed  fathers  gave  us;  and  surely  if  they  have  so  made  it,  that 
adds  another  reason  why  we  should  let  slavery  alone  where  it  exists. 

If  I  saw  a  venomous  snake  crawling  in  the  road,  any  man  would 
say  I  might  seize  the  nearest  stick  and  kill  it ;  but  if  I  found  that 
snake  in  bed  with  my  children,  that  would  be  another  question.  I 
might  hurt  the  children  more  than  the  snake,  and  it  might  bite  them. 
Much  more,  if  I  found  it  in  bed  with  my  neighbor's  children,  and  I 
had  bound  myself  by  a  solemn  compact  not  to  meddle  with  his 
children  under  any  circumstances,  it  would  become  me  to  let  that 
particular  mode  of  getting  rid  of  the  gentleman  alone.  But  if  there 
was  a  bed  newly  made  up,  to  which  the  children  were  to  be  taken, 
and  it  was  proposed  to  take  a  batch  of  young  snakes  and  put 
them  there  with  them,  I  take  it  no  man  would  say  there  was  any 
question  how  I  ought  to  decide ! 

That  is  just  the  case.  The  new  Territories  are  the  newly  made 
bed  to  which  our  children  are  to  go,  and  it  lies  with  the  nation  to 
say  whether  they  shall  have  snakes  mixed  up  with  them  or  not.  It 
does  not  seem  as  if  there  could  be  much  hesitation  what  our  policy 
should  be. 

Now  I  have  spoken  of  a  policy  based  on  the  idea  that  slavery  is 
wrong,  and  a  policy  based  upon  the  idea  that  it  is  right.  But  an 
effort  has  been  made  for  a  policy  that  shall  treat  it  as  neither 
right  nor  wrong.  It  is  based  upon  utter  indifference.  Its  lead 
ing  advocate  has  said:  "  I  don't  care  whether  it  be  voted  up  or  down." 
"  It  is  merely  a  matter  of  dollars  and  cents."  "  The  Almighty  has 
drawn  a  line  across  this  continent,  on  one  side  of  which  all  soil  must 
forever  be  cultivated  by  slave  labor,  and  on  the  other  by  free." 
"  When  the  struggle  is  between  the  white  man  and  the  negro,  I  am 
for  the  white  man;  when  it  is  between  the  negro  and  the  crocodile, 
I  am  for  the  negro."  Its  central  idea  is  indifference.  It  holds  that 
it  makes  no  more  difference  to  us  whether  the  Territories  become 
free  or  slave  States,  than  whether  my  neighbor  stocks  his  farm  with 
horned  cattle  or  puts  it  into  tobacco.  All  recognize  this  policy,  the 
plausible  sugar-coated  name  of  which  is  "  popular  sovereignty." 

This  policy  chiefly  stands  in  the  way  of  a  permanent  settlement  of 
the  question.  I  believe  there  is  no  danger  of  its  becoming  the  per 
manent  policy  of  the  country,  for  it  is  based  on  a  public  indifference. 
There  is  nobody  that  "  don't  care."  All  the  people  do  care,  one  way 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          621 

or  the  other.  I  do  not  charge  that  its  author,  when  he  says  he 
"don't  care/7  states  his  individual  opinion;  he  only  expresses  his 
policy  for  the  government.  I  understand  that  he  has  never  said,  as 
an  individual,  whether  he  thought  slavery  right  or  wrong — and  he  is 
the  only  man  in  the  nation  that  has  not.  Now  such  a  policy  may 
have  a  temporary  run  •  it  may  spring  up  as  necessary  to  the  political 
prospects  of  some  gentleman — but  it  is  utterly  baseless ;  the  people 
are  not  indifferent,  and  it  can  therefore  have  no  durability  or  per 
manence. 

But  suppose  it  could !  Then  it  can  be  maintained  only  by  a  pub 
lic  opinion  that  shall  say,  "  We  don't  care."  There  must  be  a  change 
in  public  opinion  5  the  public  mind  must  be  so  far  debauched  as  to 
square  with  this  policy  of  caring  not  at  all.  The  people  must  come 
to  consider  this  as  "  merely  a  question  of  dollars  and  cents,77  and  to 
believe  that  in  some  places  the  Almighty  has  made  slavery  necessarily 
eternal.  This  policy  can  be  brought  to  prevail  if  the  people  can  be 
brought  round  to  say  honestly,  "  We  don't  care  "  ;  if  not,  it  can  never 
be  maintained.  It  is  for  you  to  say  whether  that  can  be  done. 

You  are  ready  to  say  it  cannot ;  but  be  not  too  fast.  Remember 
what  a  long  stride  has  been  taken  since  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise!  Do  you  know  of  any  Democrat,  of  either  branch  of 
the  party — do  you  know  one  who  declares  that  he  believes  that 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  has  any  application  to  the  negro? 
Judge  Taney  declares  that  it  has  not,  and  Judge  Douglas  even  vili 
fies  me  personally  and  scolds  me  roundly  for  saying  that  the  Decla 
ration  applies  to  all  men,  and  that  negroes  are  men.  Is  there  a 
Democrat  here  who  does  not  deny  that  the  Declaration  applies  to 
a  negro!  Do  any  of  you  know  of  one?  Well,  I  have  tried  before 
perhaps  fifty  audiences,  some  larger  and  some  smaller  than  this,  to 
find  one  such  Democrat,  and  never  yet  have  I  found  one  who  said 
I  did  not  place  him  right  in  that.  I  must  assume  that  Democrats 
hold  that ;  and  now  not  one  of  these  Democrats  can  show  that  he 
said  that  five  years  ago !  I  venture  to  defy  the  whole  party  to  pro 
duce  one  man  that  ever  uttered  the  belief  that  the  Declaration  did 
not  apply  to  negroes  before  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise! 
Four  or  five  years  ago  we  all  thought  negroes  were  men,  and  that 
when  "all  men"  were  named,  negroes  were  included.  But  the  whole 
Democratic  party  has  deliberately  taken  negroes  from  the  class  of 
men  and  put  them  in  the  class  of  brutes.  Turn  it  as  you  will,  it  is 
simply  the  truth !  Don't  be  too  hasty  then  in  saying  that  the  people 
cannot  be  brought  to  this  new  doctrine,  but  note  that  long  stride. 
One  more  as  long  completes  the  journey  from  where  negroes  are 
estimated  as  men  to  where  they  are  estimated  as  mere  brutes — as 
rightful  property! 

That  saying,  "In  the  struggle  between  the  white  man  and  the 
negro,"  etc.,  which,  I  know,  came  from  the  same  source  as  this  pol 
icy —  that  saying  marks  another  step.  There  is  a  falsehood  wrapped 
up  in  that  statement.  "  In  the  struggle  between  the  white  man  and 
the  negro,"  assumes  that  there  is  a  struggle,  in  which  either  the 
white  man  must  enslave  the  negro  or  the  negro  must  enslave  the 
white.  There  is  no  such  struggle.  It  is  merely  an  ingenious  false- 


622          ADDRESSES    AND    LETTEKS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

hood  to  degrade  and  brutalize  the  negro.  Let  each  let  the  other 
alone,  and  there  is  no  struggle  about  it.  If  it  was  like  two  wrecked 
seamen  on  a  narrow  plank,  where  each  must  push  the  other  off  or 
drown  himself,  I  would  push  the  negro  off — or  a  white  man  either  ; 
but  it  is  not :  the  plank  is  large  enough  for  both.  This  good  earth  is 
plenty  broad  enough  for  white  man  and  negro  both,  and  there  is  no 
need  of  either  pushing  the  other  off. 

So  that  saying,  "  In  the  struggle  between  the  negro  and  the  croco 
dile,"  etc.,  is  made  up  from  the  idea  that  down  where  the  crocodile 
inhabits,  a  white  man  can't  labor ;  it  must  be  nothing  else  but  croco 
dile  or  negro  ;  if  the  negro  does  not,  the  crocodile  must  possess  the 
earth  ;  in  that  case  he  declares  for  the  negro.  The  meaning  of  the 
whole  is  just  this :  As  a  white  man  is  to  a  negro,  so  is  a  negro  to  a 
crocodile  ;  and  as  the  negro  may  rightfully  treat  the  crocodile,  so 
may  the  white  man  rightfully  treat  the  negro.  This  very  dear 
phrase  coined  by  its  author,  and  so  dear  that  he  deliberately  repeats 
it  in  many  speeches,  has  a  tendency  to  still  further  brutalize  the 
negro,  and  to  bring  public  opinion  to  the  point  of  utter  indifference 
whether  men  so  brutalized  are  enslaved  or  not.  When  that  time 
shall  come,  if  ever,  I  think  that  policy  to  which  I  refer  may  prevail. 
But  I  hope  the  good  free  men  of  this  country  will  never  allow  it  to 
come,  and  until  then  the  policy  can  never  be  maintained. 

Now,  consider  the  effect  of  this  policy.  We  in  the  States  are  not 
to  care  whether  freedom  or  slavery  gets  the  better,  but  the  people  in 
the  Territories  may  care.  They  are  to  decide,  and  they  may  think 
what  they  please;  it  is  a  matter  of  dollars  and  cents!  But  are  not 
the  people  of  the  Territories  detailed  from  the  States?  If  this  feeling 
of  indifference — this  absence  of  moral  sense  about  the  question— 
prevails  in  the  States,  will  it  not  be  carried  into  the  Territories? 
Will  not  every  man  say, "I  don't  care;  it  is  nothing  to  me"1?  If  any 
one  comes  that  wants  slavery,  must  they  not  say,  "  I  don't  care 
whether  freedom  or  slavery  be  voted  up  or  voted  down  "?  It  results 
at  last  in  nationalizing  the  institution  of  slavery.  Even  if  fairly  car 
ried  out,  that  policy  is  just  as  certain  to  nationalize  slavery  as  the 
doctrine  of  Jeff  Davis  himself.  These  are  only  two  roads  to  the 
same  goal,  and  ll  popular  sovereignty"  is  just  as  sure,  and  almost  as 
short,  as  the  other. 

What  we  want,  and  all  we  want,  is  to  have  with  us  the  men  who 
think  slavery  wrong.  But  those  who  say  they  hate  slavery,  and  are 
opposed  to  it,  but  yet  act  with  the  Democratic  party — where  are 
they J?  Let  us  apply  a  few  tests.  You  say  that  you  think  slavery  a 
wrong,  but  you  renounce  all  attempts  to  restrain  it.  Is  there  any 
thing  else  that  you  think  wrong,  that  you  are  not  willing  to  deal  with 
as  a  wrong?  Why  are  you  so  careful,  so  tender  of  this  one  wrong 
and  no  other  ?  You  will  not  let  us  do  a  single  thing  as  if  it  was 
wrong;  there  is  no  place  where  you  will  allow  it  to  be  even  called 
wrong.  We  must  not  call  it  wrong  in  the  free  States,  because  it  is 
not  there,  and  we  must  not  call  it  wrong  in  the  slave  States,  because 
it  is  there ;  we  must  not  call  it  wrong  in  politics,  because  that  is 
bringing  morality  into  politics,  and  we  must  not  call  it  wrong  in  the 
pulpit,  because  that  is  bringing  politics  into  religion ;  we  must  not 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN          623 

bring  it  into  the  tract  society,  or  other  societies,  because  those  are 
such  unsuitable  places,  and  there  is  no  single  place,  according  to 
you,  where  this  wrong  thing  can  properly  be  called  wrong. 

Perhaps  you  will  plead  that  if  the  people  of  slave  States  should  of 
themselves  set  on  foot  an  effort  for  emancipation,  you  would  wish 
them  success  and  bid  them  God-speed.  Let  us  test  that !  In  1858 
the  emancipation  party  of  Missouri,  with  Frank  Blair  at  their  head, 
tried  to  get  up  a  movement  for  that  purpose;  and,  having  started  a 
party,  contested  the  State.  Blair  was  beaten,  apparently  if  not 
truly,  and  when  the  news  came  to  Connecticut,  you,  who  knew  that 
Frank  Blair  was  taking  hold  of  this  thing  by  the  right  end,  and 
doing  the  only  thing  that  you  say  can  properly  be  done  to  remove 
this  wrong  —  did  you  bow  your  heads  in  sorrow  because  of  that  de 
feat  ?  Do  you,  any  of  you,  know  one  single  Democrat  that  showed 
sorrow  over  that  result  ?  Not  one !  On  the  contrary,  every  man 
threw  up  his  hat,  and  hallooed  at  the  top  of  his  lungs,  "  Hooray  for 
Democracy ! " 

Now,  gentleman,  the  Republicans  desire  to  place  this  great  ques 
tion  of  slavery  on  the  very  basis  on  which  our  fathers  placed  it,  and 
no  other.  It  is  easy  to  demonstrate  that  "  our  fathers  who  framed 
this  government  under  which  we  live  "  looked  on  slavery  as  wrong, 
and  so  framed  it  and  everything  about  it  as  to  square  with  the  idea 
that  it  was  wrong,  so  far  as  the  necessities  arising  from  its  existence 
permitted.  In  forming  the  Constitution  they  found  the  slave-trade 
existing,  capital  invested  in  it,  fields  depending  upon  it  for  labor, 
and  the  whole  system  resting  upon  the  importation  of  slave  labor. 
They  therefore  did  not  prohibit  the  slave-trade  at  once,  but  they 

fve  the  power  to  prohibit  it  after  twenty  years.  Why  was  this  ? 
hat  other  foreign  trade  did  they  treat  in  that  way  ?  Would  they 
have  done  this  if  they  had  not  thought  slavery  wrong  ? 

Another  thing  was  done  by  some  of  the  same  men  who  framed 
the  Constitution,  and  afterward  adopted  as  their  own  act  by  the  first 
Congress  held  under  that  Constitution,  of  which  many  of  the  framers 
were  members — they  prohibited  the  spread  of  slavery  in  the  Terri 
tories.  Thus  the  same  men,  the  framers  of  the  Constitution,  cut  off 
the  supply  and  prohibited  the  spread  of  slavery;  and  both  acts  show 
conclusively  that  they  considered  that  the  thing  was  wrong. 

If  additional  proof  is  wanting,  it  can  be  found  in  the  phraseology 
of  the  Constitution.  When  men  are  framing  a  supreme  law  and 
chart  of  government  to  secure  blessings  and  prosperity  to  untold 
generations  yet  to  come,  they  use  language  as  short  and  direct  and 
plain  as  can  be  found  to  express  their  meaning.  In  all  matters  but 
this  of  slavery  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  used  the  very  clearest, 
shortest,  and  most  direct  language.  But  the  Constitution  alludes 
to  slavery  three  times  without  mentioning  it  once  !  The  language 
used  becomes  ambiguous,  roundabout,  and  mystical.  They  speak 
of  the  "  immigration  of  persons,"  and  mean"  the  importation  of 
slaves,  but  do  not  say  so.  In  establishing  a  basis  of  representation 
they  say  "  all  other  persons,"  when  they  mean  to  say  slaves.  Why 
did  they  not  use  the  shortest  phrase  ?  In  providing  for  the  return 
of  fugitives  they  say  "persons  held  to  service  or  labor."  If  they  had 


624          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

said  "  slaves/7  it  would  have  been  plainer  and  less  liable  to  miscon 
struction.  Why  did  n't  they  do  it  ?  We  cannot  doubt  that  it  was 
done  on  purpose.  Only  one  reason  is  possible,  and  that  is  supplied 
us  by  one  of  the  framers  of  the  Constitution — and  it  is  not  possible 
for  man  to  conceive  of  any  other.  They  expected  and  desired  that 
the  system  would  come  to  an  end,  and  meant  that  when  it  did  the 
Constitution  should  not  show  that  there  ever  had  been  a  slave  in 
this  good  free  country  of  ours. 

I  will  dwell  on  that  no  longer.  I  see  the  signs  of  the  approach 
ing  triumph  of  the  Republicans  in  the  bearing  of  their  political 
adversaries.  A  great  deal  of  this  war  with  us  nowadays  is  mere 
bushwhacking.  At  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  when  Napoleon's  cav 
alry  had  charged  again  and  again  upon  the  unbroken  squares  of 
British  infantry,  at  last  they  were  giving  up  the  attempt,  and  going 
off  in  disorder,  when  some  of  the  officers,  in  mere  vexation  and  com 
plete  despair,  fired  their  pistols  at  those  solid  squares.  The  Demo 
crats  are  in  that  sort  of  extreme  desperation ;  it  is  nothing  else.  I 
will  take  up  a  few  of  these  arguments. 

There  is  "the  irrepressible  conflict."  How  they  rail  at  Seward 
for  that  saying !  They  repeat  it  constantly  j  and  although  the  proof 
has  been  thrust  under  their  noses  again  and  again  that  almost 
every  good  man  since  the  formation  of  our  government  has  uttered 
that  same  sentiment,  from  General  Washington,  who  "  trusted  that 
we  should  yet  have  a  confederacy  of  free  States,"  with  Jefferson, 
Jay,  Monroe,  down  to  the  latest  days,  yet  they  refuse  to  notice  that 
at  all,  and  persist  in  railing  at  Seward  for  saying  it.  Even  Roger 
A.  Pryor,  editor  of  the  Richmond  "  Enquirer,"  uttered  the  same 
sentiment  in  almost  the  same  language,  and  yet  so  little  offense  did 
it  give  the  Democrats  that  he  was  sent  for  to  Washington  to  edit 
the  "States"  —  the  Douglas  organ  there,  while  Douglas  goes  into 
hydrophobia  and  spasms  of  rage  because  Seward  dared  to  repeat  it. 
That  is  what  I  call  bushwhacking  —  a  sort  of  argument  that  they 
must  know  any  child  can  see  through. 

Another  is  John  Brown  !  You  stir  up  insurrections ;  you  invade 
the  South  !  John  Brown !  Harper's  Ferry !  Why,  John  Brown 
was  not  a  Republican  !  You  have  never  implicated  a  single  Repub 
lican  in  that  Harper's  Ferry  enterprise.  We  tell  you  if  any  member 
of  the  Republican  party  is  guilty  in  that  matter,  you  know  it  or  you 
do  not  know  it.  If  you  do  know  it,  you  are  inexcusable  not  to  des 
ignate  the  man  and  prove  the  fact.  If  you  do  not  know  it,  you  are 
inexcusable  to  assert  it,  and  especially  to  persist  in  the  assertion 
after  you  have  tried  and  failed  to  make  the  proof.  You  need  not  be 
told  that  persisting  in  a  charge  which  one  does  not  know  to  be  true 
is  simply  malicious  slander.  Some  of  you  admit  that  no  Republican 
designedly  aided  or  encouraged  the  Harper's  Ferry  affair ;  but  still 
insist  that  our  doctrines  and  declarations  necessarily  lead  to  such 
results.  We  do  not  believe  it.  We  know  we  hold  to  no  doctrines 
and  make  no  declarations  which  were  not  held  to  and  made  by  our 
fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live,  and  we 
cannot  see  how  declarations  that  were  patriotic  when  they  made 
them  are  villainous  when  we  make  them.  You  never  dealt  fairly  by 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          625 

us  in  relation  to  that  affair — and  I  will  say  frankly  that  I  know  of 
nothing  in  your  character  that  should  lead  us  to  suppose  that  you 
would.  You  had  just  been  soundly  thrashed  in  elections  in  several 
States,  and  others  were  soon  to  come.  You  rejoiced  at  the  occasion, 
and  only  were  troubled  that  there  were  not  three  times  as  many 
killed  in  the  affair.  You  were  in  evident  glee ;  there  was  no  sorrow 
for  the  killed  nor  for  the  peace  of  Virginia  disturbed ;  you  were  re 
joicing  that  by  charging  Republicans  with  this  thing  you  might  get 
an  advantage  of  us  in  New  York  and  the  other  States.  You  pulled 
that  string  as  tightly  as  you  could,  but  your  very  generous  and 
worthy  expectations  were  not  quite  fulfilled.  Each  Republican  knew 
that  the  charge  was  a  slander  as  to  himself  at  least,  and  was  not 
inclined  by  it  to  cast  his  vote  in  your  favor.  It  was  mere  bush 
whacking,  because  you  had  nothing  else  to  do.  You  are  still  on  that 
track,  and  I  say,  Go  on !  If  you  think  you  can  slander  a  woman  into 
loving  you,  or  a  man  into  voting  for  you,  try  it  till  you  are  satisfied. 
Another  specimen  of  this  bushwhacking — that  "shoe  strike." 
Now  be  it  understood  that  I  do  not  pretend  to  know  all  about  the 
matter.  I  am  merely  going  to  speculate  a  little  about  some  of  its 
phases,  and  at  the  outset  I  am  glad  to  see  that  a  system  of  labor  pre 
vails  in  New  England  under  which  laborers  can  strike  when  they 
want  to,  where  they  are  not  obliged  to  work  under  all  circumstances, 
and  are  not  tied  down  and  obliged  to  labor  whether  you  pay  them  or 
not !  I  like  the  system  which  lets  a  man  quit  when  he  wants  to,  and 
wish  it  might  prevail  everywhere.  One  of  the  reasons  why  I  am  op 
posed  to  slavery  is  just  here.  What  is  the  true  condition  of  the 
laborer  ?  I  take  it  that  it  is  best  for  all  to  leave  each  man  free  to 
acquire  property  as  fast  as  he  can.  Some  will  get  wealthy.  I  don't 
believe  in  a  law  to  prevent  a  man  from  getting  rich ;  it  would  do 
more  harm  than  good.  So  while  we  do  not  propose  any  war  upon 
capital,  we  do  wish  to  allow  the  humblest  man  an  equal  chance  to 
get  rich  with  everybody  else.  When  one  starts  poor,  as  most  do  in 
the  race  of  life,  free  society  is  such  that  he  knows  he  can  better  his 
condition ;  he  knows  that  there  is  no  fixed  condition  of  labor  for  his 
whole  life.  I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess  that  twenty-five  years  ago 
I  was  a  hired  laborer,  mauling  rails,  at  work  on  a  flatboat — just 
what  might  happen  to  any  poor  man's  son.  I  want  every  man  to 
have  the  chance  —  and  I  believe  a  black  man  is  entitled  to  it — in 
which  he  can  better  his  condition  —  when  he  may  look  forward  and 
hope  to  be  a  hired  laborer  this  year  and  the  next,  work  for  himself 
afterward,  and  finally  to  hire  men  to  work  for  him.  That  is  the 
true  system.  Up  here  in  New  England  you  have  a  soil  that  scarcely 
sprouts  black-eyed  beans,  and  yet  where  will  you  find  wealthy  men 
so  wealthy,  and  poverty  so  rarely  in  extremity !  There  is  not  an 
other  such  place  on  earth  !  I  desire  that  if  you  get  too  thick  here, 
and  find  it  hard  to  better  your  condition  on  this  soil,  you  may  have 
a  chance  to  strike  and  go  somewhere  else,  where  you  may  not  be  de 
graded,  nor  have  your  family  corrupted  by  forced  rivalry  with  negro 
slaves.  I  want  you  to  have  a  clean  bed  and  no  snakes  in  it !  Then 
you  can  better  your  condition,  and  so  it  may  go  on  and  on  in  one 
ceaseless  round  so  long  as  man  exists  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
VOL.  I.— 40. 


626          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Now  to  come  back  to  this  shoe  strike.  If,  as  the  senator  from  Il 
linois  asserts,  this  is  caused  by  withdrawal  of  Southern  votes,  con 
sider  briefly  how  you  will  meet  the  difficulty.  You  have  done 
nothing,  and  have  protested  that  you  have  done  nothing,  to  injure 
the  South;  and  yet  to  get  back  the  shoe  trade,  you  must  leave 
off  doing  something  that  you  are  now  doing.  What  is  it  ?  You 
must  stop  thinking  slavery  wrong.  Let  your  institutions  be  wholly 
changed ;  let  your  State  constitutions  be  subverted ;  glorify  slavery  ; 
and  so  you  will  get  back  the  shoe  trade  —  for  what?  You  have 
brought  owned  labor  with  it  to  compete  with  your  own  labor,  to 
underwork  you,  and  degrade  you,  Are  you  ready  to  get  back  the 
trade  on  these  terms  ? 

But  the  statement  is  not  correct.  You  have  not  lost  that  trade ; 
orders  were  never  better  than  now.  Senator  Mason,  a  Democrat, 
comes  into  the  Senate  in  homespun,  a  proof  that  the  dissolution 
of  the  Union  has  actually  begun.  But  orders  are  the  same.  Your 
factories  have  not  struck  work,  neither  those  where  they  make 
anything  for  coats,  nor  for  pants,  nor  for  shirts,  nor  for  ladies7 
dresses.  Mr.  Mason  has  not  reached  the  manufacturers  who  ought 
to  have  made  him  a  coat  and  pants.  To  make  his  proof  good  for 
anything,  he  should  have  come  into  the  Senate  barefoot. 

Another  bushwhacking  contrivance — simply  that,  nothing  else! 
I  find  a  good  many  people  who  are  very  much  concerned  about  the 
loss  of  Southern  trade.  Now,  either  these  people  are  sincere,  or  they 
are  not.  I  will  speculate  a  little  about  that.  If  they  are  sincere, 
and  are  moved  by  any  real  danger  of  the  loss  of  the  Southern  trade, 
they  will  simply  get  their  names  on  the  white  list,  and  then  instead 
of  persuading  Republicans  to  do  likewise,  they  will  be  glad  to  keep 
you  away.  Don't  you  see  they  thus  shut  off  competition  ?  They 
would  not  be  whispering  around  to  Republicans  to  come  in  and  share 
the  profits  with  them.  But  if  they  are  not  sincere,  and  are  merely 
trying  to  fool  Republicans  out  of  their  votes,  they  will  grow  very 
anxious  about  your  pecuniary  prospects  ;  they  are  afraid  you  are 
going  to  get  broken  up  and  ruined  ;  they  did  not  care  about  Demo 
cratic  votes  —  oh,  no,  no,  no!  You  must  judge  which  class  those 
belong  to  whom  you  meet.  I  leave  it  to  you  to  determine  from 
the  facts. 

Let  us  notice  some  more  of  the  stale  charges  against  Republicans. 
You  say  we  are  sectional.  We  deny  it.  That  makes  an  issue ;  and 
the  burden  of  proof  is  upon  you.  You  produce  your  proof;  and  what 
is  it!  Why,  that  our  party  has  no  existence  in  your  section  —  gets 
no  votes  in  your  section.  The  fact  is  substantially  true ;  but  does  it 
prove  the  issue  ?  If  it  does,  then  in  case  we  should,  without  change 
of  principle,  begin  to  get  votes  in  your  section,  we  should  thereby 
cease  to  be  sectional.  You  cannot  escape  this  conclusion ;  and  yet, 
are  you  willing  to  abide  by  it  ?  If  you  are,  you  will  probably  soon 
find* that  we  have  ceased  to  be  sectional,  for  we  shall  get  votes  in 
your  section  this  very  year.  The  fact  that  we  get  no  votes  in  your 
section  is  a  fact  of  your  making,  and  not  of  ours.  And  if  there  be 
fault  in  that  fact,  that  fault  is  primarily  yours,  and  remains  so  until 
you  show  that  we  repel  you  by  some  wrong  principle  or  practice.  If 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN          627 

we  do  repel  you  by  any  wrong  principle  or  practice,  the  fault  is  ours; 
but  this  brings  you  to  where  you  ought  to  have  started — to  a  discus 
sion  of  the  right  or  wrong  of  our  principle.  If  our  principle,  put  in 
practice,  would  wrong  your  section  for  the  benefit  of  ours,  or  for  any 
other  object,  then  our  principle  and  we  with  it,  are  sectional,  and  are 
justly  opposed  and  denounced  as  such.  Meet  us,  then,  on  the  ques 
tion  of  whether  our  principle,  put  in  practice,  would  wrong  your  sec 
tion;  and  so  meet  it  as  if  it  were  possible  that  something  may  be  said 
on  our  side.  Do  you  accept  the  challenge?  No?  Then  you  really 
believe  that  the  principle  which  our  fathers  who  framed  the  govern 
ment  under  which  we  live  thought  so  clearly  right  as  to  adopt  it,  and 
indorse  it  again  and  again,  upon  their  official  oaths,  is,  in  fact,  so 
clearly  wrong  as  to  demand  your  condemnation  without  a  moment's 
consideration. 

Some  of  you  delight  to  flaunt  in  our  faces  the  warning  against  sec 
tional  parties  given  by  Washington  in  his  Fare  well  Address.  Less  than 
eight  years  before  Washington  gave  that  warning,  he  had,  as  Pres 
ident  of  the  United  States,  approved  and  signed  an  act  of  Congress 
enforcing  the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Northwestern  Territory, 
which  act  embodied  the  policy  of  government  upon  that  subject  up 
to  and  at  the  very  moment  he  penned  that  warning ;  and  about  one 
year  after  he  penned  it,  he  wrote  Lafayette  that  he  considered  that 
prohibition  a  wise  measure,  expressing  in  the  same  connection  his 
hope  that  we  should  some  time  have  a  confederacy  of  free  States. 

Bearing  this  in  mind,  and  seeing  that  sectionalism  has  since  arisen 
upon  this  same  subject,  is  that  warning  a  weapon  in  your  hands 
against  us,  or  in  our  hands  against  you?  Could  Washington  him 
self  speak,  would  he  cast  the  blame  of  that  sectionalism  upon  us 
who  sustain  his  policy,  or  upon  you  who  repudiate  it  ?  We  respect 
that  warning  of  Washington,  and  we  commend  it  to  you,  together 
with  his  example  pointing  to  the  right  application  of  it. 

But  you  say  you  are  conservative  —  eminently  conservative  — 
while  we  are  revolutionary,  destructive,  or  something  of  that  sort. 
What  is  conservatism?  Is  it  not  adherence  to  the  old  and  tried 
against  the  new  and  untried  ?  We  stick  to,  contend  for,  the  identi 
cal  old  policy  on  the  point  in  controversy  which  was  adopted  by  our 
fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live ;  while  you 
with  one  accord  reject,  and  scout,  and  spit  upon  that  old  policy,  and 
insist  upon  substituting  something  new.  True,  you  disagree  among 
yourselves  as  to  what  that  substitute  shall  be ;  you  have  consider 
able  variety  of  new  propositions  and  plans,  but  you  are  unanimous 
in  rejecting  and  denouncing  the  old  policy  of  the  fathers.  Some  of 
you  are  for  reviving  the  foreign  slave-trade ;  some  for  a  congres 
sional  slave  code  for  the  Territories ;  some  for  Congress  forbidding 
the  Territories  to  prohibit  slavery  within  their  limits;  some  for 
maintaining  slavery  in  the  Territories  through  the  judiciary ;  some 
for  the  "  great  principle"  that  if  one  man  would  enslave  another, 
no  third  man  should  object,  fantastically  called  "  popular  sover 
eignty  ";  but  never  a  man  among  you  in  favor  of  Federal  prohibition 
of  slavery  in  Federal  Territories  according  to  the  practice  of  our 
fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live.  Not  one 


628          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

of  all  your  various  plans  can  show  a  precedent  or  an  advocate  in  the 
century  within  which  our  government  originated.  And  yet  you  draw 
yourselves  up  and  say,  "  We  are  eminently  conservative." 

It  is  exceedingly  desirable  that  all  parts" of  this  great  Confederacy 
shall  be  at  peace  and  in  harmony  one  with  another.  Let  us  Repub 
licans  do  our  part  to  have  it  so.  Even  though  much  provoked,  let 
us  do  nothing  through  passion  and  ill  temper.  Even  though  the 
Southern  people  will  not  so  much  as  listen  to  us,  let  us  calmly  con 
sider  their  demands,  and  yield  to  them  if,  in  our  deliberate  view  of 
our  duty,  we  possibly  can.  Judging  by  all  they  say  and  do,  and  by 
the  subject  and  nature  of  their  controversy  with  us,  let  us  determine, 
if  we  can,  what  will  satisfy  them. 

Will  they  be  satisfied  if  the  Territories  be  unconditionally  surren 
dered  to  them  ?  We  know  they  will  not.  In  all  their  present  com 
plaints  against  us  the  Territories  are  scarcely  mentioned.  Invasions 
and  insurrections  are  the  rage  now.  Will  it  satisfy  them  if  in  the 
future  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  invasions  and  insurrections  ?  We 
know  it  will  not.  We  so  know  because  we  know  we  never  have  had 
anything  to  do  with  invasions  and  insurrections;  and  yet  this  total 
abstaining  does  not  exempt  us  from  the  charge  and  the  denunciation. 

The  question  recurs,  What  will  satisfy  them?  Simply  this:  we 
must  not  only  let  them  alone,  but  we  must  somehow  convince  them 
that  we  do  let  them  alone.  This  we  know  by  experience  is  no 
easy  task.  We  have  been  so  trying  to  convince  them  from  the  very 
beginning  of  our  organization,  but  with  no  success.  In  all  our  plat 
forms  and  speeches  we  have  constantly  protested  our  purpose  to 
let  them  alone  ;  but  this  has  had  no  tendency  to  convince  them. 
Alike  unavailing  to  convince  them  is  the  fact  that  they  have  never 
detected  a  man  of  us  in  any  attempt  to  disturb  them. 

These  natural  and  apparently  adequate  means  all  failing,  what 
will  convince  them  ?  This,  and  this  only :  cease  to  call  slavery  wrong, 
and  join  them  in  calling  it  right.  And  this  must  be  done  thoroughly 
— done  in  acts  as  well  as  in  words.  Silence  will  not  be  tolerated — 
we  must  place  ourselves  avowedly  with  them.  Douglas's  new  sedi 
tion  law  must  be  enacted  and  enforced,  suppressing  all  declarations 
that  slavery  is  wrong,  whether  made  in  politics,  in  presses,  in  pul 
pits,  or  in  private.  We  must  arrest  and  return  their  fugitive  slaves 
with  greedy  pleasure.  We  must  pull  down  our  free-State  constitu 
tions.  The  whole  atmosphere  must  be  disinfected  of  all  taint  of  op 
position  to  slavery  before  they  will  cease  to  believe  that  all  their 
troubles  proceed  from  us.  So  long  as  we  call  slavery  wrong,  when 
ever  a  slave  runs  away  they  will  overlook  the  obvious  fact  that  he 
ran  because  he  was  oppressed,  and  declare  that  he  was  stolen  off. 
Whenever  a  master  cuts  his  slaves  with  the  lash,  and  they  cry  out 
under  it,  he  will  overlook  the  obvious  fact  that  the  negroes  cry  out 
because  they  are  hurt,  and  insist  that  they  were  put  up  to  it  by  some 
rascally  Abolitionist. 

I  am  quite  aware  that  they  do  not  state  their  case  precisely  in  this 
way.  Most  of  them  would  probably  say  to  us:  "Let  us  alone;  do 
nothing  to  us,  and  say  what  you  please  about  slavery."  But  we  do 
let  them  alone, — have  never  disturbed  them, — so  that,  after  all,  it  is 


ADDRESSES   AND    LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          629 

what  we  say  which  dissatisfies  them.  They  will  continue  to  accuse 
us  of  doing,  until  we  cease  saying. 

I  am  also  aware  that  they  have  not  as  yet  in  terms  demanded  the 
overthrow  of  our  free-State  constitutions.  Yet  those  constitutions 
declare  the  wrong  of  slavery  with  more  solemn  emphasis  than  do 
all  other  sayings  against  it  ;  and  when  all  these  other  sayings  shall 
have  been  silenced,  the  overthrow  of  these  constitutions  will  be  de 
manded,  and  nothing  be  left  to  resist  the  demand.  It  is  nothing  to 
the  contrary  that  they  do  not  demand  the  whole  of  this  just  now. 
Demanding  what  they  do,  and  for  the  reason  they  do,  they  can  vol 
untarily  stop  nowhere  short  of  this  consummation.  Holding  as  they 
do  that  slavery  is  morally  right  and  socially  elevating,  they  cannot 
cease  to  demand  a  full  national  recognition  of  it,  as  a  legal  right  and 
a  social  blessing. 

Nor  can  we  justifiably  withhold  this  on  any  ground  save  our  con 
viction  that  slavery  is  wrong.  If  slavery  is  right,  all  words,  acts, 
laws,  and  constitutions  against  it  are  themselves  wrong,  and  should 
be  silenced  and  swept  away.  If  it  is  right,  we  cannot  justly  object 
to  its  nationality — its  universality;  if  it  is  wrong,  they  cannot 
justly  insist  upon  its  extension — its  enlargement.  All  they  ask  we 
could  readily  grant,  if  we  thought  slavery  right;  all  we  ask  they 
could  as  readily  grant,  if  they  thought  it  wrong.  Their  thinking 
it  right,  and  our  thinking  it  wrong,  is  the  precise  fact  upon  which 
depends  the  whole  controversy.  Thinking  it  right,  as  they  do,  they 
are  not  to  blame  for  desiring  its  full  recognition  as  being  right ;  but 
thinking  it  wrong,  as  we  do,  can  we  yield  to  them  ?  Can  we  cast 
our  votes  with  their  view,  and  against  our  own  ?  In  view  of  our 
moral,  social,  and  political  responsibilities,  can  we  do  this  ? 

Wrong  as  we  think  slavery  is,  we  can  yet  afford  to  let  it  alone 
where  it  is,  because  that  much  is  due  to  the  necessity  arising  from 
its  actual  presence  in  the  nation ;  but  can  we,  while  our  votes  will 
prevent  it,  allow  it  to  spread  into  the  national  Territories  and  to  over 
run  us  here  in  these  free  States  ? 

If  our  sense  of  duty  forbids  this,  then  let  us  stand  by  our  duty  fear 
lessly  and  effectively.  Let  us  be  diverted  by  none  of  those  sophisti 
cal  contrivances  wherewith  we  are  so  industriously  plied  and  be 
labored — contrivances  such  as  groping  for  some  middle  ground 
between  the  right  and  the  wrong;  vain  as  the  search  for  a  man  who 
should  be  neither  a  living  man  nor  a  dead  man;  such  as  a  policy  of 
"  don't  care"  on  a  question  about  which  all  true  men  do  care ;  such 
as  Union  appeals  beseeching  true  Union  men  to  yield  to  Disunionists, 
reversing  the  divine  rule,  and  calling,  not  the  sinners,  but  the  right 
eous  to  repentance ;  such  as  invocations  to  Washington,  imploring 
men  to  unsay  what  Washington  did. 

Neither  let  us  be  slandered  from  our  duty  by  false  accusations 
against  us,  nor  frightened  from  it  by  menaces  of  destruction  to  the 
government,  nor  of  dungeons  to  ourselves.  Let  us  have  faith  that 
right  makes  might ;  and  in  that  faith  let  us  to  the  end  dare  to  do 
our  duty  as  we  understand  it. 


630          ADDEESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


March  9,  I860.— ABSTRACT  OF  SPEECH  AT  NORWICH,  CONNECTICUT. 

Whether  we  will  or  not,  the  question  of  slavery  is  the  question,  the 
all-absorbing  topic,  of  the  day.  It  is  true  that  all  of  us — and  by  that 
I  mean,  not  the  Republican  party  alone,  but  the  whole  American  peo 
ple,  here  and  elsewhere  —  all  of  us  wish  the  question  settled — wish  it 
out  of  the  way. 

It  stands  in  the  way  and  prevents  the  adjustment  and  the  giving 
of  necessary  attention  to  other  questions  of  national  housekeeping. 
The  people  of  the  whole  nation  agree  that  this  question  ought  to  be 
settled,  and  yet  it  is  not  settled.  And  the  reason  is  that  they  are  not 
yet  agreed  how  it  shall  be  settled. 

Again  and  again  it  has  been  fondly  hoped  that  it  was  settled,  but 
every  time  it  breaks  out  afresh  and  more  violently  than  ever.  It  was 
settled,  our  fathers  hoped,  by  the  Missouri  Compromise,  but  it  did  not 
stay  settled.  Then  the  compromise  of  1850  was  declared  to  be  a  full 
and  final  settlement  of  the  question.  The  two  great  parties,  each  in 
national  convention,  adopted  resolutions  declaring  that  the  settlement 
made  by  the  compromises  of  1850  was  a  finality — that  it  would  last 
forever.  Yet  how  long  before  it  was  unsettled  again?  It  broke  out 
again  in  1854,  and  blazed  higher  and  raged  more  furiously  than  ever 
before,  and  the  agitation  has  not  rested  since. 

These  repeated  settlements  must  have  some  fault  about  them. 
There  must  be  some  inadequacy  in  their  very  nature  to  the  purpose 
for  which  they  were  designed.  We  can  only  speculate  as  to  where 
that  fault — that  inadequacy  is,  but  we  may  perhaps  profit  by  past 
experience. 

_J  think  that  one  of  the  causes  of  these  repeated  failures  is  that  our 
best  and  greatest  men  have  greatly  underestimated  the  size  of  this 
question.  They  have  constantly  brought  forward  small  cures  for 
great  sores — plasters  too  small  to  cover  the  wound.  This  is  one  reason 
that  all  settlements  have  proved  so  temporary,  so  evanescent. 

Look  at  the  magnitude  of  this  subject.  About  one  sixth  of  the 
whole  population  of  the  United  States  are  slaves.  The  owners  of 
the  slaves  consider  them  property.  The  effect  upon  the  minds  of  the 
owners  is  that  of  property,  and  nothing  else — it  induces  them  to 
insist  upon  all  that  will  favorably  affect  its  value  as  property,  to  de 
mand  laws  and  institutions  and  a  public  policy  that  shall  increase 
and  secure  its  value,  and  make  it  durable,  lasting,  and  universal.  The 
effect  on  the  minds  of  the  owners  is  to  persuade  them  that  there  is  no 
wrong  in  it. 

But  here  in  Connecticut  and  at  the  North  slavery  does  not  exist, 
and  we  see  it  through  no  such  medium.  /To  us  it  appears  natural  to 
think  that  slaves  are  human  beings;  men,  not  property;  that  some 
of  the  things,  at  least,  stated  about  men  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  apply  to  them  as  well  as  to  us.  We  think  slavery  a  great 
moral  wrong  j  and  while  we  do  not  claim  the  right  to  touch  it  where 
it  exists,  we  wish  to  treat  it  as  a  wrong  in  the  Territories  where 
our  votes  will  reach  il.  1  Now  these  two  ideas,  the  property  idea  that 
slavery  is  right,  and  the  idea  that  it  is  wrong,  come  into  collision,  and 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          631 

do  actually  produce  that  irrepressible  conflict  which  Mr.  Seward  has 
been  so  roundly  abused  for  mentioning.  The  two  ideas  conflict,  and 
must  conflict. 

There  are  but  two  policies  in  regard  to  slavery  that  can  be  at  all 
maintained.  The  first,  based  upon  the  property  view  that  slavery 
is  right,  conforms  to  the  idea  throughout,  and  demands  that  we  shall 
do  everything  for  it  that  we  ought  to  do  if  it  were  right.  The  other 
policy  is  one  that  squares  with  the  idea  that  slavery  is  wrong,  and  it 
consists  in  doing  everything  that  we  ought  to  do  if  it  is  wrong.  I 
don't  mean  that  we  ought  to  attack  it  where  it  exists.  To  me  it 
seems  that  if  we  were  to  form  a  government  anew,  in  view  of  the 
actual  presence  of  slavery  we  should  find  it  necessary  to  frame  just 
such  a  government  as  our  fathers  did  —  giving  to  the  slaveholder 
the  entire  control  where  the  system  was  established,  while  we  pos 
sessed  the  power  to  restrain  it  from  going  outside  those  limits. 

Now  I  have  spoken  of  a  policy  based  upon  the  idea  that  slavery  is 
wrong,  and  a  policy  based  upon  the  idea  that  it  is  right.  But  an 
effort  has  been  made  for  a  policy  that  shall  treat  it  as  neither  right 
nor  wrong.  Its  central  idea  is  indifference.  It  holds  that  it  makes 
no  more  difference  to  me  whether  the  Territories  become  free  or 
slave  States  than  whether  my  neighbor  stocks  his  farm  with  horned 
cattle  or  puts  it  into  tobacco.  All  recognize  this  policy,  the  plausible, 
sugar-coated  name  of  which  is  "  popular  sovereignty." 

Mr.  Lincoln  showed  up  the  fallacy  of  this  policy  at  length,  and 
then  made  a  manly  vindication  of  the  principles  of  the  Republican 
party,  urging  the  necessity  of  the  union  of  all  elements  to  free  our 
country  from  its  present  rule,  and  closed  with  an  eloquent  exhorta 
tion  for  each  and  every  one  to  do  his  duty  without  regard  to  the 
sneers  and  slanders  of  our  political  opponents. 


March  16,  I860.—  LETTER  TO  . 

As  to  your  kind  wishes  for  myself,  allow  me  to  say  I  cannot  enter 
the  ring  on  the  money  basis  —  first,  because  in  the  main  it  is  wrong  • 
and  secondly,  I  have  not  and  cannot  get  the  money. 

I  say,  in  the  main,  the  use  of  money  is  wrong ;  but  for  certain  ob 
jects  in  a  political  contest,  the  use  of  some  is  both  right  and  indis 
pensable.  With  me,  as  with  yourself,  the  long  struggle  has  been  one 
of  great  pecuniary  loss. 

I  now  distinctly  say  this  —  if  you  shall  be  appointed  a  delegate  to 
Chicago,  I  will  furnish  one  hundred  dollars  to  bear  the  expenses  of 
the  trip.  Your  friend,  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

March  17,  1860. —  LETTER  TO  J.  W.  SOMERS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  March  17,  1860. 
JAMES  W.  SOMERS,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir :  Reaching  home  three  days  ago,  I  found  your  letter 
of  February  26th. 


632          ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM  LINCOLN 

Considering  your  difficulty  of  hearing,  I  think  you  had  better 
settle  in  Chicago,  if,  as  you  say,  a  good  man  already  in  fair  practice 
there  will  take  you  into  partnership.  If  you  had  not  that  difficulty, 
I  still  should  think  it  an  even  balance  whether  you  would  not  better 
remain  in  Chicago,  with  such  a  chance  for  a  copartnership. 

If  I  went  West,  I  think  I  would  go  to  Kansas, — to  Leavenworth 
or  Atchison.  Both  of  them  are,  and  will  continue  to  be,  fine  growing 
places. 

I  believe  I  have  said  all  I  can,  and  I  have  said  it  with  the  deepest 
interest  for  your  welfare.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


March  17,  1860. — LETTER  TO  E.  STAFFORD. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  March  17, 1860. 
E.  STAFFORD,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir :  Reaching  home  on  the  14th  instant,  I  found  yours  of  the 
1st.  Thanking  you  very  sincerely  for  your  kind  purposes  toward  me, 
I  am  compelled  to  say  the  money  part  of  the  arrangement  you  pro 
pose  is,  with  me,  an  impossibility.  I  could  not  raise  ten  thousand 
dollars  if  it  would  save  me  from  the  fate  of  John  Brown.  Nor  have 
my  friends,  so  far  as  I  know,  yet  reached  the  point  of  staking  any 
money  on  my  chances  of  success.  I  wish  I  could  tell  you  better 
things,  but  it  is  even  so.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


March  24,  1860. — LETTER  TO  SAMUEL  GALLOWAY. 

CHICAGO,  March  24,  1860. 
HON.  SAMUEL  GALLOWAY. 

My  dear  Sir :  I  am  here  attending  a  trial  in  court.  Before  leaving 
home  I  received  your  kind  letter  of  the  15th.  Of  course  I  am  grati 
fied  to  know  I  have  friends  in  Ohio  who  are  disposed  to  give  me  the 
highest  evidence  of  their  friendship  and  confidence.  Mr.  Parrott,  of 
the  legislature,  had  written  me  to  the  same  effect.  If  I  have  any 
chance,  it  consists  mainly  in  the  fact  that  the  whole  opposition  would 
vote  for  me,  if  nominated.  (I  don't  mean  to  include  the  pro-slavery 
opposition  of  the  South,  of  course.)  My  name  is  new  in  the  field, 
and  I  suppose  I  am  not  the  first  choice  of  a  very  great  many.  Out- 
policy,  then,  is  to  give  no  offense  to  others  —  leave  them  in  a  mood 
to  come  to  us  if  they  shall  be  compelled  to  give  up  their  first  love. 
This,  too,  is  dealing  justly  with  all,  and  leaving  us  in  a  mood  to  sup 
port  heartily  whoever  shall  be  nominated.  I  believe  I  have  once 
before  told  you  that  I  especially  wish  to  do  no  ungenerous  thing  to 
ward  Governor  Chase,  because  he  gave  us  his  sympathy  in  1858 
when  scarcely  any  other  distinguished  man  did.  Whatever  you  may 
do  for  me,  consistently  with  these  suggestions,  will  be  appreciated 
and  gratefully  remembered.  Please  write  me  again. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          633 

April  6,  I860.— LETTER  TO  C.  F.  MCNEIL. 

SPRINGFIELD.  April  6.  1860. 
C.  F.  MCNEIL,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir:  Beaching  home  yesterday,  I  found  yours  of  the  23d 
March,  inclosing  a  slip  from  "  The  Middleport  Press."  It  is  not 
true  that  I  ever  charged  anything  for  a  political  speech  in  my  life ; 
but  this  much  is  true :  Last  October  I  was  requested  by  letter  to 
deliver  some  sort  of  speech  in  Mr.  Beech  er's  church,  in  Brooklyn— 
two  hundred  dollars  being  offered  in  the  first  letter.  I  wrote  that 
I  could  do  it  in  February,  provided  they  would  take  a  political 
speech  if  I  could  find  time  to  get  up  no  other.  They  agreed  5  and 
subsequently  I  informed  them  the  speech  would  have  to  be  a  polit 
ical  one.  When  I  reached  New  York,  I  for  the  first  time  learned 
that  the  place  was  changed  to  "  Cooper  Institute."  I  made  the 
speech,  and  left  for  New  Hampshire,  where  I  have  a  son  at  school, 
neither  asking  for  pay,  nor  having  any  offered  me.  Three  days 
after  a  check  for  two  hundred  dollars  was  sent  to  me  at  New  Hamp 
shire;  and  I  took  it,  and  did  not  know  it  was  wrong.  My  under 
standing  now  is — though  I  knew  nothing  of  it  at  the  time — that 
they  did  charge  for  admittance  to  the  Cooper  Institute,  and  that  they 
took  in  more  than  twice  two  hundred  dollars. 

I  have  made  this  explanation  to  you  as  a  friend  j  but  I  wish  no 
explanation  made  to  our  enemies.  What  they  want  is  a  squabble 
and  a  fuss,  and  that  they  can  have  if  we  explain  5  and  they  cannot 
have  it  if  we  don't. 

When  I  returned  through  New  York  from  New  England,  I  was 
told  by  the  gentlemen  who  sent  me  the  check  that  a  drunken  vaga 
bond  in  the  club,  having  learned  something  about  the  two  hundred 
dollars,  made  the  exhibition  out  of  which  u  The  Herald "  manufac 
tured  the  article  quoted  by  "  The  Press  "  of  your  town. 

My  judgment  is,  and  therefore  my  request  is,  that  you  give  no 
denial  and  no  explanation. 

Thanking  you  for  your  kind  interest  in  the  matter,  I  remain, 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

April  14, 1860. — LETTER  TO  . 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  April  14,  1860. 

My  dear  Sir:  Reaching  home  last  night,  I  found  your  letter  of  the 
7th.  You  know  I  was  in  New  England.  Some  of  the  acquaintances 
I  made  while  there  write  to  me  since  the  election  that  the  close  vote 
in  Connecticut  and  the  quasi  defeat  in  Rhode  Island  are  a  drawback 
upon  the  prospects  of  Governor  Seward;  and  Trumbull  writes 
Dubois  to  the  same  effect.  Do  not  mention  this  as  coming  from  me. 
Both  those  States  are  safe  enough  for  us  in  the  fall.  I  see  by  the 
despatches  that^since  you  wrote  Kansas  has  appointed  delegates  and 
instructed  them  for  Seward.  Do  not  stir  them  up  to  anger,  but 
come  along  to  the  convention,  and  I  will  do  as  I  said  about  expenses. 

Yours  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 


634          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

May  12,  1860. —  LETTER  TO  EDWARD  WALLACE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  May  12,  1860. 
DR.  EDWARD  WALLACE. 

My  dear  Sir:  Your  brother,  Dr.  W.  S.  Wallace,  shows  me  a  letter 
of  yours  in  which  you  request  him  to  inquire  if  you  may  use  a  letter 
of  mine  to  you  in  which  something  is  said  upon  the  tariff  question. 
I  do  not  precisely  remember  what  I  did  say  in  that  letter,  but  I 
presume  I  said  nothing  substantially  different  from  what  I  shall 
say  now. 

In  the  days  of  Henry  Clay,  I  was  a  Henry-Clay-tariff  man,  and 
my  views  have  undergone  no  material  change  upon  that  subject.  I 
now  think  the  tariff  question  ought  not  to  be  agitated  in  the  Chicago 
convention,  but  that  all  should  be  satisfied  on  that  point  with  a 
presidential  candidate  whose  antecedents  give  assurance  that  he 
would  neither  seek  to  force  a  tariff  law  by  executive  influence,  nor 
yet  to  arrest  a  reasonable  one  by  a  veto  or  otherwise.  Just  such  a 
candidate  I  desire  shall  be  put  in  nomination.  I  really  have  no  ob 
jection  to  these  views  being  publicly  known,  but  I  do  wish  to  thrust 
no  letter  before  the  public  now  upon  any  subject.  Save  me  from 
the  appearance  of  obtrusion,  and  I  do  not  care  who  sees  this  or  my 
former  letter.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

May  19,  1860. — REPLY  TO  THE  COMMITTEE  SENT  BY  THE  CHICAGO 
CONVENTION  TO  INFORM  MR.  LINCOLN  OF  HIS  NOMINATION  FOR 
PRESIDENT. 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Committee :  I  tender  to  you, 
and  through  you  to  the  Republican  National  Convention,  and  all  the 
people  represented  in  it,  my  profoundest  thanks  for  the  high  honor 
done  me,  which  you  now  formally  announce.  Deeply  and  even  pain 
fully  sensible  of  the  great  responsibility  which  is  inseparable  from 
this  high  honor — a  responsibility  which  I  could  almost  wish  had 
fallen  upon  some  one  of  the  far  more  eminent  men  and  experienced 
statesmen  whose  distinguished  names  were  before  the  convention — 
I  shall,  by  your  leave,  consider  more  fully  the  resolutions  of  the  con 
vention,  denominated  the  platform,  and  without  any  unnecessary  or 
unreasonable  delay  respond  to  you,  Mr.  Chairman,  in  writing,  not 
doubting  that  the  platform  will  be  found  satisfactory,  and  the  nom 
ination  gratefully  accepted. 

And  now  I  will  not  longer  defer  the  pleasure  of  taking  you,  and 
each  of  you,  by  the  hand. 

May  21,  1860. — LETTER  TO  J.  R.  GIDDINGS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  May  21,  1860. 
HON.  J.  R.  GIDDINGS. 

My  good  Friend :  Your  very  kind  and  acceptable  letter  of  the  19th 
was  duly  handed  me  by  Mr.  Tuck.  It  is  indeed  most  grateful  to  my 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          635 

feelings  that  the  responsible  position  assigned  me  comes  without  con 
ditions,  save  only  such  honorable  ones  as  are  fairly  implied.  I  am  not 
wanting  in  the  purpose,  though  I  may  fail  in  the  strength,  to  main 
tain  my  freedom  from  bad  influences.  'Your  letter  comes  to  my  aid  in 
this  point  most  opportunely.  May  the  Almighty  grant  that  the  cause 
of  truth,  justice,  and  humanity  shall  in  no  wise  suffer  at  my  hands. 
Mrs.  Lincoln  joins  me  in  sincere  wishes  for  your  health,  happi 
ness,  and  long  life. 

A.  LINCOLN. 

May  23,  1860. — LETTER  TO  GEORGE  ASHMUN  AND  OTHERS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  May  23,  1860. 
HON.  GEORGE  ASHMUN, 

President  of  the  Republican  National  Convention. 

Sir:  I  accept  the  nomination  tendered  me  by  the  convention  over 
which  you  presided,  and  of  which  I  am  formally  apprised  in  the 
letter  of  yourself  and  others,  acting  as  a  committee  of  the  conven 
tion  for  that  purpose. 

The  declaration  of  principles  and  sentiments  which  accompanies 
your  letter  meets  my  approval;  and  it  shall  be  my  care  not  to  vio 
late  or  disregard  it  in  any  part. 

Imploring  the  assistance  of  Divine  Providence,  and  with  due  re 
gard  to  the  views  and  feelings  of  all  who  were  represented  in  the 
convention — to  the  rights  of  all  the  States  and  Territories  and 
people  of  the  nation  j  to  the  inviolability  of  the  Constitution ;  and 
the  perpetual  union,  harmony,  and  prosperity  of  all  —  I  am  most 
happy  to  cooperate  for  the  practical  success  of  the  principles  de 
clared  by  the  convention. 

Your  obliged  friend  and  fellow-citizen,          A.  LINCOLN. 


PLATFORM  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  NATIONAL  CONVENTION  HELD  IN 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS,  MAY  16-18,  1860. 

Resolved,  That  we,  the  delegated  representatives  of  the  Republican  electors 
of  the  United  States,  in  convention  assembled,  in  the  discharge  of  the 
duty  we  owe  to  our  constituents  and  our  country,  unite  in  the  following 
declarations : 

1.  That  the  history  of  the  nation  during  the  last  four  years  has  fully  es 
tablished  the  propriety  and  necessity  of  the  organization  and  perpetuation 
of  the  Republican  party  j  and  that  the  causes  which  called  it  into  existence 
are  permanent  in  their  nature,  and  now,  more  than  ever  before,  demand  its 
peaceful  and  constitutional  triumph. 

2.  That  the  maintenance  of  the  principles  promulgated  in  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  and  embodied  in  the  Federal  Constitution  is  essen 
tial  to  the  preservation  of  our  Republican  institutions,  and  that  the  Federal 
Constitution,  the  rights  of  the  States,  and  the  union  of  the  States,  must  and 
shall  be  preserved. 

3.  That  to  the  union  of  the  States  this  nation  owes  its  unprecedented 
increase  in  population,  its  surprising  development  of  material  resources, 
its  rapid  augmentation  of  wealth,  its  happiness  at  home,  and  its  honor 
abroad;  and  we  hold  in  abhorrence  all  schemes  for  disunion,  come  from 


636         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

whatever  source  they  may.  And  we  congratulate  the  country  that  no 
Republican  member  of  Congress  has  uttered  or  countenanced  the  threats 
of  disunion  so  often  made  by  Democratic  members  without  rebuke  and 
with  applause  from  their  political  associates;  and  we  denounce  those  threats 
of  disunion,  in  case  of  a  popular  overthrow  of  their  ascendancy,  as  deny 
ing  the  vital  principles  of  a  free  government,  and  as  an  avowal  of  contem 
plated  treason,  which  it  is  the  imperative  duty  of  an  indignant  people  sternly 
to  rebuke  and  forever  silence. 

4.  That  the   maintenance  inviolate  of  the  rights   of  the   States,   and 
especially  the  right  of  each  State  to  order  and  control  its  own  domestic 
institutions  according  to  its  own  judgment  exclusively,  is  essential  to  that 
balance  of  power  on  which  the  perfection  and  endurance  of  our  political 
fabric  depends ;  and  we  denounce  the  lawless  invasion  by  armed  force  of 
the  soil  of  any  State  or  Territory,  no  matter  under  what  pretext,  as  among 
the  gravest  of  crimes. 

5.  That  the  present  Democratic  administration  has   far  exceeded  our 
worst  apprehensions  in  its  measureless  subserviency  to  the  exactions  of  a 
sectional  interest,  as  especially  evinced  in  its  desperate  exertions  to  force 
the  infamous  Lecompton  constitution  upon  the  protesting  people  of  Kan 
sas;  in  construing  the  personal  relation  between  master  and  servant  to 
involve  an  unqualified  property  in  persons ;  in  its  attempted  enforcement 
everywhere,  on  land  and  sea,  through  the  intervention  of  Congress  and  of 
the  Federal  courts,  of  the  extreme  pretensions  of  a  purely  local  interest ; 
and  in  its  general  and  unvarying  abuse  of  the  power  intrusted  to  it  by  a 
confiding  people. 

6.  That  the  people  justly  view  with  alarm  the  reckless  extravagance 
which  pervades  every  department  of  the  Federal  Government ;  that  a  return 
to  rigid  economy  and  accountability  is  indispensable  to  arrest  the  syste 
matic  plunder  of  the  public  treasury  by  favored  partizans ;  while  the  recent 
startling  developments  of  frauds  and  corruptions  at  the  Federal  metropolis 
show  that  an  entire  change  of  administration  is  imperatively  demanded. 

7.  That  the  new  dogma  that  the  Constitution,  of  its  own  force,  carries 
slavery  into  any  or  all  of  the  Territories  of  the  United  States,  is  a  dangerous 
political  heresy,  at  variance  with  the  explicit  provisions  of  that  instrument 
itself,  with  contemporaneous  exposition,  and  with  legislative  and  judicial 
precedent;  is  revolutionary  in  its  tendency,  and  subversive  of  the  peace 
and  harmony  of  the  country. 

8.  That  the  normal  condition  of  all  the  territory  of  the  United  States  is 
that  of  freedom ;  that  as  our  Republican  fathers,  when  they  had  abolished 
slavery  in  all  our  national  territory,  ordained  that  "no  person  should  be 
deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property  without  due  process  of  law,"  it  be 
comes  our  duty,  by  legislation,  whenever  such  legislation  is  necessary,  to 
maintain  this  pro  vision  of  the  Constitution  against  all  attempts  to  violate  it ; 
and  we  deny  the  authority  of  Congress,  of  a  territorial  legislature,  or  of  any 
individuals,  to  give  legal  existence  to  slavery  in  any  Territory  of  the 
United  States. 

9.  That  we  brand  the  recent  reopening  of  the  African  slave-trade,  un 
der  the  cover  of  our  national  flag,  aided  by  perversions  of  judicial  power, 
as  a  crime  against  humanity  and  a  burning  shame  to  our  country  and  age ; 
and  we  call  upon  Congress  to  take  prompt  and  efficient  measures  for  the 
total  and  final  suppression  of  that  execrable  traffic. 

10.  That  in  the  recent  vetoes,  by  their  Federal  governors,  of  the  acts  of 
the  legislatures  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  prohibiting  slavery  in  those  Terri 
tories,  we  find  a  practical  illustration  of  the  boasted  Democratic  principle 
of  non-intervention  and  popular  sovereignty  embodied  in  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill,  and  a  demonstration  of  the  deception  and  fraud  involved 
therein. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          637 

11.  That  Kansas  should,  of  right,  be  immediately  admitted  as  a  State 
under  the  constitution  recently  formed  and  adopted  by  her  people,  and  ac 
cepted  by  the  House  of  Representatives. 

12.  That  while  providing  revenue  for  the  support  of  the  General  Govern 
ment  by  duties  upon  imports,  sound  policy  requires  such  an  adjustment  of 
these  imposts  as  to  encourage  the  development  of  the  industrial  interests  of 
the  whole  country;  and  we  commend  that  policy  of  national  exchanges 
which  secures  to  the  working-men  liberal  wages,  to  agriculture  remunerat 
ing  prices,  to  mechanics  and  manufacturers  an  adequate  reward  for  their 
skill,  labor,  and  enterprise,  and  to  the  nation  commercial  prosperity  and 
independence. 

13.  That  we  protest  against  any  sale  or  alienation  to  others  of  the  pub 
lic  lands  held  by  actual  settlers,  and  against  any  view  of  the  free-home 
stead  policy  which  regards  the  settlers  as  paupers  or  suppliants  for  public 
bounty;  and  we  demand  the  passage  by  Congress  of  the  complete  and  sat 
isfactory  homestead  measure  which  has  already  passed  the  House. 

14.  That  the  national  Republican  party  is  opposed  to  any  change  in  our 
naturalization  laws,  or  any  State  legislation  by  which  the  rights  of  citizen 
ship  hitherto  accorded  to  immigrants  from  foreign  lands  shall  be  abridged 
or  impaired;  and  in  favor  of  giving  a  full  and  efficient  protection  to  the 
rights  of  all  classes  of  citizens,  whether  native  or  naturalized,  both  at  home 
and  abroad. 

15.  That  appropriations  by  Congress  for  river  and  harbor  improvements 
of  a  national  character,  required  for  the  accommodation  and  security  of  an 
existing  commerce,  are  authorized  by  the  Constitution  and  justified  by  the 
obligation  of  government  to  protect  the  lives  and  property  of  its  citizens. 

16.  That  a  railroad  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  is  imperatively  demanded  by  the 
interests  of  the  whole  country;  that  the  Federal  Government  ought  to  ren 
der  immediate  and  efficient  aid  in  its  construction;  and  that,  as  preliminary 
thereto,  a  daily  overland  mail  should  be  promptly  established. 

17.  Finally,  having  thus  set  forth  our  distinctive  principles  and  views, 
we  invite  the  cooperation  of  all  citizens,  however  differing  on  other  ques 
tions,  who  substantially  agree  with  us  in  their  affirmance  and  support. 

May  26,  1860. —  LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  May  26,  1860. 
HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

My  dear  Sir:  I  have  several  letters  from  you  written  since  the 
nomination,  but  till  now  have  found  no  moment  to  say  a  word  by 
way  of  answer.  Of  course  I  am  glad  that  the  nomination  is  well  re 
ceived  by  our  friends,  and  I  sincerely  thank  you  for  so  informing 
me.  So  far  as  I  can  learn,  the  nominations  start  well  everywhere; 
and,  if  they  get  no  back-set,  it  would  seem  as  if  they  are  going 
through.  I  hope  you  will  write  often;  and  as  you  write  more  rap 
idly  than  I  do,  don't  make  your  letters  so  short  as  mine. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

May  26,  I860.— LETTER  TO  S.  P.  CHASE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  May  26, 1860. 
HON.  S.  P.  CHASE. 

My  dear  Sir:  It  gave  me  great  pleasure  to  receive  yours  mis 
takenly  dated  May  17.  Holding  myself  the  humblest  of  all  whose 


638          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

names  were  before  the  convention,  I  feel  in  especial  need  of  the  as 
sistance  of  all;  and  I  am  glad  —  very  glad  —  of  the  indication  that 
you  stand  ready.  It  is  a  great  consolation  that  so  nearly  all — all 
except  Mr.  Bates  and  Mr.  Clay,  I  believe —  of  those  distinguished  and 
able  men  are  already  in  high  position  to  do  service  in  the  common 
cause.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

[June  ?]  I860.— FORM  OF  REPLY  PREPARED  BY  MR.  LINCOLN,  WITH 
WHICH  HIS  PRIVATE  SECRETARY  WAS  INSTRUCTED  TO  ANSWER  A 
NUMEROUS  CLASS  OF  LETTERS  IN  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1860. 

(Doctrine.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS, ,  1860. 

Dear  Sir:    Your  letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln  of ,  and  by  which 

you  seek  to  obtain  his  opinions  on  certain  political  points,  has 
been  received  by  him.  He  has  received  others  of  a  similar  character, 
but  he  also  has  a  greater  number  of  the  exactly  opposite  character. 
The  latter  class  beseech  him  to  write  nothing  whatever  upon  any 
point  of  political  doctrine.  They  say  his  positions  were  well  known 
when  he  was  nominated,  and  that  he  must  not  now  embarrass  the 
canvass  by  undertaking  to  shift  or  modify  them.  He  regrets  that 
he  cannot  oblige  all,  but  you  perceive  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  do  so. 

Yours,  etc.,  JNO.  G.  NICOLAY. 


June  [1  ?],  1860. — SHORT  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  WRITTEN  AT  THE  REQUEST 
OF  A  FRIEND  TO  USE  IN  PREPARING  A  POPULAR  CAMPAIGN  BIOG 
RAPHY  IN  THE  ELECTION  OF  1860. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  February  12,  1809,  then  in  Hardin, 
now  in  the  more  recently  formed  county  of  La  Rue,  Kentucky.  His 
father,  Thomas,  and  grandfather,  Abraham,  were  born  in  Rocking- 
ham  County, Virginia,  whither  their  ancestors  had  come  from  Berks 
County,  Pennsylvania.  His  lineage  has  been  traced  no  farther  back 
than  this.  The  family  were  originally  Quakers,  though  in  later  times 
they  have  fallen  away  from  the  peculiar  habits  of  that  people.  The 
grandfather,  Abraham,  had  four  brothers  —  Isaac,  Jacob,  John,  and 
Thomas.  So  far  as  known,  the  descendants  of  Jacob  and  John  are 
still  in  Virginia.  Isaac  went  to  a  place  near  where  Virginia,  North 
Carolina,  and  Tennessee  join ;  and  his  descendants  are  in  that  re 
gion.  Thomas  came  to  Kentucky,  and  after  many  years  died  there, 
whence  his  descendants  went  to  Missouri.  Abraham,  grandfather  of 
the  subject  of  this  sketch,  came  to  Kentucky,  and  was  killed  by  In 
dians  about  the  year  1784.  He  left  a  widow,  three  sons,  and  two 
daughters.  The  eldest  son,  Mordecai,  remained  in  Kentucky  till  late 
in  life,  when  he  removed  to  Hancock  County,  Illinois,  where  soon 
after  he  died,  and  where  several  of  his  descendants  still  remain.  The 
second  son,  Josiah,  removed  at  an  early  day  to  a  place  on  Blue  River, 
now  within  Hancock  County,  Indiana,  but  no  recent  information  of 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN          639 

him  or  his  family  has  been  obtained.  The  eldest  sister,  Mary,  mar 
ried  Ralph  Grume,  and  some  of  her  descendants  are  now  known  to 
be  in  Breckenridge  County,  Kentucky.  The  second  sister,  Nancy, 
married  William  Brumfield,  and  her  family  are  not  known  to  have  left 
Kentucky,  but  there  is  no  recent  information  from  them.  Thomas, 
the  youngest  son,  and  father  of  the  present  subject,  by  the  early 
death  of  his  father,  and  very  narrow  circumstances  of  his  mother, 
even  in  childhood  was  a  wandering  laboring-boy,  and  grew  up  liter 
ally  without  education.  He  never  did  more  in  the  way  of  writing 
than  to  bunglingly  write  his  own  name.  Before  he  was  grown  he 
passed  one  year  as  a  hired  hand  with  his  uncle  Isaac  on  Watauga, 
a  branch  of  the  Holston  River.  Getting  back  into  Kentucky,  and 
having  reached  his  twenty-eighth  year,  he  married  Nancy  Hanks — 
mother  of  the  present  subject  —  in  the  year  1806.  She  also  was  born 
in  Virginia ;  and  relatives  of  hers  of  the  name  of  Hanks,  and  of 
other  names,  now  reside  in  Coles,  in  Macon,  and  in  Adams  counties, 
Illinois,  arid  also  in  Iowa.  The  present  subject  has  no  brother  or 
sister  of  the  whole  or  half  blood.  He  had  a  sister,  older  than  him 
self,  who  was  grown  and  married,  but  died  many  years  ago,  leaving 
no  child;  also  a  brother,  younger  than  himself,  who  died  in  infancy. 
Before  leaving  Kentucky,  he  and  his  sister  were  sent,  for  short 
periods,  to  A  B  C  schools,  the  first  kept  by  Zachariah  Riney,  and 
the  second  by  Caleb  Hazel. 

At  this  time  his  father  resided  on  Knob  Creek,  on  the  road  from 
Bardstown,  Kentucky,  to  Nashville,  Tennessee,  at  a  point  three  or 
three  and  a  half  miles  south  or  southwest  of  Atherton's  Ferry,  on  the 
Rolling  Fork.  From  this  place  he  removed  to  what  is  now  Spencer 
County,  Indiana,  in  the  autumn  of  1816,  Abraham  then  being  in 
his  eighth  year.  This  removal  was  partly  on  account  of  slavery, 
but  chiefly  on  account  of  the  difficulty  in  land  titles  in  Kentucky.  He 
settled  in  an  unbroken  forest,  and  the  clearing  away  of  surplus  wood 
was  the  great  task  ahead.  Abraham,  though  very  young,  was  large 
of  his  age,  and  had  an  ax  put  into  his  hands  at  once;  and  from  that 
till  within  his  twenty-third  year  he  was  almost  constantly  handling 
that  most  useful  instrument — less,  of  course,  in  plowing  and  har 
vesting  seasons.  At  this  place  Abraham  took  an  early  start  as  a 
hunter,  which  was  never  much  improved  afterward.  A  few  days 
before  the  completion  of  his  eighth  year,  in  the  absence  of  his  father, 
a  flock  of  wild  turkeys  approached  the  new  log  cabin,  and  Abraham 
with  a  rifle-gun,  standing  inside,  shot  through  a  crack  and  killed  one 
of  them.  He  has  never  since  pulled  a  trigger  on  any  larger  game. 
In  the  autumn  of  1818  his  mother  died;  and  a  year  afterward  his 
father  married  Mrs.  Sally  Johnston,  at  Elizabethtown,  Kentucky, 
a  widow  with  three  children  of  her  first  marriage.  She  proved  a 
good  and  kind  mother  to  Abraham,  and  is  still  living  in  Coles 
County,  Illinois.  There  were  no  children  of  this  second  marriage. 
His  father's  residence  continued  at  the  same  place  in  Indiana  till 
1830.  While  here  Abraham  went  to  A  B  C  schools  by  littles,  kept 

successively  by  Andrew  Crawford, Sweeney,  and  Azel  W.  Dor- 

sey.  He  does  not  remember  any  other.  The  family  of  Mr.  Dor- 
sey  now  resides  in  Schuyler  County,  Illinois.  Abraham  now  thinks 


640          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

that  the  aggregate  of  all  his  schooling  did  not  amount  to  one  year. 
He  was  never  in  a  college  or  academy  as  a  student,  and  never  inside 
of  a  college  or  academy  building  till  since  he  had  a  law  license. 
What  he  has  in  the  way  of  education  he  has  picked  up.  After 
he  was  twenty-three  and  had  separated  from  his  father,  he  studied 
English  grammar — imperfectly,  of  course,  but  so  as  to  speak  and 
write  as  well  as  he  now  does.  He  studied  and  nearly  mastered  the 
six  books  of  Euclid  since  he  was  a  member  of  Congress.  He  regrets 
his  want  of  education,  and  does  what  he  can  to  supply  the  want. 
In  his  tenth  year  he  was  kicked  by  a  horse,  and  apparently  killed 
for  a  time.  When  he  was  nineteen,  still  residing  in  Indiana,  he 
made  his  first  trip  upon  a  flatboat  to  New  Orleans.  He  was  a  hired 
hand  merely,  and  he  and  a  son  of  the  owner,  without  other  assis 
tance,  made  the  trip.  The  nature  of  part  of  the  "  cargo-load/'  as 
it  was  called,  made  it  necessary  for  them  to  linger  and  trade  along 
the  sugar-coast ;  and  one  night  they  were  attacked  by  seven  negroes 
with  intent  to  kill  and  rob  them.  They  were  hurt  some  in  the  melee, 
but  succeeded  in  driving  the  negroes  from  the  boat,  and  then  "  cut 
cable,"  "weighed  anchor,"  and  left. 

March  1,  1830,  Abraham  having  just  completed  his  twenty-first 
year,  his  father  and  family,  with  the  families  of  the  two  daughters 
and  sons-in-law  of  his  stepmother,  left  the  old  homestead  in  Indiana 
and  came  to  Illinois.  Their  mode  of  conveyance  was  wagons  drawn 
by  ox-teams,  and  Abraham  drove  one  of  the  teams.  They  reached 
the  county  of  Macon,  and  stopped  there  some  time  within  the  same 
month  of  March.  His  father  and  family  settled  a  new  place  on  the 
north  side  of  the  Sangamon  River,  at  the  junction  of  the  timber- 
land  and  prairie,  about  ten  miles  westerly  from  Decatur.  Here  they 
built  a  log  cabin,  into  which  they  removed,  and  made  sufficient  of  rails 
to  fence  ten  acres  of  ground,  fenced  and  broke  the  ground,  and 
raised  a  crop  of  sown  corn  upon  it  the  same  year.  These  are,  or  are 
supposed  to  be,  the  rails  about  which  so  much  is  being  said  just  now, 
though  these  are  far  from  being  the  first  or  only  rails  ever  made  by 
Abraham. 

The  sons-in-law  were  temporarily  settled  in  other  places  in  the 
county.  In  the  autumn  all  hands  were  greatly  afflicted  with  ague 
and  fever,  to  which  they  had  not  been  used,  and  by  which  they  were 
greatly  discouraged,  so  much  so  that  they  determined  on  leaving  the 
county.  They  remained,  however,  through  the  succeeding  winter, 
which  was  the  winter  of  the  very  celebrated  "  deep  snow"  of  Illinois. 
During  that  winter  Abraham,  together  with  his  stepmother's  son, 
John  D.  Johnston,  and  John  Hanks,  yet  residing  in  Macon  County, 
hired  themselves  to  Denton  Offutt  to  take  a  flatboat  from  Beardstown, 
Illinois,  to  New  Orleans ;  and  for  that  purpose  were  to  join  him — 
Offutt — at  Springfield,  Illinois,  so  soon  as  the  snow  should  go  off. 
When  it  did  go  off,  which  was  about  the  first  of  March,  1831,  the 
county  was  so  flooded  as  to  make  traveling  by  land  impracticable ; 
to  obviate  which  difficulty  they  purchased  a  large  canoe,  and  came 
down  the  Sangamon  River  in  it.  This  is  the  time  and  the  manner 
of  Abraham's  first  entrance  into  Sangamon  County.  They  found 
Offutt  at  Springfield,  but  learned  from  him  that  he  had  failed  in  get- 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          641 

ting  a  boat  at  Beardstown.  This  led  to  their  hiring  themselves  to 
him  for  twelve  dollars  per  month  each,  and  getting  the  timber  out 
of  the  trees  and  building  a  boat  at  Old  Sangamon  town  on  the  Sanga- 
mon  River,  seven  miles  northwest  of  Springfield,  which  boat  they  took 
to  New  Orleans,  substantially  upon  the  old  contract. 

During  this  boat-enterprise  acquaintance  with  Offutt,  who  was  pre 
viously  an  entire  stranger,  he  conceived  a  liking  for  Abraham,  and 
believing  he  could  turn  him  to  account,  he  contracted  with  him  to 
act  as  clerk  for  him,  on  his  return  from  New  Orleans,  in  charge  of 
a  store  and  mill  at  New  Salem,  then  in  Sangamon,  now  in  Menard 
County.  Hanks  had  not  gone  to  New  Orleans,  but  having  a  family, 
and  being  likely  to  be  detained  from  home  longer  than  at  first  ex 
pected,  had  turned  back  from  St.  Louis.  He  is  the  same  John  Hanks 
who  now  engineers  the  "rail  enterprise'7  at  Decatur,  and  is  a  first 
cousin  to  Abraham's  mother.  Abraham's  father,  with  his  own  family 
and  others  mentioned,  had,  in  pursuance  of  their  intention,  removed 
from  Macon  to  Coles  County.  John  D.  Johnston,  the  stepmother's  son, 
went  to  them,  and  Abraham  stopped  indefinitely  and  for  the  first  time, 
as  it  were,  by  himself  at  New  Salem,  before  mentioned.  This  was  in  July, 
1831.  Here  he  rapidly  made  acquaintances  and  friends.  In  less  than 
a  year  Offutt's  business  was  failing — had  almost  failed — when  the 
Black  Hawk  war  of  1832  broke  out.  Abraham  joined  a  volunteer 
company,  and,  to  his  own  surprise,  was  elected  captain  of  it.  He  says 
he  has  not  since  had  any  success  in  life  which  gave  him  so  much  sat 
isfaction.  He  went  to  the  campaign,  served  near  three  months,  met 
the  ordinary  hardships  of  such  an  expedition,  but  was  in  no  battle. 
He  now  owns,  in  Iowa,  the  land  upon  which  his  own  warrants  for  the 
service  were  located.  Returning  from  the  campaign,  and  encouraged 
by  his  great  popularity  among  his  immediate  neighbors,  he  the  same 
year  ran  for  the  legislature,  and  was  beaten, —  his  own  precinct,  how 
ever,  casting  its  votes  277  for  and  7  against  him — and  that,  too, 
while  he  was  an  avowed  Clay  man,  and  the  precinct  the  autumn 
afterward,  giving  a  majority  of  115  to  General  Jackson  over  Mr. 
Clay.  This  was  the  only  time  Abraham  was  ever  beaten  on  a  direct 
vote  of  the  people.  He  was  now  without  means  and  out  of  business, 
but  was  anxious  to  remain  with  his  friends  who  had  treated  him  with 
so  much  generosity,  especially  as  he  had  nothing  elsewhere  to  go  to. 
He  studied  what  he  should  do — thought  of  learning  the  blacksmith 
trade — thought  of  trying  to  study  law  —  rather  thought  he  could  not 
succeed  at  that  without  a  better  education.  Before  long,  strangely 
enough,  a  man  offered  to  sell,  and  did  sell,  to  Abraham  and  another 
as  poor  as  himself,  an  old  stock  of  goods,  upon  credit.  They  opened 
as  merchants ;  and  he  says  that  was  the  store.  Of  course  they  did 
nothing  but  get  deeper  and  deeper  in  debt.  He  was  appointed  post 
master  at  New  Salem — the  office  being  too  insignificant  to  make  his 
politics  an  objection.  The  store  winked  out.  The  surveyor  of  San 
gamon  offered  to  depute  to  Abraham  that  portion  of  his  work  which 
was  within  his  part  of  the  county.  He  accepted,  procured  a  compass 
and  chain,  studied  Flint  and  Gibson  a  little,  and  went  at  it.  This  pro 
cured  bread,  and  kept  soul  and  body  together.  The  election  of  1834 
came,  and  he  was  then  elected  to  the  legislature  by  the  highest  vote 
VOL.  L— 41. 


642          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

cast  for  any  candidate.  Major  John  T.  Stuart,  then  in  full  practice 
of  the  law,  was  also  elected.  During  the  canvass,  in  a  private  con 
versation  he  encouraged  Abraham  [to]  study  law.  After  the  election 
he  borrowed  books  of  Stuart,  took  them  home  with  him,  and  went 
at  it  in  good  earnest.  He  studied  with  nobody.  He  still  mixed  in 
the  surveying  to  pay  board  and  clothing  bills.  When  the  legislature 
met,  the  law-books  were  dropped,  but  were  taken  up  again  at  the  end 
of  the  session.  He  was  reflected  in  1836,  1838,  and  1840.  In  the 
autumn  of  1836  he  obtained  a  law  license,  and  on  April  15,  1837, 
removed  to  Springfield,  and  commenced  the  practice — his  old  friend 
Stuart  taking  him  into  partnership.  March  3,  1837,  by  a  protest 
entered  upon  the  "  Illinois  House  Journal "  of  that  date,  at  pages  817 
and  818,  Abraham,  with  Dan  Stone,  another  representative  of  Sanga- 
mon,  briefly  defined  his  position  on  the  slavery  question;  and  so  far 
as  it  goes,  it  was  then  the  same  that  it  is  now.  The  protest  is  as 
follows : 

Resolutions  upon  the  subject  of  domestic  slavery  having  passed  both 
branches  of  the  General  Assembly  at  its  present  session,  the  undersigned 
hereby  protest  against  the  passage  of  the  same. 

They  believe  that  the  institution  of  slavery  is  founded  on  both  injustice 
and  bad  policy,  but  that  the  promulgation  of  Abolition  doctrines  tends 
rather  to  increase  than  abate  its  evils. 

They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  has  no  power  under 
the  Constitution  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  different 
States. 

They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  has  the  power,  under 
the  Constitution,  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  but  that  the 
power  ought  not  to  be  exercised  unless  at  the  request  of  the  people  of  the 
District. 

The  difference  between  these  opinions  and  those  contained  in  the  above 
resolutions  is  their  reason  for  entering  this  protest. 

DAN  STONE, 
A.  LINCOLN, 
Representatives  from  the  County  of  Sangamon. 

In  1838  and  1840,  Mr.  Lincoln's  party  voted  for  him  as  Speaker, 
but  being  in  the  minority  he  was  not  elected.  After  1840  he  declined 
a  reelection  to  the  legislature.  He  was  on  the  Harrison  electoral 
ticket  in  1840,  and  on  that  of  Clay  in  1844,  and  spent  much  time  and 
labor  in  both  those  canvasses.  In  November,  1842,  he  was  married  to 
Mary,  daughter  of  Robert  S.  Todd,  of  Lexington,  Kentucky.  They 
have  three  living  children,  all  sons,  one  born  in  1843,  one  in  1850, 
and  one  in  1853.  They  lost  one,  who  was  born  in  1846. 

In  1846  he  was  elected  to  the  lower  House  of  Congress,  and  served 
one  term  only,  commencing  in  December,  1847,  and  ending  with  the 
inauguration  of  General  Taylor,  in  March,  1849.  All  the  battles  of 
the  Mexican  war  had  been  fought  before  Mr.  Lincoln  took  his  seat 
in  Congress,  but  the  American  army  was  still  in  Mexico,  and  the 
treaty  of  peace  was  not  fully-  and  formally  ratified  till  the  June 
afterward.  Much  has  been  said  of  his  course  in  Congress  in  regard 
to  this  war.  A  careful  examination  of  the  "  Journal"  and  "  Congres 
sional  Globe  "  shows  that  he  voted  for  all  the  supply  measures  that 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          643 

came  up,  and  for  all  the  measures  in  any  way  favorable  to  the  officers, 
soldiers,  and  their  families,  who  conducted  the  war  through :  with 
the  exception  that  some  of  these  measures  passed  without  yeas  and 
nays,  leaving  no  record  as  to  how  particular  men  voted.  The  "  Jour 
nal"  and  "  Globe"  also  show  him  voting  that  the  war  was  unneces 
sarily  and  unconstitutionally  begun  by  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  This  is  the  language  of  Mr.  Ashmun's  amendment,  for  which 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  nearly  or  quite  all  other  Whigs  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  voted. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  reasons  for  the  opinion  expressed  by  this  vote  were 
briefly  that  the  President  had  sent  General  Taylor  into  an  inhabited 
part  of  the  country  belonging  to  Mexico,  and  not  to  the  United 
States,  and  thereby  had  provoked  the  first  act  of  hostility,  in  fact 
the  commencement  of  the  war ;  that  the  place,  being  the  country 
bordering  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Rio  Grande,  was  inhabited  by 
native  Mexicans,  born  there  under  the  Mexican  government,  and 
had  never  submitted  to,  nor  been  conquered  by,  Texas  or  the  United 
States,  nor  transferred  to  either  by  treaty;  that  although  Texas 
claimed  the  Rio  Grande  as  her  boundary,  Mexico  had  never  recog 
nized  it,  and  neither  Texas  nor  the  United  States  had  ever  enforced 
it;  that  there  was  a  broad  desert  between  that  and  the  country 
over  which  Texas  had  actual  control ;  that  the  country  where  hos 
tilities  commenced,  having  once  belonged  to  Mexico,  must  remain 
so  until  it  was  somehow  legally  transferred,  which  had  never  been 
done. 

Mr.  Lincoln  thought  the  act  of  sending  an  armed  force  among  the 
Mexicans  was  unnecessary,  inasmuch  as  Mexico  was  in  no  way 
molesting  or  menacing  the  United  States  or  the  people  thereof;  and 
that  it  was  unconstitutional,  because  the  power  of  levying  war  is 
vested  in  Congress,  and  not  in  the  President.  He  thought  the 
principal  motive  for  the  act  was  to  divert  public  attention  from 
the  surrender  of  "  Fifty  -four,  forty,  or  fight"  to  Great  Britain,  on 
the  Oregon  boundary  question. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  a  candidate  for  reelection.  This  was  deter 
mined  upon  and  declared  before  he  went  to  Washington,  in  accor 
dance  with  an  understanding  among  Whig  friends,  by  which  Colonel 
Hardin  and  Colonel  Baker  had  each  previously  served  a  single  term 
in  this  same  district. 

In  1848,  during  his  term  in  Congress,  he  advocated  General  Tay 
lor's  nomination  for  the  presidency,  in  opposition  to  all  others,  and 
also  took  an  active  part  for  his  election  after  his  nomination,  speak 
ing  a  few  times  in  Maryland,  near  Washington,  several  times  in 
Massachusetts,  and  canvassing  quite  fully  his  own  district  in  Illinois, 
which  was  followed  by  a  majority  in  the  district  of  over  1500  for 
General  Taylor. 

Upon  his  return  from  Congress  he  went  to  the  practice  of  the  law 
with  greater  earnestness  than  ever  before.  In  1852  he  was  upon  the 
Scott  electoral  ticket,  and  did  something  in  the  way  of  canvassing, 
but  owing  to  the  hopelessness  of  the  cause  in  Illinois  he  did  less  than 
in  previous  presidential  canvasses. 

In  1854  his  profession  had  almost  superseded   the   thought  of 


644          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

politics  in  his  mind,  when  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
aroused  him  as  he  had  never  been  before. 

In  the  autumn  of  that  year  he  took  the  stump  with  no  broader 
practical  aim  or  object  than  to  secure,  if  possible,  the  reelection  of 
Hon.  Eichard  Yates  to  Congress.  His  speeches  at  once  attracted 
a  more  marked  attention  than  they  had  ever  before  done.  As  the 
canvass  proceeded  he  was  drawn  to  different  parts  of  the  State  out 
side  of  Mr.  Yates's  district.  He  did  not  abandon  the  law,  but  gave 
his  attention  by  turns  to  that  and  politics.  The  State  agricultural 
fair  was  at  Springfield  that  year,  and  Douglas  was  announced  to 
speak  there. 

In  the  canvass  of  1856  Mr.  Lincoln  made  over  fifty  speeches,  no  one 
of  which,  so  far  as  he  remembers,  was  put  in  print.  One  of  them  was 
made  at  Galena,  but  Mr.  Lincoln  has  no  recollection  of  any  part  of 
it  being  printed  ;  nor  does  he  remember  whether  in  that  speech  he 
said  anything  about  a  Supreme  Court  decision.  He  may  have  spoken 
upon  that  subject,  and  some  of  the  newspapers  may  have  reported 
him  as  saying  what  is  now  ascribed  to  him ;  but  he  thinks  he  could 
not  have  expressed  himself  as  represented. 


June  14,  1860. — AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL  MEMORANDUM  GIVEN  TO  THE 

ARTIST  HICKS. 

I  was  born  February  12,  1809,  in  then  Hardin  County,  Kentucky, 
at  a  point  within  the  now  county  of  La  Eue,  a  mile,  or  a  mile  and  a 
half,  from  where  Hodgen's  mill  now  is.  My  parents  being  dead,  and 
my  own  memory  not  serving,  I  know  no  means  of  identifying  the 
precise  locality.  It  was  on  Nolin  Creek. 

June  14,  1860.  A.  LINCOLN. 

June  28,  I860.— LETTER  TO  W.  C.  BRYANT. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  June  28,  1860. 
MR.  WM.  C.  BRYANT. 

My  dear  Sir :  Please  accept  my  thanks  for  the  honor  done  me  by 
your  letter  of  the  16th.  I  appreciate  the  danger  against  which  you 
would  guard  me,  nor  am  I  wanting  in  the  purpose  to  avoid  it.  I 
thank  you  for  the  additional  strength  your  words  give  me  to  main 
tain  that  purpose.  Your  friend  and  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

July  4, 1860. —  LETTER  TO  A.  Gr.  HENRY. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  July  4,  1860. 

My  dear  Doctor:  Your  very  agreeable  letter  of  May  15th  was 
received  three  days  ago.  We  are  just  now  receiving  the  first  sprink 
ling  of  your  Oregon  election  returns  —  not  enough,  I  think,  to  indi 
cate  the  result.  We  should  be  too  happy  if  both  Logan  and  Baker 
should  triumph. 

Long  before  this  you  have  learned  who  was  nominated  at  Chicago. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          645 

We  know  not  what  a  day  may  bring  forth,  but  to-day  it  looks  as  if 
the  Chicago  ticket  will  be  elected.  I  think  the  chances  were  more 
than  equal  that  we  could  have  beaten  the  Democracy  united.  Di 
vided  as  it  is,  its  chance  appears  indeed  very  slim.  But  great  is  De 
mocracy  in  resources;  and  it  may  yet  give  its  fortunes  a  turn.  It  is 
under  great  temptation  to  do  something;  but  what  can  it  do  which 
was  not  thought  of,  and  found  impracticable,  at  Charleston  and  Bal 
timore?  The  signs  now  are  that  Douglas  and  Breckinridge  will  each 
have  a  ticket  in  every  State.  They  are  driven  to  this  to  keep  up  their 
bombastic  claims  of  nationality,  and  to  avoid  the  charge  of  section 
alism  which  they  have  so  much  lavished  upon  us. 

It  is  an  amusing  fact,  after  all  Douglas  has  said  about  nationality 
and  sectionalism,  that  I  had  more  votes  from  the  southern  section  at 
Chicago  than  he  had  at  Baltimore  !  In  fact,  there  was  more  of  the 
southern  section  represented  at  Chicago  than  in  the  Douglas  rump 
concern  at  Baltimore ! 

Our  boy,  in  his  tenth  year  (the  baby  when  you  left),  has  just  had 
a  hard  and  tedious  spell  of  scarlet  fever,  and  he  is  not  yet  beyond  all 
danger.  I  have  a  headache  and  a  sore  throat  upon  me  now,  inducing 
me  to  suspect  that  I  have  an  inferior  type  of  the  same  thing. 

Our  eldest  boy,  Bob,  has  been  away  from  us  nearly  a  year  at 
school,  and  will  enter  Harvard  University  this  month.  He  promises 
very  well,  considering  we  never  controlled  him  much.  Write  again 
when  you  receive  this.  Mary  joins  in  sending  our  kindest  regards 
to  Mrs.  H.,  yourself,  and  all  the  family. 

Your  friend,  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 


July  18,  1860. — LETTER  TO  HANNIBAL  HAMLIN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  July  18,  1860. 
HON.  HANNIBAL  HAMLIN. 

My  dear  Sir:  It  appears  to  me  that  you  and  I  ought  to  be  ac 
quainted,  and  accordingly  I  write  this  as  a  sort  of  introduction  of 
myself  to  you.  You  first  entered  the  Senate  during  the  single  term 
I  was  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  but  I  have  no  rec 
ollection  that  we  were  introduced.  I  shall  be  pleased  to  receive  a 
line  from  you. 

The  prospect  of  Republican  success  now  appears  very  flattering, 
so  far  as  I  can  perceive.  Do  you  see  anything  to  the  contrary  ? 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


July  20,  I860.— LETTER  TO  C.  M.  CLAY. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  July  20,  1860. 
HON.  CASSIUS  M.  CLAY. 

My  dear  Sir :  I  see  by  the  papers,  and  also  learn  from  Mr.  Nico- 
lay,  who  saw  you  at  Terre  Haute,  that  you  are  filling  a  list  of  speak 
ing-appointments  in  Indiana.  I  sincerely  thank  you  for  this,  and  I 


646          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

shall  be  still  further  obliged  if  you  will,  at  the  close  of  the  tour,  drop 
me  a  line  giving  your  impressions  of  our  prospects  in  that  State. 

Still  more  will  you  oblige  me  if  you  will  allow  me  to  make  a  list 
of  appointments  in  our  State,  commencing,  say,  at  Marshall,  in  Clark 
County,  and  thence  south  and  west  along  over  the  W abash  and 
Ohio  River  border. 

In  passing  let  me  say  that  at  Rockport  you  will  be  in  the  county 
within  which  I  was  brought  up  from  my  eighth  year,  having  left 
Kentucky  at  that  point  of  my  life. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

July  21,  1860. — LETTER  TO  A.  JONAS. 
(Confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  July  21,  1860. 
HON.  A.  JONAS. 

My  dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  20th  is  received.  I  suppose  as  good 
or  even  better  men  than  I  may  have  been  in  American  or  Know- 
nothing  lodges  j  but,  in  point  of  fact,  I  never  was  in  one  at  Quincy 
or  elsewhere.  I  was  never  in  Quincy  but  one  day  and  two  nights 
while  Know-nothing  lodges  were  in  existence,  and  you  were  with  me 
that  day  and  both  those  nights.  I  had  never  been  there  before  in 
my  life,  and  never  afterward,  till  the  joint  debate  with  Douglas  in 
1858.  It  was  in  1854  when  I  spoke  in  some  hall  there,  and  after  the 
speaking,  you,  with  others,  took  me  to  an  oyster-saloon,  passed  an 
hour  there,  and  you  walked  with  me  to,  and  parted  with  me  at,  the 
Quincy  House,  quite  late  at  night.  I  left  by  stage  for  Naples  before 
daylight  in  the  morning,  having  come  in  by  the  same  route  after 
dark  the  evening  previous  to  the  speaking,  when  I  found  you  wait 
ing  at  the  Quincy  House  to  meet  me.  A  few  days  after  I  was  there, 
Richardson,  as  I  understood,  started  this  same  story  about  my  having 
been  in  a  Know-nothing  lodge.  When  I  heard  of  the  charge,  as  I 
did  soon  after,  I  taxed  my  recollection  for  some  incident  which  could 
have  suggested  it;  and  I  remembered  that  on  parting  with  you  the 
last  night,  I  went  to  the  office  of  the  hotel  to  take  my  stage-passage 
for  the  morning,  was  told  that  no  stage-office  for  that  line  was  kept 
there,  and  that  I  must  see  the  driver  before  retiring,  to  insure  his 
calling  for  me  in  the  morning ;  and  a  servant  was  sent  with  me  to 
find  the  driver,  who,  after  taking  me  a  square  or  two,  stopped  me, 
and  stepped  perhaps  a  dozen  steps  farther,  and  in  my  hearing  called 
to  some  one,  who  answered  him,  apparently  from  the  upper  part  of  a 
building,  and  promised  to  call  with  the  stage  for  me  at  the  Quincy 
House.  I  returned,  and  went  to  bed,  and  before  day  the  stage  called 
and  took  me.  This  is  all. 

That  I  never  was  in  a  Know-nothing  lodge  in  Quincy,  I  should 
expect  could  be  easily  proved  by  respectable  men  who  were  always 
in  the  lodges  and  never  saw  me  there.  An  affidavit  of  one  or  two 
such  would  put  the  matter  at  rest. 

And  now  a  word  of  caution.  Our  adversaries  think  they  can 
gain  a  point  if  they  could  force  me  to  openly  deny  the  charge,  by 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          647 

which  some  degree  of  offense  would  be  given  to  the  Americans. 
For  this  reason  it  must  not  publicly  appear  that  I  am  paying  any 
attention  to  the  charge.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

August  10,  I860.— LETTER  TO  C.  M.  CLAY. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  August  10,  1860. 
HON.  C.  M.  CLAY. 

My  dear  Sir :  Your  very  kind  letter  of  the  6th  was  received  yester 
day.  It  so  happened  that  our  State  Central  Committee  was  in  session 
here  at  the  time  5  and,  thinking  it  proper  to  do  so,  I  submitted  the 
letter  to  them.  They  were  delighted  with  the  assurance  of  having 
your  assistance.  For  what  appear  good  reasons,  they,  however, 
propose  a  change  in  the  program,  starting  you  at  the  same  place 
(Marshall  in  Clark  County),  and  thence  northward.  This  change,  I 
suppose,  will  be  agreeable  to  you,  as  it  will  give  you  larger  audiences, 
and  much  easier  travel — nearly  all  being  by  railroad.  They  will  be 
governed  by  your  time,  and  when  they  shall  have  fully  designated 
the  places,  you  will  be  duly  notified. 

As  to  the  inaugural,  I  have  not  yet  commenced  getting  it  up ; 
while  it  affords  me  great  pleasure  to  be  able  to  say  the  cliques  have 
not  yet  commenced  upon  me.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

August  14,  1860. —  LETTER  TO  T.  A.  CHENEY. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  August  14,  1860. 
T.  A.  CHENEY,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  10th  is  received,  and  for  which  I  thank 
you.  I  would  cheerfully  answer  your  questions  in  regard  to  the 
fugitive-slave  law  were  it  not  that  I  consider  it  would  be  both  im 
prudent  and  contrary  to  the  reasonable  expectation  of  my  friends 
for  me  to  write  or  speak  anything  upon  doctrinal  points  now.  Be 
sides  this,  my  published  speeches  contain  nearly  all  I  could  willingly 
say.  Justice  and  fairness  to  all,  is  the  utmost  I  have  said,  or  will  say. 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

August  14,  I860.— REMARKS  AT  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS. 

My  Fellow-citizens :  I  appear  among  you  upon  this  occasion  with 
no  intention  of  making  a  speech. 

It  has  been  my  purpose  since  I  have  been  placed  in  my  present 
position  to  make'  no  speeches.  This  assemblage  having  been  drawn 
together  at  the  place  of  my  residence,  it  appeared  to  be  the  wish  of 
those  constituting  this  vast  assembly  to  see  me ;  and  it  is  certainly 
my  wish  to  see  all  of  you.  I  appear  upon  the  ground  here  at  this 
time  only  for  the  purpose  of  affording  myself  the  best  opportunity 
of  seeing  you,  and  enabling  you  to  see  me. 

I  confess  with  gratitude,  be  it  understood,  that  I  did  not  suppose 
my  appearance  among  you  would  create  the  tumult  which  I  now 


648          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

witness.  I  am  profoundly  grateful  for  this  manifestation  of  your 
feelings.  I  am  grateful,  because  it  is  a  tribute  such  as  can  be  paid 
to  no  man  as  a  man :  it  is  the  evidence  that  four  years  from  this 
time  you  will  give  a  like  manifestation  to  the  next  man  who  is  the 
representative  of  the  truth  on  the  questions  that  now  agitate  the 
public  j  and  it  is  because  you  will  then  fight  for  this  cause  as  you 
do  now,  or  with  even  greater  ardor  than  now,  though  I  be  dead  and 
gone,  that  I  most  profoundly  and  sincerely  thank  you. 

Having  said  this  much,  allow  me  now  to  say  that  it  is  my  wish  that 
you  will  hear  this  public  discussion  by  others  of  our  friends  who  are 
present  for  the  purpose  of  addressing  you,  and  that  you  will  kindly 
let  me  be  silent. 


August  15,  1860. —  LETTER  TO  JOHN  B.  FRY. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  August  15, 1860. 

My  dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  9th,  inclosing  the  letter  of  Hon.  John 
Minor  Botts,  was  duly  received.  The  latter  is  herewith  returned  ac 
cording  to  your  request.  It  contains  one  of  the  many  assurances  I 
receive  from  the  South,  that  in  no  probable  event  will  there  be  any 
very  formidable  effort  to  break  up  the  Union.  The  people  of  the 
South  have  too  much  of  good  sense  and  good  temper  to  attempt  the 
ruin  of  the  government  rather  than  see  it  administered  as  it  was 
administered  by  the  men  who  made  it.  At  least  so  I  hope  and 
believe.  I  thank  you  both  for  your  own  letter  and  a  sight  of  that  of 
Mr.  Botts.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

JOHN  B.  FRY,  Esq. 

August  17,  1860. — LETTER  TO  THURLOW  WEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  August  17,  1860. 

My  dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  13th  was  received  this  morning.  Doug 
las  is  managing  the  Bell  element  with  great  adroitness.  He  has  his 
men  in  Kentucky  to  vote  for  the  Bell  candidate,  producing  a  result 
which  has  badly  alarmed  and  damaged  Breckinridge,  and  at  the 
same  time  has  induced  the  Bell  men  to  suppose  that  Bell  will  cer 
tainly  be  President  if  they  can  keep  a  few  of  the  Northern  States 
away  from  us  by  throwing  them  to  Douglas.  But  you,  better  than 
I,  understand  all  this. 

I  think  there  will  be  the  most  extraordinary  effort  ever  made  to 
carry  New  York  for  Douglas.  You  and  all  others  who  write  me 
from  your  State  think  the  effort  cannot  succeed,  and  I  hope  you  are 
right.  Still  it  will  require  close  watching  and  great  efforts  on  the 
other  side. 

Herewith  I  send  you  a  copy  of  a  letter  written  at  New  York, 
which  sufficiently  explains  itself,  and  which  may  or  may  not  give 
you  a  valuable  hint.  You  have  seen  that  Bell  tickets  have  been  put 
on  the  track  both  here  and  in  Indiana.  In  both  cases  the  object  has 
been,  I  think,  the  same  as  the  Hunt  movement  in  New  York — to 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          649 

throw  States  to  Douglas.  In  our  State  we  know  the  thing  is  en 
gineered  by  Douglas  men,  and  we  do  not  believe  they  can  make  a 
great  deal  out  of  it.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


August  27,  I860.— LETTER  TO  C.  H.  FISHER. 
(APPARENTLY  UNFINISHED.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  August  27,  1860. 
C.  H.  FISHER. 

Dear  Sir:  Your  second  note,  inclosing  the  supposed  speech  of 
Mr.  Dallas  to  Lord  Brougham,  is  received.  I  have  read  the  speech 
quite  through,  together  with  the  real  author's  introductory  and 
closing  remarks.  I  have  also  looked  through  the  long  preface  of 
the  book  to-day.  Both  seem  to  be  well  written,  and  contain  many 
things  with  which  I  could  agree,  and  some  with  which  I  could  not. 
A  specimen  of  the  latter  is  the  declaration,  in  the  closing  remarks 
upon  the  "  speech,"  that  the  institution  is  a  "  necessity  "  imposed  on 
us  by  the  negro  race.  That  the  going  many  thousand  miles,  seizing 
a  set  of  savages,  bringing  them  here,  and  making  slaves  of  them  is 
a  necessity  imposed  on  us  by  them  involves  a  species  of  logic  to 
which  my  mind  will  scarcely  assent. 


September  4,  1860. — LETTER  TO  HANNIBAL  HAMLIN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  September  4,  1860. 
HON.  HANNIBAL  HAMLIN. 

My  dear  Sir :  I  am  annoyed  some  by  a  letter  from  a  friend  in 
Chicago,  in  which  the  following  passage  occurs :  "  Hamlin  has 
written  Colfax  that  two  members  of  Congress  will,  he  fears,  be  lost 
in  Maine — the  first  and  sixth  districts;  and  that  Washburne's  ma 
jority  for  governor  will  not  exceed  six  thousand." 

I  had  heard  something  like  this  six  weeks  ago,  but  had  been  as 
sured  since  that  it  was  not  so.  Your  secretary  of  state, — Mr.  Smith, 
I  think, — whom  you  introduced  to  me  by  letter,  gave  this  assur 
ance  ;  more  recently,  Mr.  Fessenden,  our  candidate  for  Congress  in 
one  of  those  districts,  wrote  a  relative  here  that  his  election  was  sure 
by  at  least  five  thousand,  and  that  Washburne's  majority  would  be 
from  14,000  to  17,000  ;  and  still  later,  Mr.  Fogg,  of  New  Hampshire, 
now  at  New  York  serving  on  a  national  committee,  wrote  me  that 
we  were  having  a  desperate  fight  in  Maine,  which  would  end  in  a 
splendid  victory  for  us. 

Such  a  result  as  you  seem  to  have  predicted  in  Maine,  in  your  let 
ter  to  Colfax,  would,  I  fear,  put  us  on  the  down-hill  track*,  lose  us 
the  State  elections  in  Pennsylvania  and  Indiana,  and  probably  ruin 
us  on  the  main  turn  in  November. 

You  must  not  allow  it.  Yours  very  truly,        A.  LINCOLN. 


650          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

September  9,  1860. — LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  September  9,  1860. 
HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

My  dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  5th  was  received  last  evening.  I  was 
right  glad  to  see  it.  It  contains  the  freshest "  posting  "  which  I  now 
have.  It  relieved  me  some  from  a  little  anxiety  I  had  about  Maine. 
Jo  Medill,  on  August  30th,  wrote  me  that  Colfax  had  a  letter  from 
Mr.  Hamlin  saying  we  were  in  great  danger  of  losing  two  members  of 
Congress  in  Maine,  and  that  your  brother  would  not  have  exceeding 
six  thousand  majority  for  governor.  I  addressed  you  at  once,  at 
Galena,  asking  for  your  latest  information.  As  you  are  at  Washing 
ton,  that  letter  you  will  receive  some  time  after  the  Maine  election. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

September  21,  1860. — LETTER  TO  JOHN  CHRISMAN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  September  21, 1860. 
JOHN  CHRISMAN,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  13th  was  duly  received.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  you  and  I  are  related.  My  grandfather's  Christian  name 
was  tf  Abraham."  He  had  four  brothers — Isaac,  Jacob,  John,  and 
Thomas.  They  were  born  in  Pennsylvania,  and  my  grandfather, 
and  some,  if  not  all,  the  others,  in  early  life  removed  to  Rockingham 
County,  Virginia.  There  my  father — named  Thomas  —  was  born. 
From  there  my  grandfather  removed  to  Kentucky,  and  was  killed  by 
the  Indians  about  the  year  1784.  His  brother  Thomas,  who  was  my 
father's  uncle,  also  removed  to  Kentucky — to  Fayette  County,  I  think 
— where,  as  I  understand,  he  lived  and  died,  f  close  by  repeating  I 
have  no  doubt  you  and  I  are  related. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

September  22,  1860. — LETTER  TO  A.  G.  HENRY. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  September  22,  1860. 

Dear  Doctor :  Yours  of  July  18th  was  received  some  time  ago. 
When  you  wrote  you  had  not  learned  the  result  of  the  Democratic 
conventions  at  Charleston  and  Baltimore.  With  the  two  tickets  in 
the  field  I  should  think  it  possible  for  our  friends  to  carry  Oregon. 
But  the  general  result,  I  think,  does  not  depend  upon  Oregon.  No 
one  this  side  of  the  mountains  pretends  that  any  ticket  can  be  elected 
by  the  people,  unless  it  be  ours.  Hence  great  efforts  to  combine 
against  us  are  being  made,  which,  however,  as  yet  have  not  had  much 
success.  Besides  what  we  see  in  the  newspapers,  I  have  a  good  deal 
of  private  correspondence ;  and  without  giving  details,  I  will  only 
say  it  all  looks  very  favorable  to  our  success. 

Make  my  best  respects  to  Mrs.  Henry  and  the  rest  of  your  family. 
Your  friend,  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN          651 


September  22,  I860.— LETTER  TO  G.  Y.  TAMS. 
(Private  and  confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  September  22,  1860. 
G.  YOKE  TAMS,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir :  Your  letter  asking  me  "Are  you  in  favor  of  a  tariff 
and  protection  to  American  industry?  "  is  received.  The  convention 
which  nominated  me,  by  the  twelfth  plank  of  their  platform,  selected 
their  position  on  this  question ;  and  I  have  declared  my  approval  of 
the  platform,  and  accepted  the  nomination.  Now,  if  I  were  to  pub 
licly  shift  the  position  by  adding  or  subtracting  anything,  the  con 
vention  would  have  the  right,  and  probably  would  be  inclined,  to 
displace  me  as  their  candidate.  And  I  feel  confident  that  you,  on  re 
flection,  would  not  wish  me  to  give  private  assurances  to  be  seen  by 
some  and  kept  secret  from  others.  I  enjoin  that  this  shall  by  no 
means  be  made  public.  Yours  respectfully, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


September  25,  1860. — LETTER  TO  J.  M.  BROCKMAN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  September  25,  1860. 
J.  M.  BROCKMAN,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  24th,  asking  "  the  best  mode  of  obtaining 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  law,"  is  received.  The  mode  is  very 
simple,  though  laborious  and  tedious.  It  is  only  to  get  the  books 
and  read  and  study  them  carefully.  Begin  with  Blackstone's  "  Com 
mentaries,"  and  after  reading  it  carefully  through,  say  twice, 
take  up  Chitty's  "  Pleadings,"  Greenleaf  's  "  Evidence,"  and  Story's 
"  Equity,"  etc.,  in  succession.  Work,  work,  work,  is  the  main  thing. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


October  1,  1860. —  LETTER  TO  J.  H.  REED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  October  1,  1860. 
J.  H.  REED,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir:  Yours  of  September  21st  was  received  some  time  ago, 
but  I  could  not  till  now  find  time  to  answer  it.  I  never  was  in  Mc- 
Donough  County  till  1858.  I  never  said  anything  derogatory  of  Mr. 
Jefferson  in  McDonough  County  or  elsewhere.  About  three  weeks 
ago,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life  did  I  ever  see  or  hear  the  language 
attributed  to  me  as  having  been  used  toward  Mr.  Jefferson;  and 
then  it  was  sent  to  me,  as  you  now  send,  in  order  that  I  might  say 
whether  it  came  from  me.  I  never  used  any  such  language  at  any 
time.  You  may  rely  on  the  truth  of  this,  although  it  is  my  wish  that 
you  do  not  publish  it.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


652          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


October  19,  1860. —  LETTER  TO  Miss  GRACE  BEDELL. 
(Private.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  October  19, 1860. 
Miss  GRACE  BEDELL. 

My  dear  little  Miss :  Your  very  agreeable  letter  of  the  15th  is  re 
ceived.  I  regret  the  necessity  of  saying  I  have  no  daughter.  I  have 
three  sons  —  one  seventeen,  one  nine,  and  one  seven  years  of  age. 
They,  with  their  mother,  constitute  my  whole  family.  As  to  the 
whiskers,  having  never  worn  any,  do  you  not  think  people  would 
call  it  a  piece  of  silly  affectation  if  I  were  to  begin  it  now? 

Your  very  sincere  well-wisher,  A.  LINCOLN. 

October  23,  I860.— LETTER  TO  W.  S.  SPEER. 
(Confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  October  23, 1860. 
WILLIAM  S.  SPEER,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  13th  was  duly  received.  I  appreciate 
your  motive  when  you  suggest  the  propriety  of  my  writing  for  the 
public  something  disclaiming  all  intention  to  interfere  with  slaves  or 
slavery  in  the  States ;  but  in  my  judgment  it  would  do  no  good.  I 
have  already  done  this  many,  many  times;  and  it  is  in  print,  and 
open  to  all  who  will  read.  Those  who  will  not  read  or  heed  what  I 
have  already  publicly  said  would  not  read  or  heed  a  repetition  of  it. 
u  If  they  hear  not  Moses  and  the  prophets,  neither  will  they  be  per 
suaded  though  one  rose  from  the  dead." 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

October  29,  1860. —  LETTER  TO  G.  D.  PRENTICE. 
(Private  and  confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  October  29,  1860. 
GEORGE  D.  PRENTICE,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  26th  is  just  received.  Your  suggestion 
that  I  in  a  certain  event  shall  write  a  letter  setting  forth  my  conser 
vative  views  and  intentions  is  certainly  a  very  worthy  one.  But 
would  it  do  any  good?  If  I  were  to  labor  a  month  I  could  not 
express  my  conservative  views  and  intentions  more  clearly  and 
strongly  than  they  are  expressed  in  our  platform  and  in  my  many 
speeches  already  in  print  and  before  the  public.  And  yet  even  you, 
who  do  occasionally  speak  of  me  in  terms  of  personal  kindness,  give 
no  prominence  to  these  oft-repeated  expressions  of  conservative  views 
and  intentions,  but  busy  yourself  with  appeals  to  all  conservative  men 
to  vote  for  Douglas, — to  vote  any  way  which  can  possibly  defeat  me, — 
thus  impressing  your  readers  that  you  think  I  am  the  very  worst  man 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          653 

living.  If  what  I  have  already  said  has  failed  to  convince  you,  no 
repetition  of  it  would  convince  you.  The  writing  of  your  letter,  now 
before  me,  gives  assurance  that  you  would  publish  such  a  letter  from 
me  as  you  suggest;  but,  till  now,  what  reason  had  I  to  suppose  the 
"  Louisville  Journal,"  even,  would  publish  a  repetition  of  that  which 
is  already  at  its  command,  and  which  it  does  not  press  upon  the  pub 
lic  attention  ? 

And  now,  my  friend, — for  such  I  esteem  you  personally, — do  not 
misunderstand  me.  I  have  not  decided  that  I  will  not  do  substan 
tially  what  you  suggest.  I  will  not  forbear  from  doing  so  merely  on 
punctilio  and  pluck.  If  I  do  finally  abstain,  it  will  be  because  of  ap 
prehension  that  it  would  do  harm.  For  the  good  men  of  the  South — 
and  I  regard  the  majority  of  them  as  such — I  have  no  objection  to 
repeat  seventy  and  seven  times.  But  I  have  bad  men  to  deal  with, 
both  North  and  South;  men  who  are  eager  for  something  new  upon 
which  to  base  new  misrepresentations ;  men  who  would  like  to 
frighten  me,  or  at  least  to  fix  upon  me  the  character  of  timidity  and 
cowardice.  They  would  seize  upon  almost  any  letter  I  could  write  as 
being  an  "awful  coming  down."  I  intend  keeping  my  eye  upon 
these  gentlemen,  and  to  not  unnecessarily  put  any  weapons  in  their 
hands.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

[The  following  indorsement  appears  on  the  back :] 

(Confidential.) 

The  within  letter  was  written  on  the  dav  of  its  date,  and  on  reflec 
tion  withheld  till  now.  It  expresses  the  views  I  still  entertain. 

A.  LINCOLN. 

November  8, 1860. —  LETTER  TO  HANNIBAL  HAMLIN. 
(Confidential.)  ¥ 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  November  8,  1860. 
HON.  HANNIBAL  HAMLIN. 

My  dear  Sir:  I  am  anxious  for  a  personal  interview  with  you  at  as 
early  a  day  as  possible.  Can  you,  without  much  inconvenience,  meet 
me  at  Chicago?  If  you  can,  please  name  as  early  a  day  as  you  con 
veniently  can,  and  telegraph  me,  unless  there  be  sufficient  time  be 
fore  the  day  named  to  communicate  by  mail. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


November  9,  I860.— LETTER  TO  GENERAL  WINFIELD  SCOTT. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  November  9, 1860. 
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL  SCOTT. 

Mr.  Lincoln  tenders  his  sincere  thanks  to  General  Scott  for  the 
copy  of  his  "  views,"  etc.,  which  is  received;  and  especially  for  this 


654          ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

renewed  manifestation  of  his  patriotic  purpose  as  a  citizen,  connected, 
as  it  is,  with  his  high  official  position  and  most  distinguished  char 
acter  as  a  military  captain.  A.  L. 

November  10,  1860. —  LETTER  TO  TRUMAN  SMITH. 
(Private  and  confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  November  10,  1860. 
HON.  TRUMAN  SMITH. 

My  dear  Sir:  This  is  intended  as  a  strictly  private  letter  to  you, 

and  not  as  an  answer  to  yours  brought  me  by  Mr. .  It  is  with 

the  most  profound  appreciation  of  your  motive,  and  highest  respect 
for  your  judgment,  too,  that  I  feel  constrained,  for  the  present  at 
least,  to  make  no  declaration  for  the  public. 

First.  I  could  say  nothing  which  I  have  not  already  said,  and 
which  is  in  print,  and  open  for  the  inspection  of  all.  To  press  a 
repetition  of  this  upon  those  who  have  listened,  is  useless ;  to  press 
it  upon  those  who  have  refused  to  listen,  and  still  refuse,  would  be 
wanting  in  self-respect,  and  would  have  an  appearance  of  sycophancy 
and  timidity  which  would  excite  the  contempt  of  good  men  and  en 
courage  bad  ones  to  clamor  the  more  loudly. 

I  am  not  insensible  to  any  commercial  or  financial  depression  that 
may  exist,  but  nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  fawning  around  the  "  re 
spectable  scoundrels  "  who  got  it  up.  Let  them  go  to  work  and  re 
pair  the  mischief  of  their  own  making,  and  then  perhaps  they  will 
be  less  greedy  to  do  the  like  again. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

November  13,  1860. —  LETTER  TO  SAMUEL  HAYCRAFT. 
(Private  and  confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  November  13,  1860. 
HON.  SAMUEL  HAYCRAFT. 

My  dear  Sir  :  Yours  of  the  9th  is  just  received.  I  can  only  answer 
briefly.  Rest  fully  assured  that  the  good  people  of  the  South  who 
will  put  themselves  in  the  same  temper  and  mood  toward  me  which 
you  do,  will  find  no  cause  to  complain  of  me. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

November  16,  I860.— LETTER  TO  N.  P.  PASCHALL. 
(Private  and  confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  November  16,  1860. 
N.  P.  PASCHALL,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir :  Mr.  Ridgely  showed  me  a  letter  of  yours  in  which 
you  manifest  some  anxiety  that  I  should  make  some  public  declara- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          655 

tion  with  a  view  to  favorably  affect  the  business  of  the  country.     I 
said  to  Mr.  Ridgely  I  would  write  you  to-day,  which  I  now  do. 

I  could  say  nothing  which  I  have  not  already  said,  and  which  is 
in  print,  and  accessible  to  the  public.  Please  pardon  me  for  suggest 
ing  that  if  the  papers  like  yours,  which  heretofore  have  persistently 
garbled  and  misrepresented  what  I  have  said,  will  now  fully  and 
fairly  place  it  before  their  readers,  there  can  be  no  further  misunder 
standing.  I  beg  you  to  believe  me  sincere  when  I  declare  I  do  not 
say  this  in  a  spirit  of  complaint  or  resentment ;  but  that  I  urge  it  as 
the  true  cure  for  any  real  uneasiness  in  the  country  that  my  course 
may  be  other  than  conservative.  The  Republican  newspapers  now 
and  for  some  time  past  are  and  have  been  republishing  copious  ex 
tracts  from  my  many  published  speeches,  which  would  at  once  reach 
the  whole  public  if  your  class  of  papers  would  also  publish  them.  I 
am  not  at  liberty  to  shift  my  ground — that  is  out  of  the  question. 
If  I  thought  a  repetition  would  do  any  good,  I  would  make  it.  But 
in  my  judgment  it  would  do  positive  harm.  The  secessionists  per  se, 
believing  they  had  alarmed  me,  would  clamor  all  the  louder. 

Yours,  etc.,  A.  LINCOLN. 


November  20,  1860. —  REMARKS  AT  THE  MEETING  AT  SPRINGFIELD, 
ILLINOIS,  TO  CELEBRATE  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION. 

Friends  and  Fellow-citizens:  Please  excuse  me  on  this  occasion 
from  making  a  speech.  I  thank  you  in  common  with  all  those  who 
have  thought  fit  by  their  votes  to  indorse  the  Republican  cause.  I 
rejoice  with  you  in  the  success  which  has  thus  far  attended  that 
cause.  Yet  in  all  our  rejoicings,  let  us  neither  express  nor  cherish 
any  hard  feelings  toward  any  citizen  who  by  his  vote  has  differed 
with  us.  Let  us  at  all  times  remember  that  all  American  citizens 
are  brothers  of  a  common  country,  and  should  dwell  together  in  the 
bonds  of  fraternal  feeling.  Let  me  again  beg  you  to  accept  my 
thanks,  and  to  excuse  me  from  further  speaking  at  this  time. 


November  27,  1860. — LETTER  TO  HANNIBAL  HAMLIN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  November  27,  1860. 
HON.  HANNIBAL  HAMLIN. 

My  dear  Sir :  On  reaching  home  I  find  I  have  in  charge  for  you 
the  inclosed  letter. 

I  deem  it  proper  to  advise  you  that  I  also  find  letters  here  from 
very  strong  and  unexpected  quarters  in  Pennsylvania,  urging  the 
appointment  of  General  Cameron  to  a  place  in  the  cabinet. 

Let  this  be  a  profound  secret,  even  though  I  do  think  best  to  let 
you  know  it.  Yours  very  sincerely, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


656          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

November  28,  1860. — LETTER  TO  HENRY  J.  RAYMOND. 
(Private  and  confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  November  28, 1860. 
HON.  HENRY  J.  RAYMOND. 

My  dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  14th  was  received  in  due  course.  I 
have  delayed  so  long  to  answer  it,  because  my  reasons  for  not  com 
ing  before  the  public  in  any  form  just  now  had  substantially  ap 
peared  in  your  paper  (the  "  Times  "),  and  hence  I  feared  they  were 
not  deemed  sufficient  by  you,  else  you  would  not  have  written  me  as 
you  did.  I  now  think  we  have  a  demonstration  in  favor  of  my  view. 
On  the  20th  instant  Senator  Trumbull  made  a  short  speech,  which 
I  suppose  you  have  both  seen  and  approved.  Has  a  single  news 
paper,  heretofore  against  us,  urged  that  speech  upon  its  readers  with 
a  purpose  to  quiet  public  anxiety  ?  Not  one,  so  far  as  I  know.  On 
the  contrary,  the  "  Boston  Courier"  and  its  class  hold  me  responsible 
for  that  speech,  and  endeavor  to  inflame  the  North  with  the  belief 
that  it  foreshadows  an  abandonment  of  Republican  ground  by  the 
incoming  administration  j  while  the  Washington  "  Constitution " 
and  its  class  hold  the  same  speech  up  to  the  South  as  an  open  dec 
laration  of  war  against  them.  This  is  just  as  I  expected,  and  just 
what  would  happen  with  any  declaration  I  could  make.  These  po 
litical  fiends  are  not  half  sick  enough  yet.  Party  malice,  and  not 
public  good,  possesses  them  entirely.  "  They  seek  a  sign,  and  no 
sign  shall  be  given  them."  At  least  such  is  my  present  feeling  and 
purpose.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

November  30,  1860. — LETTER  TO  A.  H.  STEPHENS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  November  30,  1860. 
HON.  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS. 

My  dear  Sir  :  I  have  read  in  the  newspapers  your  speech  recently 
delivered  (I  think)  before  the  Georgia  legislature,  or  its  assembled 
members.  If  you  have  revised  it,  as  is  probable,  I  shall  be  much  ob 
liged  if  you  will  send  me  a  copy.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

December  8,  1860. — LETTER  TO  HANNIBAL  HAMLIN. 

(Private.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  8,  1860. 
HON.  HANNIBAL  HAMLIN. 

My  dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  4th  was  duly  received.  The  inclosed 
to  Governor  Seward  covers  two  notes  to  him,  copies  of  which  you 
find  open  for  your  inspection.  Consult  with  Judge  Trumbull;  and 
if  you  and  he  see  no  reason  to  the  contrary,  deliver  the  letter  to  Gov- 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          657 

ernor  Seward  at  once.    If  you  see  reason  to  the  contrary,  write  me 
at  once. 

I  have  had  an  intimation  that  Governor  Banks  would  yet  accept  a 
place  in  the  cabinet.     Please  ascertain  and  write  me  how  this  is. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


December  8, 1860. — LETTERS  TO  W.  H.  SEWARD. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  8, 1860. 

My  dear  Sir:  With  your  permission  I  shall  at  the  proper  time 
nominate  you  to  the  Senate  for  confirmation  as  Secretary'  of  State 
for  the  United  States.  Please  let  me  hear  from  you  at  your  own 
earliest  convenience.  Your  friend  and  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 
HON.  WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,  Washington,  D.  C. 


(Private  and  confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  8,  1860. 

My  dear  Sir:  In  addition  to  the  accompanying  and  more  formal 
note  inviting  you  to  take  charge  of  the  State  Department,  I  deem  it 
proper  to  address  you  this.  Rumors  have  got  into  the  newspapers 
to  the  effect  that  the  department  named  above  would  be  tendered 
you  as  a  compliment,  and  with  the  expectation  that  you  would  de 
cline  it.  I  beg  you  to  be  assured  that  I  have  said  nothing  to  justify 
these  rumors.  On  the  contrary,  it  has  been  my  purpose,  from  the 
day  of  the  nomination  at  Chicago,  to  assign  you,  by  your  leave,  this 
place  in  the  administration.  I  have  delayed  so  long  to  communicate 
that  purpose  in  deference  to  what  appeared  to  me  a  proper  caution 
in  the  case.  Nothing  has  been  developed  to  change  my  view  in  the 
premises ;  and  I  now  offer  you  the  place  in  the  hope  that  you  will 
accept  it,  and  with  the  belief  that  your  position  in  the  public  eye, 
your  integrity,  ability,  learning,  and  great  experience,  all  combine  to 
render  it  an  appointment  preeminently  fit  to  be  made. 

One  word  more.  In  regard  to  the  patronage  sought  with  so  much 
eagerness  and  jealousy,  I  have  prescribed  for  myself  the  maxim, 
"  Justice  to  all "  j  and  I  earnestly  beseech  your  cooperation  in  keep 
ing  the  maxim  good.  Your  friend  and  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

HON.  WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,  Washington,  D.  C. 


December  11, 1860. —  REPLY  TO  A  LETTER  FROM  WILLIAM  KELLOGG, 
M.  C.,  ASKING  ADVICE. 

Entertain  no  proposition  for  a  compromise  in  regard  to  the  exten 
sion  of  slavery.     The  instant  you  do  they  have  us  under  again :  all 
our  labor  is  lost,  and  sooner  or  later  must  be  done  over.     Douglas 
is  sure  to  be  again  trying  to  bring  in  his  "popular  sovereignty." 
VOL.  I.— 42. 


658          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Have  none  of  it.  The  tug  has  to  come,  and  better  now  than  later. 
You  know  I  think  the  fugitive-slave  clause  of  the  Constitution  ought 
to  be  enforced — to  put  it  in  its  mildest  form,  ought  not  to  be  resisted. 

December  12, 1860. —  SHORT  EDITORIAL  PRINTED  IN  THE 
"ILLINOIS  JOURNAL." 

We  hear  such  frequent  allusions  to  a  supposed  purpose  on  the 
part  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  call  into  his  cabinet  two  or  three  Southern 
gentlemen  from  the  parties  opposed  to  him  politically,  that  we  are 
prompted  to  ask  a  few  questions. 

First.  Is  it  known  that  any  such  gentleman  of  character  would 
accept  a  place  in  the  cabinet  f 

Second.  If  yea,  on  what  terms  does  he  surrender  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  or 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  him,  on  the  political  differences  between  them ;  or  do 
they  enter  upon  the  administration  in  open  opposition  to  each  other  ? 

December  13,  1860. — LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 
(Private  and  Confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  13, 1860. 
HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

M y  dear  Sir :  Your  long  letter  received.  Prevent,  as  far  as  possi 
ble,  any  of  our  friends  from  demoralizing  themselves  and  our  cause 
by  entertaining  propositions  for  compromise  of  any  sort  on  "  slavery 
extension.'7  There  is  no  possible  compromise  upon  it  but  which  puts 
us  under  again,  and  leaves  all  our  work  to  do  over  again.  Whether 
it  be  a  Missouri  line  or  Eli  Thayer's  popular  sovereignty,  it  is  all  the 
same.  Let  either  be  done,  and  immediately  filibustering  and  extend 
ing  slavery  recommences.  On  that  point  hold  firm,  as  with  a  chain 
of  steel.  Yours  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 

December  15,  1860. —  LETTER  TO  JOHN  A.  GILMER. 

(Strictly  confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  15,  1860. 
HON.  JOHN  A.  GILMER. 

My  dear  Sir  :  Yours  of  the  10th  is  received.  I  am  greatly  disin 
clined  to  write  a  letter  on  the  subject  embraced  in  yours  5  and  I 
would  not  do  so,  even  privately  as  I  do,  were  it  not  that  I  fear  you 
might  misconstrue  my  silence.  Is  it  desired  that  I  shall  shift  the 
ground  upon  which  I  have  been  elected  ?  I  cannot  do  it.  You  need 
only  to  acquaint  yourself  with  that  ground,  and  press  it  on  the  at 
tention  of  the  South.  It  is  all  in  print  and  easy  of  access.  May  I 
be  pardoned  if  I  ask  whether  even  you  have  ever  attempted  to  pro 
cure  the  reading  of  the  Republican  platform,  or  my  speeches,  by  the 
Southern  people  f  If  not,  what  reason  have  I  to  expect  that  any 
additional  production  of  mine  would  meet  a  better  fate  ?  It  would 
make  me  appear  as  if  I  repented  for  the  crime  of  having  been  elected, 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          659 

and  was  anxious  to  apologize  and  beg  forgiveness.  To  so  represent 
me  would  be  the  principal  use  made  of  any  letter  I  might  now  thrust 
upon  the  public.  My  old  record  cannot  be  so  used ;  and  that  is  pre 
cisely  the  reason  that  some  new  declaration  is  so  much  sought. 

Now,  my  dear  sir,  be  assured  that  I  am  not  questioning  your  can 
dor  ;  I  am  only  pointing  out  that  while  a  new  letter  would  hurt  the 
cause  which  I  think  a  just  one,  you  can  quite  as  well  effect  every 
patriotic  object  with  the  old  record.  Carefully  read  pages  18, 19,  74, 
75,  88,  89,  and  267  of  the  volume  of  joint  debates  between  Senator 
Douglas  and  myself,  with  the  Republican  platform  adopted  at 
Chicago,  and  all  your  questions  will  be  substantially  answered.  I 
have  no  thought  of  recommending  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  nor  the  slave-trade  among  the  slave  States, 
even  on  the  conditions  indicated ;  and  if  I  were  to  make  such  rec 
ommendation,  it  is  quite  clear  Congress  would  not  follow  it. 

As  to  employing  slaves  in  arsenals  and  dock-yards,  it  is  a  thing  I 
never  thought  of  in  my  life,  to  my  recollection,  till  I  saw  your  letter ; 
and  I  may  say  of  it  precisely  as  I  have  said  of  the  two  points  above. 

As  to  the  use  of  patronage  in  the  slave  States,  where  there  are 
few  or  no  Republicans,  I  do  not  expect  to  inquire  for  the  politics  of 
the  appointee,  or  whether  he  does  or  not  own  slaves.  I  intend  in 
that  matter  to  accommodate  the  people  in  the  several  localities,  if  they 
themselves  will  allow  me  to  accommodate  them.  In  one  word,  I  never 
have  been,  am  not  now,  and  probably  never  shall  be  in  a  mood  of 
harassing  the  people  either  North  or  South. 

On  the  territorial  question  I  am  inflexible,  as  you  see  my  position  in 
the  book.  On  that  there  is  a  difference  between  you  and  us  $  and  it  is 
the  only  substantial  difference.  You  think  slavery  is  right  and  ought 
to  be  extended ;  we  think  it  is  wrong  and  ought  to  be  restricted. 
For  this  neither  has  any  just  occasion  to  be  angry  with  the  other. 

As  to  the  State  laws,  mentioned  in  your  sixth  question,  I  really 
know  very  little  of  them.  I  never  have  read  one.  If  any  of  them 
are  in  conflict  with  the  fugitive-slave  clause,  or  any  other  part  of 
the  Constitution,  I  certainly  shall  be  glad  of  their  repeal ;  but  I  could 
hardly  be  justified,  as  a  citizen  of  Illinois,  or  as  President  of  the 
United  States,  to  recommend  the  repeal  of  a  statute  of  Vermont  or 
South  Carolina. 

With  the  assurance  of  my  highest  regards,  I  subscribe  myself, 
Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINCOLN. 

P.  S.  The  documents  referred  to  I  suppose  you  will  readily  find 
in  Washington.  A.  L. 

December  17,  1860. — LETTER  TO  THURLOW  WEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  17,  1860. 
THURLOW  WEED,  Esq. 

My  dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  llth  was  received  two  days  ago. 
Should  the  convocation  of  governors  of  which  you  speak  seem 
desirous  to  know  my  views  on  the  present  aspect  of  things,  tell 
them  you  judge  from  my  speeches  that  I  will  be  inflexible  on  the 


660         ADDRESSES   AND  LETTEKS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

territorial  question ;  that  I  probably  think  either  the  Missouri  line 
extended,  or  Douglas's  and  Eli  Thayer's  popular  sovereignty,  would 
lose  us  everything  we  gain  by  the  election ;  that  filibustering  for  all 
south  of  us  and  making  slave  States  of  it  would  follow,  in  spite  of 
us,  in  either  case ;  also  that  I  probably  think  all  opposition,  real  and 
apparent,  to  the  fugitive-slave  clause  of  the  Constitution  ought  to 
be  withdrawn. 

I  believe  you  can  pretend  to  find  but  little,  if  anything,  in  my 
speeches  about  secession.  But  my  opinion  is,  that  no  State  can  in 
any  way  lawfully  get  out  of  the  Union  without  the  consent  of  the 
others  ;  and  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  President  and  other  govern 
ment  functionaries  to  run  the  machine  as  it  is. 

Truly  yours,  A.  LINCOLN. 

December  18,  1860. — LETTER  TO  EDWARD  BATES. 

(Confidential) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  18, 1860. 

My  dear  Sir:  Yours  of  to-day  is  just  received.  Let  a  little  edi 
torial  appear  in  the  "  Missouri  Democrat"  in  about  these  words : 

"  We  have  the  permission  of  both  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Bates 
to  say  that  the  latter  will  be  offered,  and  will  accept,  a  place  in 
the  new  cabinet,  subject,  of  course,  to  the  action  of  the  Senate.  It 
is  not  yet  definitely  settled  which  department  will  be  assigned  to 
Mr.  Bates." 

Let  it  go  just  as  above,  or  with  any  modification  which  may  seem 
proper  to  you.  Yours  very  truly, 

HON.  EDWARD  BATES.  A.  LINCOLN. 

December  21,  1860. — LETTER  TO  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

(Confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  21,  1860. 
HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

My  dear  Sir :  Last  night  I  received  your  letter  giving  an  account 
of  your  interview  with  General  Scott,  and  for  which  I  thank  you. 
Please  present  my  respects  to  the  general,  and  tell  him,  confiden 
tially,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  him  to  be  as  well  prepared  as  he  can  to 
either  hold  or  retake  the  forts,  as  the  case  may  require,  at  and  after 
the  inauguration.  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

December  22,  1860. — LETTER  TO  A.  H.  STEPHENS. 
(For  your  own  eye  only.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  22,  1860. 
HON.  ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS. 

My  dear  Sir:  Your  obliging  answer  to  my  short  note  is  just  re 
ceived,  and  for  which  please  accept  my  thanks.  I  fully  appreciate 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          661 

the  present  peril  the  country  is  in,  and  the  weight  of  responsibility 
on  me.  Do  the  people  of  the  South  really  entertain  fears  that  a 
Eepublican  administration  would,  directly  or  indirectly,  interfere 
with  the  slaves,  or  with  them  about  the  slaves  ?  If  they  do,  I  wish 
to  assure  you,  as  once  a  friend,  and  still,  I  hope,  not  an  enemy,  that 
there  is  no  cause  for  such  fears.  The  South  would  be  in  no  more 
danger  in  this  respect  than  it  was  in  the  days  of  Washington.  I 
suppose,  however,  this  does  not  meet  the  case.  You  think  slavery  is 
right  and  ought  to  be  extended,  while  we  think  it  is  wrong  and  ought 
to  be  restricted.  That,  I  suppose,  is  the  rub.  It  certainly  is  the  only 
substantial  difference  between  us.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

December  24,  1860. — LETTER  TO  HANNIBAL  HAMLIN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  24,  1860. 
HON.  HANNIBAL  HAMLIN. 

My  dear  Sir :  I  need  a  man  of  Democratic  antecedents  from  New 
England.  I  cannot  get  a  fair  share  of  that  element  in  without. 
This  stands  in  the  way  of  Mr.  Adams.  I  think  of  Governor  Banks, 
Mr.  Welles,  and  Mr.  Tuck.  Which  of  them  do  the  New  England 
delegation  prefer  ?  Or  shall  I  decide  for  myself  ?  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

December  28,  1860. — LETTER  TO  LYMAN  TRUMBULL. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  28, 1860. 
HON.  LYMAN  TRUMBULL. 

My  dear  Sir:  General  Duff  Green  is  out  here  endeavoring  to  draw 
a  letter  out  of  me.  I  have  written  one  which  herewith  I  inclose  to 
you,  and  which  I  believe  could  not  be  used  to  our  disadvantage. 
Still,  if  on  consultation  with  our  discreet  friends  you  conclude  that 
it  may  do  us  harm,  do  not  deliver  it.  You  need  not  mention  that  the 
second  clause  of  the  letter  is  copied  from  the  Chicago  platform.  If, 
on  consultation,  our  friends,  including  yourself,  think  it  can  do  no 
harm,  keep  a  copy  and  deliver  the  letter  to  General  Green. 

Yours  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 

[Inclosure.] 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  28,  1860. 
GENERAL  DUFF  GREEN. 

My  dear  Sir :  I  do  not  desire  any  amendment  of  the  Constitution. 
Recognizing,  however,  that  questions  of  such  amendment  rightfully 
belong  to  the  American  people,  I  should  not  feel  justified  nor  in 
clined  to  withhold  from  them,  if  I  could,  a  fair  opportunity  of  ex 
pressing  their  will  thereon  through  either  of  the  modes  prescribed 
in  the  instrument. 

In  addition  I  declare  that  the  maintenance  inviolate  of  the  rights 
of  the  States,  and  especially  the  right  of  each  State  to  order  and 


662          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

control  its  own  domestic  institutions  according  to  its  own  judgment 
exclusively,  is  essential  to  that  balance  of  powers  on  which  the  per 
fection  and  endurance  of  our  political  fabric  depend  ;  and  I  denounce 
the  lawless  invasion  by  armed  force  of  the  soil  of  any  State  or  Ter 
ritory,  no  matter  under  what  pretext,  as  the  gravest  of  crimes. 

I  am  greatly  averse  to  writing  anything  for  the  public  at  this 
time ;  and  I  consent  to  the  publication  of  this  only  upon  the  condi 
tion  that  six  of  the  twelve  United  States  senators  for  the  States  of 
Georgia,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Florida,  and  Texas  shall 
sign  their  names  to  what  is  written  on  this  sheet  below  my  name, 
and  allow  the  whole  to  be  published  together. 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

We  recommend  to  the  people  of  the  States  we  represent  respec 
tively,  to  suspend  all  action  for  dismemberment  of  the  Union,  at 
least  until  some  act  deemed  to  be  violative  of  our  rights  shall  be 
done  by  the  incoming  administration. 


December  29,  1860. —  LETTER  TO  W.  C.  BRYANT. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  29,  1860. 
HON.  WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT. 

My  dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  25th  is  duly  received.  The  " well- 
known  politician "  to  whom  I  understand  you  to  allude  did  write 
me,  but  did  not  press  upon  me  any  such  compromise  as  you  seem  to 
suppose,  or,  in  fact,  any  compromise  at  all. 

As  to  the  matter  of  the  cabinet,  mentioned  by  you,  I  can  only  say 
I  shall  have  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  do  the  best  I  can.  I  promise 
you  that  I  shall  unselfishly  try  to  deal  fairly  with  all  men  and  all 
shades  of  opinion  among  our  friends. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


December  31,  I860.— LETTER  TO  SALMON  P.  CHASE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  31, 1860. 
HON.  SALMON  P.  CHASE. 

My  dear  Sir:  In  these  troublous  times  I  would  much  like  a  con 
ference  with  you.  Please  visit  me  here  at  once. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

December  31,  1860. — LETTER  TO  SIMON  CAMERON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  December  31,  1860. 
HON.  SIMON  CAMERON. 

My  dear  Sir :  I  think  fit  to  notify  you  now  that  by  your  permis 
sion  I  shall  at  the  proper  time  nominate  you  to  the  United  States 
Senate  for  confirmation  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  or  as  Secre- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          663 

tary  of  War — which  of  the  two  I  have  not  yet  definitely  decided. 
Please  answer  at  your  earliest  convenience.  ' 

Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINCOLN. 


January  3, 1861. — LETTER  TO  W.  H.  SEWARD. 

(Private.} 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  January  3, 1861. 
HON.  W.  H.  SEWARD. 

My  dear  Sir:  Yours  without  signature  was  received  last  night.  I 
have  been  considering  your  suggestions  as  to  my  reaching  Wash 
ington  somewhat  earlier  than  is  usual.  It  seems  to  me  the  inaugu 
ration  is  not  the  most  dangerous  point  for  us.  Our  adversaries  have 
us  now  clearly  at  disadvantage.  On  the  second  Wednesday  of  Feb 
ruary,  when  the  votes  should  be  officially  counted,  if  the  two  Houses 
refuse  to  meet  at  all,  or  meet  without  a  quorum  of  each,  where  shall 
we  be  ?  I  do  not  think  that  this  counting  is  constitutionally  essen 
tial  to  the  election;  but  how  are  we  to  proceed  in  absence  of  it? 

In  view  of  this,  I  think  it  best  for  me  not  to  attempt  appearing  in 
Washington  till  the  result  of  that  ceremony  is  known.  It  certainly 
would  be  of  some  advantage  if  you  could  know  who  are  to  be  at  the 
heads  of  the  War  and  Navy  departments;  but  until  I  can  ascertain 
definitely  whether  I  can  get  any  suitable  men  from  the  South,  and 
who,  and  how  many,  I  cannot  well  decide.  As  yet  I  have  no  word 
from  Mr.  Gilmer  in  answer  to  my  request  for  an  interview  with  him. 
I  look  for  something  on  the  subject,  through  you,  before  long. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


January  3,  1861. — LETTER  TO  SIMON  CAMERON. 
(Private.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  January  3, 1861. 
HON.  SIMON  CAMERON. 

My  dear  Sir:  Since  seeing  you  things  have  developed  which  make 
it  impossible  for  me  to  take  you  into  the  cabinet.  You  will  say  this 
comes  of  an  interview  with  McClure ;  and  this  is  partly,  but  not 
wholly,  true.  The  more  potent  matter  is  wholly  outside  of  Pennsyl 
vania;  and  yet  I  am  not  at  liberty  to  specify  it.  Enough  that  it  ap 
pears  to  me  to  be  sufficient.  And  now  I  suggest  that  you  write  me 
declining  the  appointment,  in  which  case  I  do  not  object  to  its  being 
known  that  it  was  tendered  you.  Better  do  this  at  once,  before 
things  so  change  that  you  cannot  honorably  decline,  and  I  be  com 
pelled  to  openly  recall  the  tender.  No  person  living  knows  or  has 
an  intimation  that  I  write  this  letter.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

P.  S.  Telegraph  me  instantly  on  receipt  of  this,  saying,  "All 
right."  A.  L. 


664          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


January  11,  1861. — LETTER  TO  GENERAL  WINFIELD  SCOTT. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  January  11, 1861. 
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL  WINFIELD  SCOTT. 

My  dear  Sir :  I  herewith  beg  leave  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of 
your  communication  of  the  4th  instant,  inclosing  (documents  Nos.  1, 2, 
3, 4,  5,  and  6)  copies  of  correspondence  and  notes  of  conversation  with 
the  President  of  the  United  States  and  the  Secretary  of  War  concern 
ing  various  military  movements  suggested  by  yourself  for  the  better 
protection  of  the  government  and  the  maintenance  of  public  order. 

Permit  me  to  renew  to  you  the  assurance  of  my  high  appreciation 
of  the  many  past  services  you  have  rendered  the"  Union,  and  of  my 
deep  gratification  at  this  evidence  of  your  present  active  exertions 
to  maintain  the  integrity  and  honor  of  the  nation. 

I  shall  be  highly  pleased  to  receive  from  time  to  time  such  com 
munications  from  yourself  as  you  may  deem  it  proper  to  make  to  me. 
Very  truly  your  obedient  servant,         A.  LINCOLN. 

January  11,  1861. — LETTER  TO  J.  T.  HALE. 

(Confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  January  11, 1861. 
HON.  J.  T.  HALE. 

My  dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  6th  is  received.  I  answer  it  only  be 
cause  I  fear  you  would  misconstrue  my  silence.  What  is  our  present 
condition?  We  have  just  carried  an  election  on  principles  fairly 
stated  to  the  people.  Now  we  are  told  in  advance  the  government 
shall  be  broken  up  unless  we  surrender  to  those  we  have  beaten,  be 
fore  we  take  the  offices.  In  this  they  are  either  attempting  to  play 
upon  us  or  they  are  in  dead  earnest.  Either  way,  if  we  surrender, 
it  is  the  end  of  us  and  of  the  government.  They  will  repeat  the  ex 
periment  upon  us  ad  libitum.  A  year  will  not  pass  till  we  shall  have 
to  take  Cuba  as  a  condition  upon  which  they  will  stay  in  the  Union. 
They  now  have  the  Constitution  under  which  we  have  lived  over 
seventy  years,  and  acts  of  Congress  of  their  own  framing,  with  no 
prospect  of  their  being  changed ;  and  they  can  never  have  a  more 
shallow  pretext  for  breaking  up  the  government,  or  extorting  a  com 
promise,  than  now.  There  is  in  my  judgment  but  one  compromise 
which  would  really  settle  the  slavery  question,  and  that  would  be  a 
prohibition  against  acquiring  any  more  territory. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

January  12,  1861. — LETTER  TO  W.  H.  SEWARD. 

(Private.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  January  12,  1861. 
HON.  W.  H.  SEWARD. 

My  dear  Sir :  Yours  of  the  8th  received.  I  still  hope  Mr.  Gilmer 
will,  on  a  fair  understanding  with  us,  consent  to  take  a  place  in  the 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          665 

cabinet.  The  preference  for  him  over  Mr.  Hunt  or  Mr.  Gentry  is 
that,  up  to  date,  he  has  a  living  position  in  the  South,  while  they 
have  not.  He  is  only  better  than  Winter  Davis  in  that  he  is  farther 
South.  I  fear  if  we  could  get  we  could  not  safely  take  more  than 
one  such  man  —  that  is,  not  more  than  one  who  opposed  us  in  the 
election,  the  danger  being  to  lose  the  confidence  of  our  own  friends. 

Your  selection  for  the  State  Department  having  become  public,  I 
am  happy  to  find  scarcely  any  objection  to  it.  I  shall  have  trouble 
with  every  other  Northern  cabinet  appointment,  so  much  so  that  I 
shall  have  to  defer  them  as  long  as  possible,  to  avoid  being  teased  to 
insanity  to  make  changes.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

January  13, 1861. — LETTERS  TO  SIMON  CAMERON. 
(Private  and  confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  January  13,  1861. 
HON.  SIMON  CAMERON. 

My  dear  Sir :  At  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Sanderson,  and  with  hearty 
good- will  besides,  I  herewith  send  you  a  letter  dated  January  3  — 
the  same  in  date  as  the  last  you  received  from  me.  I  thought  best 
to  give  it  that  date,  as  it  is  in  some  sort  to  take  the  place  of  that  let 
ter.  I  learn,  both  by  a  letter  from  Mr.  Swett  and  from  Mr.  Sander 
son,  that  your  feelings  were  wounded  by  the  terms  of  my  letter 
really  of  the  3d.  I  wrote  that  letter  under  great  anxiety,  and  per 
haps  I  was  not  so  guarded  in  its  terms  as  I  should  have  been ;  but  I 
beg  you  to  be  assured  I  intended  no  offense.  My  great  object  was 
to  have  you  act  quickly,  if  possible  before  the  matter  should  be  com 
plicated  with  the  Pennsylvania  senatorial  election.  Destroy  the  of 
fensive  letter,  or  return  it  to  me  * 

I  say  to  you  now  I  have  not  doubted  that  you  would  perform  the 
duties  of  a  department  ably  and  faithfully.  Nor  have  I  for  a  mo 
ment  intended  to  ostracize  your  friends.  If  I  should  make  a  cabi 
net  appointment  for  Pennsylvania  before  I  reach  Washington,  I  will 
not  do  so  without  consulting  you,  and  giving  all  the  weight  to  your 
views  and  wishes  which  I  consistently  can.  This  I  have  always 
intended.  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 
[Inclosure.] 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  January  3,  1861. 
HON.  SIMON  CAMERON. 

My  dear  Sir :  When  you  were  here,  about  the  last  of  December,  I 
handed  you  a  letter  saying  I  should  at  the  proper  time  nominate  you 
to  the  Senate  for  a  place  in  the  cabinet.  It  is  due  to  you  and  to 
truth  for  me  to  say  you  were  here  by  my  invitation,  and  not  upon 
any  suggestion  of  your  own.  You  have  not  as  yet  signified  to  me 
whether  you  would  accept  the  appointment,  and  with  much  pain  I 
now  say  to  you  that  you  will  relieve  me  from  great  embarrassment 
by  allowing  me  to  recall  the  offer.  This  springs  from  an  unexpected 
complication,  and  not  from  any  change  of  my  view  as  to  the  ability 
or  faithfulness  with  which  you  would  discharge  the  duties  of  the 


666          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

place.      I  now  think  I  will  not  definitely  fix  upon  any  appointment 
for  Pennsylvania  until  I  reach  Washington. 

Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINCOLN. 


January  14,  1861. —  LETTER  TO  GENERAL  JOHN  E.  WOOL. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  January  14, 1861. 
GENERAL  JOHN  E.  WOOL. 

My  dear  Sir:  Many  thanks  for  your  patriotic  and  generous  letter 
of  the  llth  instant.  As  to  how  far  the  military  force  of  the  govern 
ment  may  become  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  and 
more  particularly  how  that  force  can  best  be  directed  to  the  object, 
I  must  chiefly  rely  upon  General  Scott  and  yourself.  It  affords  me 
the  profoundest  satisfaction  to  know  that  with  both  of  you  judg 
ment  and  feeling  go  heartily  with  your  sense  of  professional  and 
official  duty  to  the  work. 

It  is  true  that  I  have  given  but  little  attention  to  the  military  de 
partment  of  government ;  but,  be  assured,  I  cannot  be  ignorant  as  to 
who  General  Wool  is,  or  what  he  has  done.  With  my  highest  esteem 
and  gratitude,  I  subscribe  myself 

Your  obedient  servant,         A.  LINCOLN. 


January  23, 1861. — LETTER  TO  GENERAL  EDWIN  C.  WILSON. 

(Private.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  January  23,  1861. 
GENERAL  EDWIN  C.  WILSON.     * 

Dear  Sir:  Your  official  communication  of  the  31st  ultimo,  ad 
dressed  to  Hon.  A.  Lincoln,  was  duly  received. 

Mr.  Lincoln  desires  me  to  answer 'that  while  he  does  not  now  deem 
it  necessary  to  avail  himself  of  the  services  you  so  kindly  offer  him, 
he  is  nevertheless  gratified  to  have  this  assurance  from  yourself  that 
the  militia  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania  is  loyal  to  the  Constitution 
and  the  Union,  and  stands  ready  to  rally  to  their  support  and  main 
tenance  in  the  event  of  trouble  or  danger.  Yours  truly, 

JNO.  G.  NICOLAY. 

January  26,  1861. — LETTER  TO  R.  A.  CAMERON  AND  OTHERS, 

COMMITTEE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  January  26,  1861. 
MESSRS.  CAMERON,  MARSH,  AND  BRANHAM,  Committee. 

Gentlemen  :  I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  the  receipt,  by  your 
hands,  of  a  copy  of  a  joint  resolution  adopted  by  the  legislature  of 
the  State  of  Indiana,  on  the  15th  instant,  inviting  me  to  visit  that 
honorable  body  on  my  way  to  the  Federal  capital. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          667 

Expressing  my  profound  gratitude  for  this  flattering  testimonial 
of  their  regard  and  esteem,  be  pleased  to  bear  to  them  my  acceptance 
of  their  kind  invitation,  and  inform  them  that  I  will  endeavor  to 
visit  them,  in  accordance  with  their  expressed  desire,  on  the  12th  of 
February  next. 

With  feelings  of  high  consideration,  I  remain 

Your  humble  servant,  A.  LINCOLN. 


January  28,  1861. — LETTER  TO  JAMES  SULGROVE  AND  OTHERS, 

COMMITTEE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  January  28,  1861. 
MESSRS.  JAMES  SULGROVE,  ERIE  LOCKE,  WILLIAM  WALLACE,  AND 

JOHN  T.  WOOD,  Committee. 

Gentlemen :  I  received  to-day  from  the  hands  of  Mr.  Locke  a 
transcript  of  the  resolutions  passed  at  a  meeting  of  the  citizens  of 
Indianapolis,  inviting  me  to  visit  that  city  on  my  route  to  Wash 
ington. 

Permit  me  to  express  to  the  citizens  of  Indianapolis,  through  you, 
their  committee,  my  cordial  thanks  for  the  honor  shown  me.  I  ac 
cept  with  great  pleasure  the  invitation  so  kindly  tendered,  and  will 
be  in  your  city  on  the  12th  day  of  February  next. 

Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINCOLN. 


January  28,  1861. — LETTER  TO  J.  W.  TILLMAN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  January  28,  1861. 
J.  W.  TILLMAN,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir :  Your  letter  of  the  24th  instant  addressed  to  Hon.  A. 
Lincoln,  inviting  him,  on  behalf  of  the  State  Central  Committee 
of  Michigan,  to  pass  through  that  State  on  his  journey  to  Wash 
ington,  has  been  received. 

He  desires  me  to  reply,  with  profound  thanks  for  the  honor  thus 
cordially  tendered  him,  that  having  accepted  similar  invitations 
to  pass*  through  the  capitals  of  the  States  of  Indiana  and  Ohio, 
he  regrets  that  it  will  be  out  of  his  power  to  accept  the  courtesies 
and  hospitalities  of  the  people  of  Michigan  so  kindly  proffered 
him  through  yourself  and  the  committee. 

Yours  truly,  JNO.  Gr.  NICOLAY. 


January  28,  1861. — LETTER  TO  EDWARD  BATES. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  January  28, 1861. 
HON.  EDWARD  BATES. 

Dear  Sir:  Hon.  A.  Lincoln  desires  me  to  write  to  you  that  he 
has  determined  on  starting  from  here  for  Washington  city  on 
the  llth  of  February.  He  will  go  through  Indianapolis,  Colum- 


668          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

bus,  Pittsburg,  Albany,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Harrisburg,  and 
Baltimore. 

Albany,  New  York,  and  Philadelphia  are  not  finally  decided 
upon,  though  it  is  probable  that  he  will  also  take  them  in  his  route. 
The  journey  will  occupy  twelve  or  fifteen  days. 

Yours  truly,  JNO.  G.  NICOLAY. 

February  1,  1861.— LETTER  TO  E.  D.  MORGAN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  February  1, 18G1. 
HON.  E.  D.  MORGAN. 

Dear  Sir:  Your  letter  of  the  19th  ultimo  addressed  to  Hon.  A0 
Lincoln,  was  duly  received,  in  which  you  invite  him  to  visit  Albany 
on  his  route  to  Washington,  and  tender  him  the  hospitalities  of  the 
State  and  your  home. 

In  accordance  with  the  answer  just  sent  to  the  telegraphic  mes 
sage  received  from  yourself  a  few  minutes  since,  Mr.  Lincoln  desires 
me  to  write  that  it  has  for  some  little  time  been  his  purpose  to  pass 
through  Albany,  and  that  he  would  have  answered  you  to  that  same 
effect  before  this,  but  for  the  fact  that  as  the  legislatures  of  Indiana, 
Ohio,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania  had  by  resolution  invited  him  to 
visit  them,  he  thought  it  probable  that  a  similar  resolution  would  be 
adopted  by  the  legislature  of  New  York,  and  he  had  therefore  waited 
to  reply  to  both  invitations  together. 

He  will  cheerfully  accede  to  any  arrangements  yourself  and  the 
citizens  of  Albany  may  make  for  his  stay,  providing  only  no  formal 
ceremonies  wasting  any  great  amount  of  time  be  adopted. 

Yours  truly,  JNO.  G.  NICOLAY. 


February  1,  1861. — LETTER  TO  W.  H.  SEWARD. 
(Private  and  confidential.) 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  February  1, 1861. 
HON.  W.  H.  SEWARD. 

My  dear  Sir :  On  the  21st  ult.  Hon.  W.  Kellogg,  a  Republican 
member  of  Congress  of  this  State,  whom  you  probably  know,  was 
here  in  a  good  deal  of  anxiety  seeking  to  ascertain  to  what  extent  I 
would  be  consenting  for  our  friends  to  go  in  the  way  of  compromise 
on  the  now  vexed  question.  While  he  was  with  me  I  received  a  de 
spatch  from  Senator  Trumbull,  at  Washington,  alluding  to  the  same 
question  and  telling  me  to  await  letters.  I  therefore  told  Mr.  Kel 
logg  that  when  I  should  receive  these  letters  posting  me  as  to  the 
state  of  affairs  at  Washington,  I  would  write  to  you,  requesting  you 
to  let  him  see  my  letter.  To  my  surprise,  when  the  letters  men 
tioned  by  Judge  Trumbull  came  they  made  no  allusion  to  the  "  vexed 
question.'7  This  baffled  me  so  much  that  I  was  near  not  writing  you 
at  all,  in  compliance  to  what  I  have  said  to  Judge  Kellogg.  I  say 
now,  however,  as  I  have  all  the  while  said,  that  on  the  territorial 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          669 

question — that  is,  the  question  of  extending  slavery  under  the 
national  auspices  —  I  am  inflexible.  I  am  for  no  compromise  which 
assists  or  permits  the  extension  of  the  institution  on  soil  owned  by 
the  nation.  And  any  trick  by  which  the  nation  is  to  acquire  terri 
tory,  and  then  allow  some  local  authority  to  spread  slavery  over  it, 
is  as  obnoxious  as  any  other.  I  take  it  that  to  effect  some  such  re 
sult  as  this,  and  to  put  us  again  on  the  highroad  to  a  slave  empire, 
is  the  object  of  all  these  proposed  compromises.  I  am  against  it. 
As  to  fugitive  slaves,  District  of  Columbia,  slave-trade  among  the 
slave  States,  and  whatever  springs  of  necessity  from  the  fact  that 
the  institution  is  amongst  us,  I  care  but  little,  so  that  what  is  done 
be  comely  and  not  altogether  outrageous.  Nor  do  I  care  much  about 
New  Mexico,  if  further  extension  were  hedged  against. 

Yours  very  truly,         A.  LINCOLN. 


February  4, 1861. —  LETTER  TO  THURLOW  WEED. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  February  4, 1861. 

Dear  Sir:  I  have  both  your  letter  to  myself  and  that  to  Judge 
Davis,  in  relation  to  a  certain  gentleman  in  your  State  claiming  to 
dispense  patronage  in  my  name,  and  also  to  be  authorized  to  use  my 
name  to  advance  the  chances  of  Mr.  Greeley  for  an  election  to  the 
United  States  Senate. 

It  is  very  strange  that  such  things  should  be  said  by  any  one.  The 
gentleman  you  mention  did  speak  to  me  of  Mr.  Greeley  in  connec 
tion  with  the  senatorial  election,  and  I  replied  in  terms  of  kindness 
toward  Mr.  Greeley,  which  I  really  feel,  but  always  with  an  expressed 
protest  that  my  name  must  not  be  used  in  the  senatorial  election  in 
favor  of,  or  against,  any  one.  Any  other  representation  of  me  is  a 
misrepresentation. 

As  to  the  matter  of  dispensing  patronage,  it  perhaps  will  surprise 
you  to  learn  that  I  have  information  that  you  claim  to  have  my  au 
thority  to  arrange  that  matter  in  New  York.  I  do  not  believe  that 
you  have  so  claimed;  but  still  so  some  men  say.  On  that  subject 
you  know  all  I  have  said  to  you  is  "  Justice  to  all/'  and  I  have  said 
nothing  more  particular  to  any  one.  I  say  this  to  reassure  you  that 
I  have  not  changed  my  position.  In  the  hope,  however,  that  you 
will  not  use  my  name  in  the  matter,  I  am 

Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


February  4,  1861. —  LETTER  TO  E.  D.  MORGAN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  February  4,  1861. 

Sir :  Your  letter  of  the  30th  ultimo,  inviting  me  on  behalf  of  the 
legislature  of  New  York  to  pass  through  that  State  on  my  way  to 
Washington,  and  tendering  me  the  hospitalities  of  her  authorities 
and  people,  has  been  duly  received. 

With  feelings  of  deep  gratitude  to  you  and  them  for  this  testimo- 


670         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

nial  of  regard  and  esteem,  I  beg  you  to  notify  them  that  I  accept  the 
invitation  so  kindly  extended.   Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 
His  Excellency  EDWIN  D.  MORGAN, 

Governor  of  New  York. 

P.  S.  Please  let  ceremonies  be  only  such  as  to  take  the  least  time 
possible.  A.  L. 

February  5,  1861. — LETTER  TO  EDWARD  BATES. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  February  5,  1861. 
HON.  EDWARD  BATES. 

Dear  Sir:  Hon.  A.  Lincoln  directs  me  to  say  to  you  that  in  case 
you  intend  going  to  Washington  about  the  time  he  proposes  to  start 
(the  llth  instant),  he  would  be  pleased  to  have  you  accompany  him 
on  the  trip  he  contemplates. 

He  does  not  desire  to  have  you  do  this,  however,  at  the  cost  of  any 
inconvenience  to  yourself,  or  the  derangement  of  any  plans  you  may 
have  already  formed.  Yours  truly, 

JNO.  G.  NICOLAY. 

P.  S.  Mr.  Lincoln  intended  to  have  said  this  to  you  himself  when 
you  were  here,  but  in  his  hurry  it  escaped  his  attention. 

J.  G.  N. 

February  6,  1861. — LETTER  TO  CHARLES  S.  OLDEN. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  February  6,  1861. 

Sir:  Your  letter  of  the  1st  instant  inviting  me,  in  compliance  with 
the  request  of  the  legislature  of  New  Jersey,  to  visit  your  State  cap 
ital  while  on  my  journey  to  Washington,  has  been  duly  received. 

I  accept  the  invitation,  with  much  gratitude  to  you  and  them  for 
the  kindness  and  honor  thus  offered.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 
His  Excellency  CHARLES  S.  OLDEN, 

Governor  of  New  Jersey. 
P.  S.  Please  arrange  no  ceremonies  that  will  waste  time. 


February  7, 1861. —  LETTER  TO  THE  GOVERNOR  AND  THE  LEGISLA 
TURE  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  February  7,  1861. 

His  EXCELLENCY  THE  GOVERNOR,  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  SENATE, 
AND  THE  SPEAKER  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES  FOR 
THE  COMMONWEALTH  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Gentlemen :  Your  kind  letter  of  February  1,  with  a  copy  of  the 
resolutions  of  the  General  Court,  inviting  me,  in  the  name  of  the 
government  and  people  of  Massachusetts,  to  visit  the  State  and 
accept  its  hospitality  previous  to  the  time  of  the  presidential  in- 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          671 

auguration,  is  gratefully  received  by  the  hand  of  Colonel  Horace 
Binney  Sargent j  and,  in  answer,  I  am  constrained  to  say  want  of 
time  denies  me  the  pleasure  of  accepting  the  invitation  so  gener 
ously  tendered.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

February  7,  1861. — LETTER  TO  WILLIAM  DENNISON. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  February  7,  1861. 

Sir :  Your  letter  of  the  31st  ultimo,  inviting  me,  on  behalf  of  the 
legislature  of  Ohio,  to  visit  Columbus  on  my  way  to  Washington, 
has  been  duly  received. 

With  profound  gratitude  for  the  mark  of  respect  and  honor  thus 
cordially  tendered  me  by  you  and  them,  I  accept  the  invitation. 

Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINCOLN. 

His  Excellency  WILLIAM  DENNISON, 

Governor  of  Ohio. 
Please  arrange  no  ceremonies  which  will  waste  time. 


February  7,  1861. — LETTER  TO  J.  G.  LOWE  AND  OTHERS, 
COMMITTEE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  February  7,  1861. 

Gentlemen :  Your  note  of  to-day,  inviting  me  while  on  my  way  to 
Washington  to  pass  through  the  town  and  accept  the  hospitalities 
of  the  citizens  of  Dayton,  Ohio,  is  before  me. 

A  want  of  the  necessary  time  makes  it  impossible  for  me  to  stop 
in  your  town.  If  it  will  not  retard  my  arrival  at  or  departure  from 
the  city  of  Columbus,  I  will  endeavor  to  pass  through  and  at  least 
bow  to  the  friends  there;  if,  however,  it  would  in  any  wise  delay  me, 
they  must  not  even  expect  this,  but  be  content  instead  to  receive 
through  you  my  warmest  thanks  for  the  kindness  and  cordiality 
with  which  they  have  tendered  this  invitation. 

Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINCOLN. 

MESSRS.  J.  G.  LOWE,  T.  A.  PHILLIPS, 

AND  W.  H.  GILLESPIE,  Committee. 

February  8,  1861. — LETTER  TO  GEORGE  B.  SENTER  AND  OTHERS, 

COMMITTEE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  February  8,  1861. 
GEORGE  B.  SENTER  AND  OTHERS,  Committee. 

Gentlemen :  Yours  of  the  6th,  inviting  me,  in  compliance  with  a 
resolution  of  the  city  council  of  the  city  of  Cleveland,  Ohio,  to  visit 
that  city  on  my  contemplated  journey  to  Washington,  is  duly  at  hand, 
and  in  answer  I  have  the  honor  to  accept  the  invitation.  The  time  of 
arrival  and  other  details  are  subject  to  future  arrangement. 

Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINCOLN. 


672          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


February  8,  1861. —  LETTER  TO  A.  D.  FINNEY  AND  OTHERS, 

COMMITTEE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  February  8,  1861. 
HON.  A.  D.  FINNEY  AND  OTHERS,  Committee. 

Gentlemen :  Yours  of  the  4th,  inviting  me  on  behalf  of  the  legis 
lature  of  Pennsylvania  to  visit  Harrisburg  on  my  way  to  the  Federal 
capital,  is  received ;  and,  in  answer,  allow  me  to  say  I  gratefully  ac 
cept  the  tendered  honor. 

The  time  of  arrival,  and  other  details,  are  subject  to  future  arrange 
ments.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


February  11, 1861. — FAREWELL  ADDRESS  AT  SPRINGFIELD, 

ILLINOIS. 

My  Friends  :  No  one,  not  in  my  situation,  can  appreciate  my  feel 
ing  of  sadness  at  this  parting.  To  this  place,  and  the  kindness  of 
these  people,  I  owe  everything.  Here  I  have  lived  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  and  have  passed  from  a  young  to  an  old  man.  Here  my 
children  have  been  born,  and  one  is  buried.  I  now  leave,  not  know 
ing  when  or  whether  ever  I  may  return,  with  a  task  before  me 
greater  than  that  which  rested  upon  Washington.  Without  the 
assistance  of  that  Divine  Being  who  ever  attended  him,  I  cannot 
succeed.  With  that  assistance,  I  cannot  fail.  Trusting  in  Him 
who  can  go  with  me,  and  remain  with  you,  and  be  everywhere  for 
good,  let  us  confidently  hope  that  all  will  yet  be  well.  To  His  care 
commending  you,  as  I  hope  in  your  prayers  you  will  commend  me, 
I  bid  you  an  affectionate  farewell. 


February   11,  1861. — REPLY  TO  THE  ADDRESS  OF  WELCOME  AT 
INDIANAPOLIS,  INDIANA. 

*  Governor  Morton  and  Fellow-citizens  of  the  State  of  Indiana :  Most 
heartily  do  I  thank  you  for  this  magnificent  reception ;  and  while 
I  cannot  take  to  myself  any  share  of  the  compliment  thus  paid,  more 
than  that  which  pertains  to  a  mere  instrument — an  accidental  in 
strument  perhaps  I  should  say  ^  of  a  great  cause,  I  yet  must  look 
upon  it  as  a  magnificent  reception,  and  as  such  most  heartily  do  I 
thank  you  for  it.  You  have  been  pleased  to  address  yourself  to  me 
chiefly  in  behalf  of  this  glorious  Union  in  which  we  live,  in  all  of 
which  you  have  my  hearty  sympathy,  and,  as  far  as  may  be  within 
my  power,  will  have,  one  and  inseparably,  my  hearty  cooperation. 
While  I  do  not  expect,  upon  this  occasion,  or  until  I  get  to  Washing 
ton,  to  attempt  any  lengthy  speech,  I  will  only  say  that  to  the  salva 
tion  of  the  Union  there  needs  but  one  single  thing,  the  hearts  of  a 
people  like  yours.  When  the  people  rise  in  mass  in  behalf  of  the 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          673 

Union  and  the  liberties  of  this  country,  truly  may  it  be  said,  "  The 
gates  of  hell  cannot  prevail  against  them."  In  all  trying  posi 
tions  in  which  I  shall  be  placed,  and  doubtless  I  shall  be  placed 
in  many  such,  my  reliance  will  be  upon  you  and  the  people  of  the 
United  States ;  and  I  wish  you  to  remember,  now  and  forever,  that 
it  is  your  business,  and  not  mine ;  that  if  the  union  of  these  States 
and  the  liberties  of  this  people  shall  be  lost,  it  is  but  little  to  any  one 
man  of  fifty-two  years  of  age,  but  a  great  deal  to  the  thirty  millions 
of  people  who  inhabit  these  United  States,  and  to  their  posterity  in 
all  coming  time.  It  is  your  business  to  rise  up  and  preserve  the  Union 
and  liberty  for  yourselves,  and  not  for  me.  I  appeal  to  you  again 
to  constantly  bear  in  mind  that  not  with  politicians,  not  with  Pres 
idents,  not  with  office-seekers,  but  with  you,  is  the  question :  Shall 
the  Union  and  shall  the  liberties  of  this  country  be  preserved  to 
the  latest  generations? 


February  12    1861. — ADDRESS  TO  THE  LEGISLATURE  OF  INDIANA 

AT  INDIANAPOLIS. 

Fellow-citizens  of  the  State  of  Indiana :  I  am  here  to  thank  you 
much  for  this  magnificent  welcome,  and  still  more  for  the  generous 
support  given  by  your  State  to  that  political  cause  which  I  think  is 
the  true  and  just  cause  of  the  whole  country  and  the  whole  world. 
Solomon  says  there  is  "  a  time  to  keep  silence,'7  and  when  men  wrangle 
by  the  month  with  no  certainty  that  they  mean  the  same  thing,  while 
using  the  same  word,  it  perhaps  were  as  well  if  they  would  keep 
silence.  The  words  "  coercion  n  and  "  invasion  n  are  much  used  in 
these  days,  and  often  with  some  temper  and  hot  blood.  Let  us 
make  sure,  if  we  can,  that  we  do  not  misunderstand  the  meaning  of 
those  who  use  them.  Let  us  get  exact  definitions  of  these  words, 
not  from  dictionaries,  but  from  the  men  themselves,  who  certainly 
deprecate  the  things  they  would  represent  by  the  use  of  words. 
What,  then,  is  "coercion"?  What  is  "invasion"?  Would  the 
marching  of  an  army  into  South  Carolina  without  the  consent  of 
her  people,  and  with  hostile  intent  toward  them,  be  "invasion"?  I 
certainly  think  it  would ;  and  it  would  be  "  coercion  "  also  if  the 
South  Carolinians  were  forced  to  submit.  But  if  the  United  States 
should  merely  hold  and  retake  its  own  forts  and  other  property,  and 
collect  the  duties  on  foreign  importations,  or  even  withhold  the 
mails  from  places  where  they  were  habitually  violated,  would  any 
or  all  of  these  things  be  "  invasion  "  or  "  coercion  "  f  Do  our  pro 
fessed  lovers  of  the  Union,  but  who  spitefully  resolve  that  they  will 
resist  coercion  and  invasion,  understand  that  such  things  as  these 
on  the  part  of  the  United  States  would  be  coercion  or  invasion  of  a 
State  ?  If  so,  their  idea  of  means  to  preserve  the  object  of  their 
great  affection  would  seem  to  be  exceedingly  thin  and  airy.  If  sick, 
the  little  pills  of  the  homeopathist  would  be  much  too  large  for  them 
to  swallow.  In  their  view,  the  Union  as  a  family  relation  would 
seem  to  be  no  regular  marriage,  but  rather  a  sort  of  "  free-love  "  ar 
rangement,  to  be  maintained  only  on  "passional  attraction."  By 
VOL.  L— 43. 


674          ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  way,  in  what  consists  the  special  sacredness  of  a  State  ?  I  speak 
not  of  the  position  assigned  to  a  State  in  the  Union  by  the  Constitu 
tion  -j  for  that,  by  the  bond,  we  all  recognize.  That  position,  how 
ever,  a  State  cannot  carry  out  of  the  Union  with  it.  I  speak  of  that 
assumed  primary  right  of  a  State  to  rule  all  which  is  less  than  itself, 
and  ruin  all  which  is  larger  than  itself.  If  a  State  and  a  county,  in 
a  given  case,  should  be  equal  in  extent  of  territory,  and  equal  in 
number  of  inhabitants,  in  what,  as  a  matter  of  principle,  is  the  State 
better  than  the  county?  Would  an  exchange  of  names  be  an  ex 
change  of  rights  upon  principle  ?  On  what  rightful  principle  may 
a  State,  being  not  more  than  one  fiftieth  part  of  the  nation  in  soil 
and  population,  break  up  the  nation  and  then  coerce  a  proportion 
ally  larger  subdivision  of  itself  in  the  most  arbitrary  way  ?  What 
mysterious  right  to  play  tyrant  is  conferred  on  a  district  of  country 
with  its  people,  by  merely  calling  it  a  State  ?  Fellow-citizens,  I  am 
not  asserting  anything  j  I  am  merely  asking  questions  for  you  to 
consider.  And  now  allow  me  to  bid  you  farewell. 


February  12,  1861. —  ADDRESS  TO  THE  MAYOR  AND  CITIZENS 
OF  CINCINNATI,  OHIO. 

Mr.  Mayor,  Ladies,  and  Gentlemen :  Twenty-four  hours  ago,  at  the 
capital  of  Indiana,  I  said  to  myself  I  have  never  seen  so  many  peo 
ple  assembled  together  in  winter  weather.  I  am  no  longer  able  to 
say  that.  But  it  is  what  might  reasonably  have  been  expected — 
that  this  great  city  of  Cincinnati  would  thus  acquit  herself  on  such 
an  occasion.  My  friends,  I  am  entirely  overwhelmed  by  the  magnifi 
cence  of  the  reception  which  has  been  given,  I  will  not  say  to  me,  but 
to  the  President-elect  of  the  United  States  of  America.  Most  heartily 
do  I  thank  you,  one  and  all,  for  it. 

I  am  reminded  by  the  address  of  your  worthy  mayor  that  this 
reception  is  given  not  by  any  one  political  party,  and  even  if  I  had 
not  been  so  reminded  by  his  Honor  I  could  not  have  failed  to  know 
the  fact  by  the  extent  of  the  multitude  I  see  before  me  now.  I  could 
not  look  upon  this  vast  assemblage  without  being  made  aware  that 
all  parties  were  united  in  this  reception.  This  is  as  it  should  be.  It 
is  as  it  should  have  been  if  Senator  Douglas  had  been  elected.  It  is 
as  it  should  have  been  if  Mr.  Bell  had  been  elected ;  as  it  should 
have  been  if  Mr.  Breckinridge  had  been  elected;  as  it  should  ever 
be  when  any  citizen  of  the  United  States  is  constitutionally  elected 
President  of  the  United  States.  Allow  me  to  say  that  I  think  what 
has  occurred  here  to-day  could  not  have  occurred  in  any  other  coun 
try  on  the  face  of  the  globe,  without  the  influence  of  the  free  institu 
tions  which  we  have  unceasingly  enjoyed  for  three  quarters  of  a 
century. 

There  is  no  country  where  the  people  can  turn  out  and  enjoy  this 
day  precisely  as  they  please,  save  under  the  benign  influence  of  the 
free  institutions  of  our  land. 

I  hope  that,  although  we  have  some  threatening  national  difficul 
ties  now  —  I  hope  that  while  these  free  institutions  shall  continue  to 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          675 

be  in  the  enjoyment  of  millions  of  free  people  of  the  United  States, 
we  will  see  repeated  every  four  years  what  we  now  witness. 

In  a  few  short  years  L  and  every  other  individual  man  who  is  now 
living,  will  pass  away ;  I  hope  that  our  national  difficulties  will  also 
pass  away,  and  I  hope  we  shall  see  in  the  streets  of  Cincinnati  — 
good  old  Cincinnati — for  centuries  to  come,  once  every  four  years, 
her  people  give  such  a  reception  as  this  to  the  constitutionally 
elected  President  of  the  whole  United  States.  I  hope  you  shall  all 
join  in  that  reception,  and  that  you  shall  also  welcome  your  brethren 
from  across  the  river  to  participate  in  it.  We  will  welcome  them  in 
every  State  of  the  Union,  no  matter  where  they  are  from.  From  away 
South  we  shall  extend  them  a  cordial  good-will,  when  our  present 
difficulties  shall  have  been  forgotten  and  blown  to  the  winds  forever. 

I  have  spoken  but  once  before  this  in  Cincinnati.  That  was  a 
year  previous  to  the  late  presidential  election.  On  that  occasion, 
in  a  playful  manner,  but  with  sincere  words,  I  addressed  much 
of  what  I  said  to  the  Kentuckians.  I  gave  my  opinion  that  we  as 
Republicans  would  ultimately  beat  them  as  Democrats,  but  that  they 
could  postpone  that  result  longer  by  nominating  Senator  Douglas 
for  the  presidency  than  they  could  in  any  other  way.  They  did  not, 
in  any  true  sense  of  the  word,  nominate  Mr.  Douglas,  and  the  result 
has  come  certainly  as  soon  as  ever  I  expected.  I  also  told  them  how 
I  expected  they  would  be  treated  after  they  should  have  been  beaten ; 
and  I  now  wish  to  recall  their  attention  to  what  I  then  said  upon 
that  subject.  I  then  said,  "When  we  do  as  we  say, — beat  you, — 
you  perhaps  want  to  know  what  we  will  do  with  you.  I  will  tell  you, 
so  far  as  I  am  authorized  to  speak  for  the  opposition,  what  we  mean 
to  do  with  you.  We  mean  to  treat  you,  as  near  as  we  possibly  can, 
as  Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Madison  treated  you.  We  mean  to 
leave  you  alone,  and  in  no  way  to  interfere  with  your  institutions; 
to  abide  by  all  and  every  compromise  of  the  Constitution ;  and,  in 
a  word,  coming  back  to  the  original  proposition,  to  treat  you,  so  far 
as  degenerate  men — if  we  have  degenerated  —  may,  according  to 
the  examples  of  those  noble  fathers,  Washington,  Jefferson,  and 
Madison.  We  mean  to  remember  that  you  are  as  good  as  we;  that 
there  is  no  difference  between  us  other  than  the  difference  of  circum 
stances.  We  mean  to  recognize  and  bear  in  mind  always  that  you 
have  as  good  hearts  in  your  bosoms  as  other  people,  or  as  we  claim 
to  have,  and  treat  you  accordingly." 

Fellow-citizens  of  Kentucky ! — friends !  — brethren !  may  I  call  you 
in  my  new  position  ?  I  see  no  occasion,  and  feel  no  inclination,  to 
retract  a  word  of  this.  If  it  shall  not  be  made  good,  be  assured  the 
fault  shall  not  be  mine. 

And  now,  fellow-citizens  of  Ohio,  have  you,  who  agree  with  him 
who  now  addresses  you  in  political  sentiment — have  you  ever  enter 
tained  other  sentiments  toward  our  brethren  of  Kentucky  than  those 
I  have  expressed  to  you?  If  not,  then  why  shall  we  not,  as  hereto 
fore,  be  recognized  and  acknowledged  as  brethren  again,  living  in 
peace  and  harmony  again  one  with  another?  I  take  your  response 
as  the  most  reliable  evidence  that  it  may  be  so,  trusting,  through 
the  good  sense  of  the  American  people,  on  all  sides  of  all  rivers  in 


676         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

America,  under  the  providence  of  God,  who  has  never  deserted  us, 
that  we  shall  again  be  brethren,  forgetting  all  parties,  ignoring  all 
parties.  My  friends,  I  now  bid  you  farewell. 

February  12,  1861. — ADDRESS  TO  GERMANS  AT  CINCINNATI,  OHIO. 

Mr.  Chairman :  I  thank  you  and  those  whom  you  represent  for  the 
compliment  you  have  paid  me  by  tendering  me  this  address.  In  so 
far  as  there  is  an  allusion  to  our  present  national  difficulties,  which 
expresses,  as  you  have  said,  the  views  of  the  gentlemen  present,  I 
shall  have  to  beg  pardon  for  not  entering  fully  upon  the  questions 
which  the  address  you  have  now  read  suggests. 

I  deem  it  my  duty — a  duty  which  I  owe  to  my  constituents — to 
you,  gentlemen,  that  I  should  wait  until  the  last  moment  for  a  devel 
opment  of  the  present  national  difficulties  before  I  express  myself 
decidedly  as  to  what  course  I  shall  pursue.  I  hope,  then,  not  to  be 
false  to  anything  that  you  have  to  expect  of  me. 

I  agree  with  you,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  the  working-men  are  the 
basis  of  all  governments,  for  the  plain  reason  that  they  are  the  more 
numerous,  and  as  you  added  that  those  were  the  sentiments  of  the 
gentlemen  present,  representing  not  only  the  working-class,  but  citi 
zens  of  other  callings  than  those  of  tide  mechanic,  I  am  happy  to 
concur  with  you  in  these  sentiments,  not  only  of  the  native-born 
citizens,  but  also  of  the  Germans  and  foreigners  from  other  countries. 

Mr.  Chairman,  I  hold  that  while  man  exists  it  is  his  duty  to  im 
prove  not  only  his  own  condition,  but  to  assist  in  ameliorating 
mankind;  and  therefore,  without  entering  upon  the  details  of  the 
question,  I  will  simply  say  that  I  am  for  those  means  which  will  give 
the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  number. 

In  regard  to  the  homestead  law,  I  have  to  say  that  in  so  far  as 
the  government  lands  can  be  disposed  of,  I  am  in  favor  of  cutting  up 
the  wild  lands  into  parcels,  so  that  every  poor  man  may  have  a  home. 

In  regard  to  the  Germans  and  foreigners,  I  esteem  them  no  better 
than  other  people,  nor  any  worse.  It  is  not  my  nature,  when  I  see 
a  people  borne  down  by  the  weight  of  their  shackles  —  the  oppres 
sion  of  tyranny — to  make  their  life  more  bitter  by  heaping  upon 
them  greater  burdens ;  but  rather  would  I  do  all  in  my  power  to 
raise  the  yoke  than  to  add  anything  that  would  tend  to  crush  them. 

Inasmuch  as  our  country  is  extensive  and  new,  and  the  countries 
of  Europe  are  densely  populated,  if  there  are  any  abroad  who  desire 
to  make  this  the  land  of  their  adoption,  it  is  not  in  my  heart  to  throw 
aught  in  their  way  to  prevent  them  from  coming  to  the  United  States. 

Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen,  I  will  bid  you  an  affectionate 
farewell. 

February  13, 1861. —  ADDRESS  TO  THE  LEGISLATURE  OF  OHIO 
AT  COLUMBUS. 

Mr.  President  and  Mr.  Speaker,  and  Gentlemen  of  the  General  As 
sembly  of  Ohio :  It  is  true,  as  has  been  said  by  the  president  of  the 
Senate,  that  very  great  responsibility  rests  upon  me  in  the  position 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          677 

to  which  the  votes  of  the  American  people  have  called  me.  I  am 
deeply  sensible  of  that  weighty  responsibility.  I  cannot  but  know 
what  you  all  know,  that  without  a  name,  perhaps  without  a  reason 
why  I  should  have  a  name,  there  has  fallen  upon  me  a  task  such  as 
did  not  rest  even  upon  the  Father  of  his  Country  •  and  so  feeling,  I 
can  turn  and  look  for  that  support  without  which  it  will  be  impossi 
ble  for  me  to  perform  that  great  task.  I  turn,  then,  and  look  to  the 
American  people,  and  to  that  God  who  has  never  forsaken  them. 
Allusion  has  been  made  to  the  interest  felt  in  relation  to  the  policy  of 
the  new  administration.  In  this  I  have  received  from  some  a  degree 
of  credit  fqr  having  kept  silence,  and  from  others  some  deprecation. 
I  still  think  that  I  was  right.  .  .  . 

In  the  varying  and  repeatedly  shifting  scenes  of  the  present,  and 
without  a  precedent  which  could  enable  me  to  judge  by  the  past,  it 
has  seemed  fitting  that  before  speaking  upon  the  difficulties  of  the 
country  I  should  have  gained  a  view  of  the  whole  field,  being  at 
liberty  to  modify  and  change  the  course  of  policy  as  future  events 
may  make  a  change  necessary. 

I  have  not  maintained  silence  from  any  want  of  real  anxiety.  It  is 
a  good  thing  that  there  is  no  more  than  anxiety,  for  there  is  nothing 
going  wrong.  It  is  a  consoling  circumstance  that  when  we  look  out 
there  is  nothing  that  really  hurts  anybody.  We  entertain  different 
views  upon  political  questions,  but  nobody  is  suffering  anything. 
This  is  a  most  consoling  circumstance,  and  from  it  we  may  conclude 
that  all  we  want  is  time,  patience,  and  a  reliance  on  that  God  who 
has  never  forsaken  this  people. 

Fellow-citizens,  what  I  have  said  I  have  said  altogether  extempo 
raneously,  and  I  will  now  come  to  a  close. 

February  14,  1861. — ADDRESS  AT  STEUBENVILLE,  OHIO. 

I  fear  that  the  great  confidence  placed  in  my  ability  is  unfounded. 
Indeed,  I  am  sure  it  is.  Encompassed  by  vast  difficulties  as  I  am, 
nothing  shall  be  wanting  on  my  part,  if  sustained  by  God  and  the 
American  people.  I  believe  the  devotion  to  the  Constitution  is  equally 
great  on  both  sides  of  the  river.  It  is  only  the  different  understand 
ing  of  that  instrument  that  causes  difficulty.  The  only  dispute  on 
both  sides  is,  "  What  are  their  rights  ? "  If  the  majority  should  not 
rule,  who  would  be  the  judge  ?  Where  is  such  a  judge  to  be  found  ? 
We  should  all  be  bound  by  the  majority  of  the  American  people  5 
if  not,  then  the  minority  "must  control.  Would  that  be  right  ? 
Would  it  be  just  or  generous  ?  Assuredly  not.  I  reiterate  that  the 
majority  should  rule.  If  I  adopt  a  wrong  policy,  the  opportunity 
for  condemnation  will  occur  in  four  years'  time.  Then  I  can  be 
turned  out,  and  a  better  man  with  better  views  put  in  my  place. 

February  15,  1861.— ADDRESS  AT  PITTSBURG,  PENNSYLVANIA. 

I  most  cordially  thank  his  Honor  Mayor  Wilson,  and  the  citizens 
of  Pittsburg  generally,  for  their  flattering  reception.  I  am  the  more 


678          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

grateful  because  I  know  that  it  is  not  given  to  me  alone,  but  to  the 
cause  I  represent,  which  clearly  proves  to  me  their  good-will,  and 
that  sincere  feeling  is  at  the  bottom  of  it.  And  here  I  may  remark 
that  in  every  short  address  I  have  made  to  the  people,  in  every  crowd 
through  which  I  have  passed  of  late,  some  allusion  has  been  made  to 
the  present  distracted  condition  of  the  country.  It  is  natural  to  ex 
pect  that  I  should  say  something  on  this  subject ;  but  to  touch  upon 
it  at  all  would  involve  an  elaborate  discussion  of  a  great  many  ques 
tions  and  circumstances,  requiring  more  time  than  I  can  at  present 
command,  and  would,  perhaps,  unnecessarily  commit  me  upon  mat 
ters  which  have  not  yet  fully  developed  themselves.  The  Condition  of 
the  country  is  an  extraordinary  one,  and  fills  the  mind  of  every  pa 
triot  with  anxiety.  It  is  my  intention  to  give  this  subject  all  the 
consideration  I  possibly  can  before  specially  deciding  in  regard  to  it, 
so  that  when  I  do  speak  it  may  be  as  nearly  right  as  possible.  When 
I  do  speak  I  hope  I  may  say  nothing  in  opposition  to  the  spirit  of 
the  Constitution,  contrary  to  the  integrity  of  the  Union,  or  which 
will  prove  inimical  to  the  liberties  of  the  people,  or  to  the  peace  of 
the  whole  country.  And,  furthermore,  when  the  time  arrives  for  me 
to  speak  on  this  great  subject,  I  hope  I  may  say  nothing  to  disappoint 
the  people  generally  throughout  the  country,  especially  if  the  expec 
tation  has  been  based  upon  anything  which  I  may  have  heretofore 
said.  Notwithstanding  the  troubles  across  the  river  [the  speaker 
pointing  southwardly  across  the  Monongahela,  and  smiling],  there 
is  no  crisis  but  an  artificial  one.  What  is  there  now  to  warrant  the 
condition  of  affairs  presented  by  our  friends  over  the  river  ?  Take 
even  their  own  view  of  the  questions  involved,  and  there  is  nothing 
to  justify  the  course  they  are  pursuing.  I  repeat,  then,  there  is  no 
crisis,  excepting  such  a  one  as  may  be  gotten  up  at  any  time  by  tur 
bulent  men  aided  by  designing  politicians.  My  advice  to  them,  under 
such  circumstances,  is  to  keep  cool.  If  the  great  American  people 
only  keep  their  temper  on  both  sides  of  the  line,  the  troubles  will  come 
to  an  end,  and  the  question  which  now  distracts  the  country  will  be 
settled,  just  as  surely  as  all  other  difficulties  of  a  like  character  which 
have  originated  in  this  government  have  been  adjusted.  Let  the 
people  on  both  sides  keep  their  self-possession,  and  just  as  other 
clouds  have  cleared  away  in  due  time,  so  will  this  great  nation  con 
tinue  to  prosper  as  heretofore.  But,  fellow-citizens,  I  have  spoken 
longer  on  this  subject  than  I  intended  at  the  outset. 

It  is  often  said  that  the  tariff  is  the  specialty  of  Pennsylvania. 
Assuming  that  direct  taxation  is  not  to  be  adopted,  the  tariff  ques 
tion  must  be  as  durable  as  the  government  itself.  It  is  a  question 
of  national  housekeeping.  It  is  to  the  government  what  replenish 
ing  the  meal-tub  is  to  the  family.  Ever-varying  circumstances  will 
require  frequent  modifications  as  to  the  amount  needed  and  the 
sources  of  supply.  So  far  there  is  little  difference  of  opinion  among 
the  people.  It  is  as  to  whether,  and  how  far,  duties  on  imports  shall 
be  adjusted  to  favor  home  production  in  the  home  market,  that  con 
troversy  begins.  One  party  insists  that  such  adjustment  oppresses 
one  class  for  the  advantage  of  another  •  while  the  other  party  argues 
that,  with  all  its  incidents,  in  the  long  run  all  classes  are  benefited. 
In  the  Chicago  platform  there  is  a  plank  upon  this  subject  which 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          679 

should  be  a  general  law  to  the  incoming  administration.  We  should 
do  neither  more  nor  less  than  we  gave  the  people  reason  to  believe 
we  would  when  they  gave  us  their  votes.  Permit  me,  fellow-citizens, 
to  read  the  tariff  plank  of  the  Chicago  platform,  or  rather  have  it 
read  in  your  hearing  by  one  who  has  younger  eyes. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  private  secretary  then  read  Section  12  of  the  Chicago 
platform,  as  follows: 

That  while  providing  revenue  for  the  support  of  the  General  Government 
by  duties  upon  imports,  sound  policy  requires  such  an  adjustment  of  these 
imposts  as  will  encourage  the  development  of  the  industrial  interest  of  the 
whole  country ;  and  we  commend  that  policy  of  national  exchanges  which 
secures  to  working-men  liberal  wages,  to  agriculture  remunerating  prices, 
to  mechanics  and  manufacturers  adequate  reward  for  their  skill,  labor,  and 
enterprise,  and  to  the  nation  commercial  prosperity  and  independence. 

Mr.  Lincoln  resumed :  As  with  all  general  propositions,  doubtless 
there  will  be  shades  of  difference  in  construing  this.  I  have  by  no 
means  a  thoroughly  matured  judgment  upon  this  subject,  especially 
as  to  details ;  some  general  ideas  are  about  all.  I  have  long  thought 
it  would  be  to  our  advantage  to  produce  any  necessary  article  at 
home  which  can  be  made  of  as  good  quality  and  with  as  little  labor 
at  home  as  abroad,  at  least  by  the  difference  of  the  carrying  from 
abroad.  In  such  case  the  carrying  is  demonstrably  a  dead  loss  of 
labor.  For  instance,  labor  being  the  true  standard  of  value,  is  it 
not  plain  that  if  equal  labor  get  a  bar  of  railroad  iron  out  of  a  mine 
in  England,  and  another  out  of  a  mine  in  Pennsylvania,  each  can  be 
laid  down  in  a  track  at  home  cheaper  than  they  could  exchange 
countries,  at  least  by  the  carriage  ?  If  there  be  a  present  cause  why 
one  can  be  both  made  and  carried  cheaper  in  money  price  than  the 
other  can  be  made  without  carrying,  that  cause  is  an  unnatural  and 
injurious  one,  and  ought  gradually,  if  not  rapidly,  to  be  removed. 
The  condition  of  the  treasury  at  this  time  would  seem  to  render  an 
early  revision  of  the  tariff  indispensable.  The  Morrill  [tariff]  bill, 
now  pending  before  Congress,  may  or  may  not  become  a  law.  I  am 
not  posted  as  to  its  particular  provisions,  but  if  they  are  generally 
satisfactory,  and  the  bill  shall  now  pass,  there  will  be  an  end  for  the 
present.  If,  however,  it  shall  not  pass,  I  suppose  the  whole  subject 
will  be  one  of  the  most  pressing  and  important  for  the  next  Congress. 
By  the  Constitution,  the  executive  may  recommend  measures  which 
he  may  think  proper,  and  he  may  veto  those  he  thinks  improper,  and 
it  is  supposed  that  he  may  add  to  these  certain  indirect  influences  to 
affect  the  action  of  Congress.  My  political  education  strongly  in 
clines  me  against  a  very  free  use  of  any  of  these  means  by  the  ex 
ecutive  to  control  the  legislation  of  the  country.  As  a  rule,  I  think  it 
better  that  Congress  should  originate  as  well  as  perfect  its  measures 
without  external  bias.  I  therefore  would  rather  recommend  to 
every  gentlemen  who  knows  he  is  to  be  a  member  of  the  next  Con 
gress  to  take  an  enlarged  view,  and  post  himself  thoroughly,  so  as  to 
contribute  his  part  to  such  an  adjustment  of  the  tariff  as  shall  pro 
duce  a  sufficient  revenue,  and  in  its  other  bearings,  so  far  as  possible, 
be  just  and  equal  to  all  sections  of  the  country  and  classes  of  the 
people. 


680          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


February  15, 1861. — ADDRESS  AT  CLEVELAND,  OHIO. 

Fellow-citizens  of  Cleveland  and  Ohio :  We  have  come  here  upon  a 
very  inclement  afternoon.  We  have  marched  for  two  miles  through 
the  rain  and  the  mud. 

The  large  numbers  that  have  turned  out  under  these  circumstances 
testify  that  you  are  in  earnest  about  something,  and  what  is  that  some 
thing?  I  would  not  have  you  suppose  that  I  think  this  extreme  ear 
nestness  is  about  me.  I  should  be  exceedingly  sorry  to  see  such  devo 
tion  if  that  were  the  case.  But  I  know  it  is  paid  to  something  worth 
more  than  any  one  man,  or  any  thousand  or  ten  thousand  men.  You 
have  assembled  to  testify  your  devotion  to  the  Constitution,  to  the 
Union,  and  the  laws,  to  the  perpetual  liberty  of  the  people  of  this  coun 
try.  It  is,  fellow-citizens,  for  the  whole  American  people,  and  not  for 
one  single  man  alone,  to  advance  the  great  cause  of  the  Union  and  the 
Constitution.  And  in  a  country  like  this,  where  every  man  bears  on 
his  face  the  marks  of  intelligence,  where  every  man's  clothing,  if  I 
may  so  speak,  shows  signs  of  comfort,  and  every  dwelling  signs  of 
happiness  and  contentment,  where  schools  and  churches  abound  on 
every  side,  the  Union  can  never  be  in  danger.  I  would,  if  I  couldr 
instil  some  degree  of  patriotism  and  confidence  into  the  political 
mind  in  relation  to  this  matter. 

Frequent  allusion  is  made  to  the  excitement  at  present  existing  in 
our  national  politics,  and  it  is  as  well  that  I  should  also  allude  to  it 
here.  I  think  that  there  is  no  occasion  for  any  excitement.  I  think 
the  crisis,  as  it  is  called,  is  altogether  an  artificial  one.  In  all  parts 
of  the  nation  there  are  differences  of  opinion  on  politics ;  there  are 
differences  of  opinion  even  here.  You  did  not  all  vote  for  the  per 
son  who  now  addresses  you,  although  quite  enough  of  you  did  for  all 
practical  purposes,  to  be  sure. 

What  they  do  who  seek  to  destroy  the  Union  is  altogether  arti 
ficial.  What  is  happening  to  hurt  them  ?  Have  they  not  all  their 
rights  now  as  they  ever  have  had  ?  Do  not  they  have  their  fugitive 
slaves  returned  now  as  ever  ?  Have  they  not  the  same  Constitution 
that  they  have  lived  under  for  seventy-odd  years  ?  Have  they  not 
a  position  as  citizens  of  this  common  country,  and  have  we  any 
power  to  change  that  position?  [Cries  of  "No!"]  What  then  is 
the  matter  with  them  ?  Why  all  this  excitement?  Why  all  these 
complaints  ?  As  I  said  before,  this  crisis  is  altogether  artificial.  It 
has  no  foundation  in  fact.  It  can't  be  argued  up,  and  it  can't  be 
argued  down.  Let  it  alone,  and  it  will  go  down  of  itself. 

I  have  not  strength,  fellow-citizens,  to  address  you  at  great  length, 
and  I  pray  that  you  will  excuse  me ;  but  rest  assured  that  my  thanks 
are  as  cordial  and  sincere  for  the  efficient  aid  which  you  will  give  to 
the  good  cause  in  working  for  the  good  of  the  nation,  as  for  the 
votes  you  gave  me  last  fall. 

There  is  one  feature  that  causes  me  great  pleasure,  and  that  is  to 
learn  that  this  reception  is  given,  not  alone  by  those  with  whom  I 
chance  to  agree  politically,  but  by  all  parties.  I  think  I  am  not 
selfish  when  I  say  this  is  as  it  should  be.  If  Judge  Douglas  had 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN          681 

been  chosen  President  of  the  United  States,  and  had  this  evening 
been  passing  through  your  city,  the  Republicans  should  have  joined 
his  supporters  in  welcoming  him  just  as  his  friends  have  joined  with 
mine  to-night.  If  we  do  not  make  common  cause  to  save  the  good 
old  ship  of  the  Union  on  this  voyage,  nobody  will  have  a  chance  to 
pilot  her  on  another  voyage. 

To  all  of  you,  then,  who  have  done  me  the  honor  to  participate  in 
this  cordial  welcome,  I  return  most  sincerely  my  thanks,  not  for  my 
self,  but  for  Liberty,  the  Constitution,  and  Union. 

I  bid  you  an  affectionate  farewell. 


February  16,  1861. — ADDRESS  AT  BUFFALO,  NEW  YORK. 

Mr.  Mayor  and  Fellow-citizens  of  Buffalo  and  the  State  of  New  York: 
I  am  here  to  thank  you  briefly  for  this  grand  reception  given  to  me, 
not  personally,  but  as  the  representative  of  our  great  and  beloved 
country.  Your  worthy  mayor  has  been  pleased  to  mention,  in  his 
address  to  me,  the  fortunate  and  agreeable  journey  which  I  have  had 
from  home,  on  my  rather  circuitous  route  to  the  Federal  capital.  I 
am  very  happy  that  he  was  enabled  in  truth  to  congratulate  myself 
and  company  on  that  fact.  It  is  true  we  have  had  nothing  thus  far 
to  mar  the  pleasure  of  the  trip.  We  have  not  been  met  alone  by  those 
who  assisted  in  giving  the  election  to  me — I  say  not  alone  by  them, 
but  by  the  whole  population  of  the  country  through  which  we  have 
passed.  This  is  as  it  should  be.  Had  the  election  fallen  to  any  other 
of  the  distinguished  candidates  instead  of  myself,  under  the  peculiar 
circumstances,  to  say  the  least,  it  would  have  been  proper  for  all  citi 
zens  to  have  greeted  him  as  you  now  greet  me.  It  is  an  evidence  of 
the  devotion  of  the  whole  people  to  the  Constitution,  the  Union,  and 
the  perpetuity  of  the  liberties  of  this  country.  I  am  unwilling  on  any 
occasion  that  I  should  be  so  meanly  thought  of  as  to  have  it  supposed 
for  a  moment  that  these  demonstrations  are  tendered  to  me  person 
ally.  They  are  tendered  to  the  country,  to  the  institutions  of  the 
country,  and  to  the  perpetuity  of  the  liberties  of  the  country,  for 
which  these  institutions  were  made  and  created. 

Your  worthy  mayor  has  thought  fit  to  express  the  hope  that  I 
may  be  able  to  relieve  the  country  from  the  present,  or,  I  should  say, 
the  threatened  difficulties.  I  am  sure  I  bring  a  heart  true  to  the 
work.  For  the  ability  to  perform  it,  I  must  trust  in  that  Supreme 
Being  who  has  never  forsaken  this  favored  land,  through  the  instru 
mentality  of  this  great  and  intelligent  people.  Without  that  assis 
tance  I  shall  surely  fail  5  with  it,  I  cannot  fail.  When  we  speak  of 
threatened  difficulties  to  the  country,  it  is  natural  that  it  should  be 
expected  that  something  should  be  said  by  myself  with  regard  to 
particular  measures.  Upon  more  mature  reflection,  however,  others 
will  agree  with  me  that,  when  it  is  considered  that  these  difficulties 
are  without  precedent,  and  have  never  been  acted  upon  by  any  indi 
vidual  situated  as  I  am,  it  is  most  proper  I  should  wait  and  see  the 
developments,  and  get  all  the  light  possible,  so  that  when  I  do  speak 
authoritatively,  I  may  be  as  near  right  as  possible.  When  I  shall 


682         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABKAHAM  LINCOLN 

speak  authoritatively,  I  hope  to  say  nothing  inconsistent  with  the 
Constitution,  the  Union,  the  rights  of  all  the  States,  of  each  State, 
and  of  each  section  of  the  country,  and  not  to  disappoint  the  rea 
sonable  expectations  of  those  who  have  confided  to  me  their  votes. 
In  this  connection  allow  me  to  say  that  you,  as  a  portion  of  the  great 
American  people,  need  only  to  maintain  your  composure,  stand  up  to 
your  sober  convictions  of  right,  to  your  obligations  to  the  Constitu 
tion,  and  act  in  accordance  with  those  sober  convictions,  and  the 
clouds  now  on  the  horizon  will  be  dispelled,  and  we  shall  have  a 
bright  and  glorious  future;  and  when  this  generation  has  passed 
away,  tens  of  thousands  will  inhabit  this  country  where  only  thou 
sands  inhabit  it  now.  I  do  not  propose  to  address  you  at  length ; 
I  have  no  voice  for  it.  Allow  me  again  to  thank  you  for  this  mag 
nificent  reception,  and  bid  you  farewell. 

February  18,  1861. — ADDRESS  AT  ROCHESTER,  NEW  YORK. 

I  confess  myself,  after  having  seen  many  large  audiences  since 
leaving  home,  overwhelmed  with  this  vast  number  of  faces  at  this 
hour  of  the  morning.  I  am  not  vain  enough  to  believe  that  you  are 
here  from  any  wish  to  see  me  as  an  individual,  but  because  I  am  for 
the  time  being  the  representative  of  the  American  people.  I  could 
not,  if  I  would,  address  you  at  any  length.  I  have  not  the  strength, 
even  if  I  had  the  time,  for  a  speech  at  each  of  these  many  interviews 
that  are  afforded  me  on  my  way  to  Washington.  I  appear  merely  to 
see  you,  and  to  let  you  see  me,  and  to  bid  you  farewell.  I  hope  it  will 
be  understood  that  it  is  from  no  disinclination  to  oblige  anybody  that 
I  do  not  address  you  at  greater  length. 

February  18, 1861. — ADDRESS  AT  SYRACUSE,  NEW  YORK. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  ;  I  see  you  have  erected  a  very  fine  and 
handsome  platform  here  for  me,  and  I  presume  you  expected  me 
to  speak  from  it.  If  I  should  go  upon  it,  you  would  imagine 
that  I  was  about  to  deliver  you  a  much  longer  speech  than  I  am. 
I  wish  you  to  understand  that  I  mean  no  discourtesy  to  you  by  thus 
declining.  I  intend  discourtesy  to  no  one.  But  I  wish  you  to 
understand  that  though  I  am  unwilling  to  go  upon  this  platform, 
you  are  not  at  liberty  to  draw  any  inferences  concerning  any  other 
platform  with  which  my  name  has  been  or  is  connected.  I  wish  you 
long  life  and  prosperity  individually,  and  pray  that  with  the  perpe 
tuity  of  those  institutions  under  which  we  have  all  so  long  lived  and 
prospered,  our  happiness  may  be  secured,  our  future  made  brilliant, 
and  the  glorious  destiny  of  our  country  established  forever.  I  bid 
you  a  kind  farewell. 

February  18,  1861. — ADDRESS  AT  UTICA,  NEW  YORK. 

t  Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  I  have  no  speech  to  make  to  you,  and  no 
time  to  speak  in.    I  appear  before  you  that  I  may  see  you,  and  that 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          683 

you  may  see  me  ;  and  I  am  willing  to  admit,  that  so  far  as  the  ladies 
are  concerned,  I  have  the  best  of  the  bargain,  though  I  wish  it  to  be 
understood  that  I  do  not  make  the  same  acknowledgment  concern 
ing  the  men. 

February  18, 1861. — REPLY  TO  THE  MAYOR  OP  ALBANY,  NEW  YORK. 

Mr.  Mayor:  I  can  hardly  appropriate  to  myself  the  flattering 
terms  in  which  you  communicate  the  tender  of  this  reception,  as  per 
sonal  to  myself.  I  most  gratefully  accept  the  hospitalities  tendered 
to  me,  and  will  not  detain  you  or  the  audience  with  any  extended 
remarks  at  this  time.  I  presume  that  in  the  two  or  three  courses 
through  which  I  shall  have  to  go,  I  shall  have  to  repeat  some 
what,  and  I  will  therefore  only  express  to  you  my  thanks  for  this 
kind  reception. 

February  18,  1861. —  REPLY  TO  GOVERNOR  MORGAN  OF  NEW 
YORK,  AT  ALBANY. 

Governor  Morgan :  I  was  pleased  to  receive  an  invitation  to  visit 
the  capital  of  the  great  Empire  State  of  this  nation  while  on  my  way 
to  the  Federal  capital.  I  now  thank  you,  Mr.  Governor,  and  you, 
the  people  of  the  capital  of  the  State  of  New  York,  for  this  most 
hearty  and  magnificent  welcome.  If  I  am  not  at  fault,  the  great 
Empire  State  at  this  time  contains  a  larger  population  than  did  the 
whole  of  the  United  States  of  America  at  the  time  they  achieved 
their  national  independence,  and  I  was  proud  to  be  invited  to  visit 
its  capital,  to  meet  its  citizens,  as  I  now  have  the  honor  to  do.  I  am 
notified  by  your  governor  that  this  reception  is  tendered  by  citizens 
without  distinction  of  party.  Because  of  this  I  accept  it  the  more 
gladly.  In  this  country,  and  in  any  country  where  freedom  of 
thought  is  tolerated,  citizens  attach  themselves  to  political  parties. 
It  is  but  an  ordinary  degree  of  charity  to  attribute  this  act  to  the 
supposition  that  in  thus  attaching  themselves  to  the  various  parties, 
each  man  in  his  own  judgment  supposes  he  thereby  best  advances 
the  interests  of  the  whole  country.  And  when  an  election  is  past,  it 
is  altogether  befitting  a  free  people,  as  I  suppose,  that,  until  the  next 
election,  they  should  be  one  people.  The  reception  you  have  ex 
tended  me  to-day  is  not  given  to  me  personally, — it  should  not  be 
so, — but  as  the  representative,  for  the  time  being,  of  the  majority 
of  the  nation.  If  the  election  had  fallen  to  any  of  the  more  dis 
tinguished  citizens  who  received  the  support  of  the  people,  this  same 
honor  should  have  greeted  him  that  greets  me  this  day,  in  testimony 
of  the  universal,  unanimous  devotion  of  the  whole  people  to  the 
Constitution,  the  Union,  and  to  the  perpetual  liberties  of  succeeding 
generations  in  this  country. 

I  have  neither  the  voice  nor  the  strength  to  address  you  at  any 
greater  length.  I  beg  you  will  therefore  accept  my  most  grateful 
thanks  for  this  manifest  devotion  —  not  to  me,  but  the  institutions 
of  this  great  and  glorious  country. 


684          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 


February  18,  1861. —  ADDRESS  TO  THE  LEGISLATURE  OF  NEW 
YORK,  AT  ALBANY. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  State 
of^Neiv  York  :  It  is  with  feelings  of  great  diffidence,  and,  I  may  say, 
with  feelings  of  awe,  perhaps  greater  than  I  have  recently  expe 
rienced,  that  I  meet  you  here  in  this  place.  The  history  of  this  great 
State,  the  renown  of  those  great  men  who  have  stood  here,  and  have 
spoken  here,  and  been  heard  here,  all  crowd  around  my  fancy,  and 
incline  me  to  shrink  from  any  attempt  to  address  you.  Yet  I  have 
some  confidence  given  me  by  the  generous  manner  in  which  you 
have  invited  me,  and  by  the  still  more  generous  manner  in  which 
you  have  received  me,  to  speak  further.  You  have  invited  and  re 
ceived  me  without  distinction  of  party.  I  cannot  for  a  moment 
suppose  that  this  has  been  done  in  any  considerable  degree  with 
reference  to  my  personal  services,  but  that  it  is  done,  in  so  far 
as  I  am  regarded,  at  this  time,  as  the  representative  of  the  majesty 
of  this  great  nation.  I  doubt  not  this  is  the  truth,  and  the  whole 
truth,  of  the  case,  and  this  is  as  it  should  be.  It  is  much  more 
gratifying  to  me  that  this  reception  has  been  given  to  me  as  the 
elected  representative  of  a  free  people,  than  it  could  possibly  be  if 
tendered  merely  as  an  evidence  of  devotion  to  me,  or  to  any  one 
man  personally. 

And  now  I  think  it  were  more  fitting  that  I  should  close  these 
hasty  remarks.  It  is  true  that,  while  I  hold  myself,  without  mock 
modesty,  the  humblest  of  all  individuals  that  have  ever  been  elevated 
to  the  presidency,  I  have  a  more  difficult  task  to  perform  than  any 
one  of  them. 

You  have  generously  tendered  me  the  support  —  the  united  sup 
port  —  of  the  great  Empire  State.  For  this,  in  behalf  of  the  nation 
—  in  behalf  of  the  present  and  future  of  the  nation  — in  behalf  of 
civil  and  religious  liberty  for  all  time  to  come,  most  gratefully  do  I 
thank  you.  I  do  not  propose  to  enter  into  an  explanation  of  any 
particular  line  of  policy,  as  to  our  present  difficulties,  to  be  adopted 
by  the  incoming  administration.  I  deem  it  just  to  you,  to  myself, 
to  all,  that  I  should  see  everything,  that  I  should  hear  every  thin  gr 
that  I  should  have  every  light  that  can  be  brought  within  my  reach, 
in  order  that,  when  I  do  so  speak,  I  shall  have  enjoyed  every  oppor 
tunity  to  take  correct  and  true  ground;  and  for  this  reason  I  do 
not  propose  to  speak  at  this  time  of  the  policy  of  the  government. 
But  when  the  time  comes,  I  shall  speak,  as  well  as  I  am  able,  for  the 
good  of  the  present  and  future  of  this  country  —  for  the  good  both 
of  the  North  and  of  the  South — for  the  good  of  the  one  and  the 
other,  and  of  all  sections  of  the  country.  In  the  mean  time,  if  we 
have  patience,  if  we  restrain  ourselves,  if  we  allow  ourselves  not 
to  run  off  in  a  passion,  I  still  have  confidence  that  the  Almighty, 
the  Maker  of  the  universe,  will,  through  the  instrumentality  of  this 
great  and  intelligent  people,  bring  us  through  this  as  he  has  through 
all  the  other  difficulties  of  our  country.  Relying  on  this,  I  again 
thank  you  for  this  generous  reception. 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          685 


February  19,  1861. — ADDRESS  AT  TROY,  NEW  YORK. 

Mr.  Mayor  and  Citizens  of  Troy :  I  thank  you  very  kindly  for  this 
great  reception.  Since  I  left  my  home  it  has  not  been  my  fortune  to 
meet  an  assemblage  more  numerous  and  more  orderly  than  this.  I 
am  the  more  gratified  at  this  mark  of  your  regard,  since  you  assure 
me  it  is  tendered,  not  to  the  individual,  but  to  the  high  office  you 
have  called  me  to  fill.  I  have  neither  strength  nor  time  to  make  any 
extended  remarks  on  this  occasion,  and  I  can  only  repeat  to  you 
my  sincere  thanks  for  the  kind  reception  you  have  thought  proper 
to  extend  to  me. 


February  19,  1861. — ADDRESS  AT  POUGHKEEPSIE,  NEW  YORK. 

Fellow-citizens:  It  is  altogether  impossible  I  should  make  myself 
heard  by  any  considerable  portion  of  this  vast  assemblage  5  but,  al 
though  I  appear  before  you  mainly  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  you,  and 
to  let  you  see  rather  than  hear  me,  I  cannot  refrain  from  saying  that 
I  am  highly  gratified — as  much  here,  indeed,  under  the  circum 
stances,  as  I  have  been  anywhere  on  my  route — to  witness  this  noble 
demonstration — made,  not  in  honor  of  an  individual,  but  of  the  man 
who  at  this  time  humbly,  but  earnestly,  represents  the  majesty  of  the 
nation. 

This  reception,  like  all  the  others  that  have  been  tendered  to  me, 
doubtless  emanates  from  all  the  political  parties,  and  not  from  one 
alone.  As  such  I  accept  it  the  more  gratefully,  since  it  indicates  an 
earnest  desire  on  the  part  of  the  whole  people,  without  regard  to  polit 
ical  differences,  to  save — not  the  country,  because  the  country  will 
save  itself — but  to  save  the  institutions  of  the  country — those  insti 
tutions  under  which,  in  the  last  three  quarters  of  a  century,  we  have 
grown  to  a  great,  an  intelligent,  and  a  happy  people — the  greatest, 
the  most  intelligent,  and  the  happiest  people  in  the  world.  These 
noble  manifestations  indicate,  with  unerring  certainty,  that  the  whole 
people  are  willing  to  make  common  cause  for  this  object ;  that  if,  as 
it  ever  must  be,  some  have  been  successful  in  the  recent  election,  and 
some  have  been  beaten — if  some  are  satisfied,  and  some  are  dissat 
isfied,  the  defeated  party  are  not  in  favor  of  sinking  the  ship,  but  are 
desirous  of  running  it  through  the  tempest  in  safety,  and  willing,  if 
they  think  the  people  have  committed  an  error  in  their  verdict  now, 
to  wait  in  the  hope  of  reversing  it,  and  setting  it  right  next  time.  I 
do  not  say  that  in  the  recent  election  the  people  did  the  wisest  thing 
that  could  have  been  done ;  indeed,  I  do  not  think  they  did  ;  but  I  do 
say  that  in  accepting  the  great  trust  committed  to  me,  which  I  do  with 
a  determination  to  endeavor  to  prove  worthy  of  it,  I  must  rely  upon 
you,  upon  the  people  of  the  whole  country,  for  support;  and  with  their 
sustaining  aid,  even  I,  humble  as  I  am,  cannot  fail  to  carry  the  ship 
of  state  safely  through  the  storm. 

I  have  now  only  to  thank  you  warmly  for  your  kind  attendance, 
and  bid  you  all  an  affectionate  farewell. 


686         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 


February  19, 1861. — ADDRESS  AT  HUDSON,  NEW  YORK. 

Fellow-citizens:  I  see  that  you  have  provided  a  platform,  but  I 
shall  have  to  decline  standing  on  it.  The  superintendent  tells  me 
I  have  not  time  during  our  brief  stay  to  leave  the  train.  I  had  to 
decline  standing  on  some  very  handsome  platforms  prepared  for  rne 
yesterday.  But  I  say  to  you,  as  I  said  to  them,  you  must  not  on 
this  account  draw  the  inference  that  I  have  any  intention  to  desert 
any  platform  I  have  a  legitimate  right  to  stand  on.  I  do  not  appear 
before  you  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  speech.  I  come  only  to  see 
you,  and  to  give  you  the  opportunity  to  see  me ;  and  I  say  to  your 
as  I  have  before  said  to  crowds  where  there  were  so  many  handsome 
ladies  as  there  are  here,  I  think  I  have  decidedly  the  best  of  the  bar 
gain.  I  have  only,  therefore,  to  thank  you  most  cordially  for  this 
kind  reception,  and  bid  you  all  farewell. 


February  19,  1861. — ADDRESS  AT  PEEKSKILL,  NEW  YORK. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen :  I  have  but  a  moment  to  stand  before  you 
to  listen  to  and  return  your  kind  greeting.  I  thank  you  for  this  re 
ception,  and  for  the  pleasant  manner  in  which  it  is  tendered  to  me 
by  our  mutual  friends.  I  will  say  in  a  single  sentence,  in  regard  to 
the  difficulties  that  lie  before  me  and  our  beloved  country,  that  if  I 
can  only  be  as  generously  and  unanimously  sustained  as  the  demon 
strations  I  have  witnessed  indicate  I  shall  be,  I  shall  not  fail ;  but 
without  your  sustaining  hands  I  am  sure  that  neither  I  nor  any 
other  man  can  hope  to  surmount  these  difficulties.  I  trust  that  in 
the  course  I  shall  pursue  I  shall  be  sustained  not  only  by  the  party 
that  elected  me,  but  by  the  patriotic  people  of  the  whole  country. 


February  19, 1861. — ADDRESS  AT  NEW  YORK  CITY. 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen:  I  am  rather  an  old  man  to  avail 
myself  of  such  an  excuse  as  I  am  now  about  to  do.  Yet  the  truth  is 
so  distinct,  and  presses  itself  so  distinctly  upon  me,  that  I  cannot 
well  avoid  it — and  that  is,  that  I  did  not  understand  when  I  was 
brought  into  this  room  that  I  was  to  be  brought  here  to  make  a  speech. 
It  was  not  intimated  to  me  that  I  was  brought  into  the  room  where 
Daniel  Webster  and  Henry  Clay  had  made  speeches,  and  where  one 
in  my  position  might  be  expected  to  do  something  like  those  men 
or  say  something  worthy  of  myself  or  my  audience.  I  therefore  beg 
you  to  make  allowance  for  the  circumstances  in  which  I  have  been 
by  surprise  brought  before  you.  Now  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
thinking  and  sometimes  speaking  upon  political  questions  that  have 
for  some  years  past  agitated  the  country;  and,  if  I  were  disposed  to 
do  so,  and  we  could  take  up  some  one  of  the  issues,  as  the  lawyers 
call  them,  and  I  were  called  upon  to  make  an  argument  about  it  to 
the  best  of  my  ability,  I  could  do  so  without  much  preparation.  But 
that  is  not  what  you  desire  to  have  done  here  to-night. 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          687 

I  have  been  occupying  a  position,  since  the  presidential  election,  of 
silence  —  of  avoiding  public  speaking,  of  avoiding  public  writing.  I 
have  been  doing  so  because  I  thought,  upon  full  consideration,  that 
was  the  proper  course  for  me  to  take.  I  am  brought  before  you  now, 
and  required  to  make  a  speech,  when  you  all  approve  more  than  any 
thing  else  of  the  fact  that  I  have  been  keeping  silence.  And  now 
it  seems  to  me  that  the  response  you  give  to  that  remark  ought  to 
justify  me  in  closing  just  here.  I  have  not  kept  silence  since  the 
presidential  election  from  any  party  wantonness,  or  from  any  indif 
ference  to  the  anxiety  that  pervades  the  minds  of  men  about  the 
aspect  of  the  political  affairs  of  this  country.  I  have  kept  silence  for 
the  reason  that  I  supposed  it  was  peculiarly  proper  that  I  should  do 
so  until  the  time  came  when,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  country, 
I  could  speak  officially. 

I  still  suppose  that,  while  the  political  drama  being  enacted  in  this 
country,  at  this  time,  is  rapidly  shifting  its  scenes  —  forbidding  an 
anticipation  with  any  degree  of  certainty,  to-day,  of  what  we  shall 
see  to-morrow — it  is  peculiarly  fitting  that  I  should  see  it  all,  up  to 
the  last  minute,  before  I  should  take  ground  that  I  might  be  disposed 
(by  the  shifting  of  the  scenes  afterward)  also  to  shift.  I  have  said 
several  times  upon  this  journey,  and  I  now  repeat  it  to  you,  that 
when  the  time  does  come,  I  shail  then  take  the  ground  that  I  think 
is  right  —  right  for  the  North,  for  the  South,  for  the  East,  for  the 
West,  for  the  whole  country.  And  in  doing  so,  I  hope  to  feel  no 
necessity  pressing  upon  me  to  say  anything  in  conflict  with  the  Con 
stitution;  in  conflict  with  the  continued  union  of  these  States,  in 
conflict  with  the  perpetuation  of  the  liberties  of  this  people,  or  any 
thing  in  conflict  with  anything  whatever  that  I  have  ever  given  you 
reason  to  expect  from  me.  And  now,  my  friends,  have  I  said  enough  ? 
[Loud  cries  of  "No,  no ! »  and  "  Three  cheers  for  Lincoln ! "]  Now,  my 
friends,  there  appears  to  be  a  difference  of  opinion  between  you  and 
me,  and  I  really  feel  called  upon  to  decide  the  question  myself. 


February  20, 1861. —  REPLY  TO  THE  MAYOR  OF  NEW  YORK  CITY. 

Mr.  Mayor :  It  is  with  feelings  of  deep  gratitude  that  I  make  my 
acknowledgments  for  the  reception  that  has  been  given  me  in  the 
great  commercial  city  of  New  York.  I  cannot  but  remember  that 
it  is  done  by  the  people  who  do  not,  by  a  large  majority,  agree  with 
me  in  political  sentiment.  It  is  the  more  grateful  to  me  because  in 
this  I  see  that  for  the  great  principles  of  our  government  the  people 
are  pretty  nearly  or  quite  unanimous.  In  regard  to  the  difficulties 
that  confront  us*at  this  time,  and  of  which  you  have  seen  fit  to  speak  so 
becomingly  and  so  justly,  I  can  only  say  I  agree  with  the  sentiments 
expressed.  In  my  devotion  to  the  Union  I  hope  I  am  behind  no  man 
in  the  nation.  As  to  my  wisdom  in  conducting  affairs  so  as  to  tend 
to  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  I  fear  too  great  confidence  may 
have  been  placed  in  me.  I  am  sure  I  bring  a  heart  devoted  to  the 
work.  There  is  nothing  that  could  ever  bring  me  to  consent — will 
ingly  to  consent  —  to  the  destruction  of  this  Union  (in  which  not 


688          ADDEESSES   AND  LETTEKS   OF  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

only  the  great  city  of  New  York,  but  the  whole  country,  has  acquired 
its  greatness),  unless  it  would  be  that  thing  for  which  the  Union 
itself  was  made.  I  understand  that  the  ship  is  made  for  the  carry 
ing  and  preservation  of  the  cargo ;  and  so  long  as  the  ship  is  safe 
with  the  cargo,  it  shall  not  be  abandoned.  This  Union  shall  never 
be  abandoned,  unless  the  possibility  of  its  existence  shall  cease  to 
exist  without  the  necessity  of  throwing  passengers  and  cargo  over 
board.  So  long,  then,  as  it  is  possible  that  the  prosperity  and 
liberties  of  this  people  can  be  preserved  within  this  Union,  it  shall  be 
my  purpose  at  all  times  to  preserve  it.  And  now,  Mr.  Mayor,  re 
newing  my  thanks  for  this  cordial  reception,  allow  me  to  come  to  a 
close. 

February  21, 1861. —  ADDRESS  TO  THE  SENATE  OP  NEW  JERSEY. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Senate  of  the  State  of  New 
Jersey :  I  am  very  grateful  to  you  for  the  honorable  reception  of 
which  I  have  been  the  object.  I  cannot  but  remember  the  place  that 
New  Jersey  holds  in  our  early  history.  In  the  Revolutionary  strug- 

fle  few  of  the  States  among  the  Old  Thirteen  had  more  of  the  battle- 
elds  of  the  country  within  their  limits  than  New  Jersey.  May  I  be 
pardoned  if,  upon  this  occasion,  I  mention  that  away  back  in  my 
childhood,  the  earliest  days  of  my  being  able  to  read,  I  got  hold  of 
a  small  book,  such  a  one  as  few  of  the  younger  members  have  ever 
seen  — Weems'  "  Life  of  Washington.'7  I  remember  all  the  accounts 
there  given  of  the  battle-fields  and  struggles  for  the  liberties  of  the 
country,  and  none  fixed  themselves  upon  my  imagination  so  deeply 
as  the  struggle  here  at  Trenton,  New  Jersey.  The  crossing  of  the 
river,  the  contest  with  the  Hessians,  the  great  hardships  endured 
at  that  time,  all  fixed  themselves  on  my  memory  more  than  any 
single  Revolutionary  event ;  and  you  all  know,  for  you  have  all  been 
boys,  how  these  early  impressions  last  longer  than  any  others.  I 
recollect  thinking  then,  boy  even  though  I  was,  that  there  must 
have  been  something  more  than  common  that  these  men  struggled 
for.  I  am  exceedingly  anxious  that  that  thing  —  that  something 
even  more  than  national  independence ;  that  something  that  held  out 
a  great  promise  to  all  the  people  of  the  world  to  all  time  to  come  — 
I  am  exceedingly  anxious  that  this  Union,  the  Constitution,  and  the 
liberties  of  the  people  shall  be  perpetuated  in  accordance  with  the 
original  idea  for  which  that  struggle  was  made,  and  I  shall  be  most 
happy  indeed  if  I  shall  be  a  humble  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the 
Almighty,  and  of  this,  his  almost  chosen  people,  for  perpetuating 
the  object  of  that  great  struggle.  You  give  me  this  reception,  as  I 
understand,  without  distinction  of  party.  I  learn  that  this  body  is 
composed  of  a  majority  of  gentlemen  who,  in  the  exercise  of  their 
best  judgment  in  the  choice  of  a  chief  magistrate,  did  not  think  I 
was  the  man.  I  understand,  nevertheless,  that  they  come  forward 
here  to  greet  me  as  the  constitutionally  elected  President  of  the 
United  States— as  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  meet  the  man 
who,  for  the  time  being,  is  the  representative  of  the  majesty  of  the 
nation — united  by  the  single  purpose  to  perpetuate  the  Constitu 
tion,  the  Union,  and  the  liberties  of  the  people.  As  such,  I  accept 


ADDKESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          689 

this  reception  more  gratefully  than  I  could  do  did  I  believe  it  were 
tendered  to  me  as  an  individual. 


February  21, 1861. — ADDRESS  TO  THE  ASSEMBLY  OF  NEW  JERSEY. 

Mr.  Speaker  and  Gentlemen :  I  have  just  enjoyed  the  honor  of  a 
reception  by  the  other  branch  of  this  legislature,  and  I  return  to 
you  and  them  my  thanks  for  the  reception  which  the  people  of  New 
Jersey  have  given  through  their  chosen  representatives  to  me  as  the 
representative,  for  the  time  being,  of  the  majesty  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States.  I  appropriate  to  myself  very  little  of  the  demon 
strations  of  respect  with  which  I  have  been  greeted.  I  think  little 
should  be  given  to  any  man,  but  that  it  should  be  a  manifestation 
of  adherence  to  the  Union  and  the  Constitution.  I  understand  my 
self  to  be  received  here  by  the  representatives  of  the  people  of  New 
Jersey,  a  majority  of  whom  differ  in  opinion  from  those  with  whom 
I  have  acted.  This  manifestation  is  therefore  to  be  regarded  by  me 
as  expressing  their  devotion  to  the  Union,  the  Constitution,  and  the 
liberties  of  the  people. 

You,  Mr.  Speaker,  have  well  said  that  this  is  a  time  when  the  bra 
vest  and  wisest  look  with  doubt  and  awe  upon  the  aspect  presented  by 
our  national  affairs.  Under  these  circumstances  you  will  readily  see 
why  I  should  not  speak  in  detail  of  the  course  I  shall  deem  it  best 
to  pursue.  It  is  proper  that  I  should  avail  myself  of  all  the  infor 
mation  and  all  the  time  at  my  command,  in  order  that  when  the 
time  arrives  in  which  I  must  speak  officially,  I  shall  be  able  to  take 
the  ground  which  I  deem  best  and  safest,  and  from  which  I  may 
have  no  occasion  to  swerve.  I  shall  endeavor  to  take  the  ground  I 
deem  most  just  to  the  North,  the  East,  the  West,  the  South,  and  the 
whole  country.  I  take  it,  I  hope,  in  good  temper,  certainly  with  no 
malice  toward  any  section.  I  shall  do  all  that  may  be  in  rny  power 
to  promote  a  peaceful  settlement  of  all  our  difficulties.  The  man 
does  not  live  who  is  more  devoted  to  peace  than  I  am,  none  who 
would  do  more  to  preserve  it,  but  it  may  be  necessary  to  put  the 
foot  down  firmly.  [Here  the  audience  broke  out  into  cheers  so  loud 
and  long  that  for  some  moments  it  was  impossible  to  hear  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  voice.]  And  if  I  do  my  duty  and  do  right,  you  will  sustain 
me,  will  you  not  ?  [Loud  cheers,  and  cries  of  "  Yes,  yes ;  we  will."J 
Received  as  I  am  by  the  members  of  a  legislature  the  majority  of 
whom  do  not  agree  with  me  in  political  sentiments,  I  trust  that  I 
may  have  their  assistance  in  piloting  the  ship  of  state  through  this 
voyage,  surrounded  by  perils  as  it  is $  for  if  it  should  suffer  wreck 
now,  there  will  be  no  pilot  ever  needed  for  another  voyage. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  already  spoken  longer  than  I  intended,  and 
must  beg  leave  to  stop  here. 

February  21,  1861.— REPLY  TO  THE  MAYOR  OF  PHILADELPHIA, 
PENNSYLVANIA. 

Mr.  Mayor  and  Fellow-citizens  of  Philadelphia :  I  appear  before 
you  to  make  no  lengthy  speech,  but  to  thank  you  for  this  reception. 
VOL.  I.— 44. 


690          ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEKS   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  reception  you  have  given  me  to-night  is  not  to  me,  the  man,  the 
individual,  but  to  the  man  who  temporarily  represents,  or  should 
represent,  the  majesty  of  the  nation.  It  is  true,  as  your  worthy 
mayor  has  said,  that  there  is  great  anxiety  amongst  the  citizens  of 
the  United  States  at  this  time.  I  deem  it  a  happy  circumstance  that 
this  dissatisfied  portion  of  our  fellow-citizens  does  not  point  us  to 
anything  in  which  they  are  being  injured  or  about  to  be  injured; 
for  which  reason  I  have  felt  all  the  while  justified  in  concluding 
that  the  crisis,  the  panic,  the  anxiety  of  the  country  at  this  time,  is 
artificial.  If  there  be  those  who  differ  with  me  upon  this  subject, 
they  have  not  pointed  out  the  substantial  difficulty  that  exists.  I 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  an  artificial  panic  may  not  do  considerable 
harm ;  that  it  has  done  such  I  do  not  deny.  The  hope  that  has  been 
expressed  by  your  mayor,  that  I  may  be  able  to  restore  peace,  har 
mony,  and  prosperity  to  the  country,  is  most  worthy  of  him;  and 
most  happy,  indeed,  will  I  be  if  I  shall  be  able  to  verify  and  fulfil 
that  hope.  I  promise  you  that  I  bring  to  the  work  a  sincere  heart. 
Whether  I  will  bring  a  head  equal  to  that  heart  will  be  for  future 
times  to  determine.  It  were  useless  for  me  to  speak  of  details  of 
plans  now ;  I  shall  speak  officially  next  Monday  week,  if  ever.  If  I 
should  not  speak  then,  it  were  useless  for  me  to  do  so  now.  If  I  do 
speak  then,  it  is  useless  for  me  to  do  so  now.  When  I  do  speak,  I 
shall  take  such  ground  as  I  deem  best  calculated  to  restore  peace, 
harmony,  and  prosperity  to  the  country,  and  tend  to  the  perpetuity 
of  the  nation  and  the  liberty  of  these  States  and  these  *people.  Your 
worthy  mayor  has  expressed  the  wish,  in  which  I  join  with  him,  that 
it  were  convenient  for  me  to  remain  in  your  city  long  enough  to 
consult  your  merchants  and  manufacturers;  or,  as  it  were,  to  listen 
to  those  breathings  rising  within  the  consecrated  walls  wherein  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and,  I  will  add,  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  were  originally  framed  and  adopted.  I  assure  you 
and  your  mayor  that  I  had  hoped  on  this  occasion,  and  upon  all  occa 
sions  during  my  life,  that  I  shall  do  nothing  inconsistent  with  the 
teachings  of  these  holy  and  most  sacred  walls.  I  have  never  asked 
anything  that  does  not  breathe  from  those  walls.  All  my  politi 
cal  warfare  has  been  in  favor  of  the  teachings  that  come  forth 
from  these  sacred  walls.  May  my  right  hand  forget  its  cunning 
and  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth  if  ever  I  prove  false 
to  those  teachings.  Fellow-citizens,  I  have  addressed  you  longer 
than  I  expected  to  do,  and  now  allow  me  to  bid  you  good-night. 


February  22,  1861. — ADDRESS  IN  INDEPENDENCE  HALL, 
PHILADELPHIA. 

Mr.  Cuyler :  I  am  filled  with  deep  emotion  at  finding  myself 
standing  in  this  place,  where  were  collected  together  the  wisdom, 
the  patriotism,  the  devotion  to  principle,  from  which  sprang  the 
institutions  under  which  we  live.  You  have  kindly  suggested  to  me 
that  in  my  hands  is  the  task  of  restoring  peace  to  our  distracted 
country.  I  can  say  in  return,  sir,  that  all  the  political  sentiments.  I 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          691 

entertain  have  been  drawn,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  draw  them, 
from  the  sentiments  which  originated  in  and  were  given  to  the  world 
from  this  hall.  I  have  never  had  a  feeling,  politically,  that  did  not 
spring  from  the  sentiments  embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence.  I  have  often  pondered  over  the  dangers  which  were  incurred 
by  the  men  who  assembled  here  and  framed  and  adopted  that  Dec 
laration.  I  have  pondered  over  the  toils  that  were  endured  by 
the  officers  and  soldiers  of  the  army  who  achieved  that  independence. 
I  have  often  inquired  of  myself  what  great  principle  or  idea  it  was 
that  kept  this  Confederacy  so  long  together.  It  was  not  the  mere 
matter  of  separation  of  the  colonies  from  the  motherland,  but  that 
sentiment  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  which  gave  liberty 
not  alone  to  the  people  of  this  country,  but  hope  to  all  the  world,  for 
all  future  time.  It  was  that  which  gave  promise  that  in  due  time 
the  weights  would  be  lifted  from  the  shoulders  of  all  men,  and  that 
all  should  have  an  equal  chance.  This  is  the  sentiment  embodied  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Now,  my  friends,  can  this  coun 
try  be  saved  on  that  basis  ?  If  it  can,  I  will  consider  myself  one  of 
the  happiest  men  in  the  world  if  I  can  help  to  save  it.  If  it  cannot 
be  saved  upon  that  principle,  it  will  be  truly  awful.  But  if  this 
country  cannot  be  saved  without  giving  up  that  principle,  I  was  about 
to  say  I  would  rather  be  assassinated  on  this  spot  than  surrender  it. 
Now,  in  my  view  of  the  present  aspect  of  affairs,  there  is  no  need  of 
bloodshed  and  war.  There  is  no  necessity  for  it.  I  am  not  in  favor 
of  such  a  course ;  and  I  may  say  in  advance  that  there  will  be  no 
bloodshed  unless  it  is  forced  upon  the  government.  The  govern 
ment  will  not  use  force,  unless  force  is  used  against  it. 

My  friends,  this  is  wholly  an  unprepared  speech.  I  did  not  expect 
to  be  called  on  to  say  a  word  when  I  came  here.  I  supposed  I  was 
merely  to  do  something  toward  raising  a  flag.  I  may,  therefore, 
have  said  something  indiscreet.  [Cries  of  "  No,  no."]  But  I  have 
said  nothing  but  what  I  am  willing  to  live  by,  and,  if  it  be  the 
pleasure  of  Almighty  God,  to  die  by. 


February  22,  1861. — ADDRESS  ON  RAISING  A  FLAG  OVER 
INDEPENDENCE  HALL,  PHILADELPHIA. 

Felloiv-citizens:  I  am  invited  and  called  before  you  to  participate  in 
raising  above  Independence  Hall  the  flag  of  our  country,  with  an  ad 
ditional  star  upon  it.1  I  propose  now,  in  advance  of  performing  this 
very  pleasant  and  complimentary  duty,  to  say  a  few  words.  I  pro 
pose  to  say  that  when  the  flag  was  originally  raised  here,  it  had  but 
thirteen  stars.  I  wish  to  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that,  under 
the  blessing  of  God,  each  additional  star  added  to  that  flag  has  given 
additional  prosperity  and  happiness  to  this  country,  until  it  has  ad 
vanced  to  its  present  condition;  and  its  welfare  in  the  future,  as 
well  as  in  the  past,  is  in  your  hands.  Cultivating  the  spirit  that 
animated  our  fathers,  who  gave  renown  and  celebrity  to  this  hall, 

i  The  State  of  Kansas,  which  was  admitted  into  the  Union  January  29, 1861. 


692          ADDEESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

cherishing  that  fraternal  feeling  which  has  so  long  characterized  us  as 
a  nation,  excluding  passion,  ill  temper,  and  precipitate  action  on  all 
occasions,  I  think  we  may  promise  ourselves  that  not  only  the  new 
star  placed  upon  that  flag  shall  be  permitted  to  remain  there  to  our 
permanent  prosperity  for  years  to  come,  but  additional  ones  shall 
from  time  to  time  be  placed  there  until  we  shall  number,  as  it  was 
anticipated  by  the  great  historian,  five  hundred  millions  of  happy 
and  prosperous  people. 

With  these  few  remarks  I  proceed  to  the  very  agreeable  duty 
assigned  to  me. 


February  22,  1861. — REPLY  TO  GOVERNOR  CURTIN  OF 
PENNSYLVANIA,  AT  HARRISBURG. 

Governor  Curtin  and  Citizens  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania :  Perhaps 
the  best  thing  that  I  could  do  would  be  simply  to  indorse  the 
patriotic  and  eloquent  speech  which  your  governor  has  just  made  in 
your  hearing.  I  am  quite  sure  that  I  am  unable  to  address  to  you 
anything  so  appropriate  as  that  which  he  has  uttered. 

Reference  has  been  made  by  him  to  the  distraction  of  the  public 
mind  at  this  time  and  to  the  great  task  that  is  before  me  in  entering 
upon  the  administration  of  the  General  Government.  With  all  the 
eloquence  and  ability  that  your  governor  brings  to  this  theme,  I  am 
quite  sure  he  does  not  —  in  his  situation  he  cannot  —  appreciate  as 
I  do  the  weight  of  that  great  responsibility.  I  feel  that,  under  God, 
in  the  strength  of  the  arms  and  wisdom  of  the  heads  of  these  masses, 
after  all,  must  be  my  support.  As  I  have  often  had  occasion  to  say, 
I  repeat  to  you  —  I  am  quite  sure  I  do  not  deceive  myself  when  I  tell 
you  I  bring  to  the  work  an  honest  heart ;  I  dare  not  tell  you  that  I 
bring  a  head  sufficient  for  it.  If  my  own  strength  should  fail,  I  shall 
at  least  fall  back  upon  these  masses,  who,  I  think,  under  any  cir 
cumstances  will  not  fail. 

Allusion  has  been  made  to  the  peaceful  principles  upon  which  this 
great  commonwealth  was  originally  settled.  Allow  me  to  add  my 
meed  of  praise  to  those  peaceful  principles.  I  hope  no  one  of  the 
Friends  who  originally  settled  here,  or  who  lived  here  since  that 
time,  or  who  lives  here  now,  has  been  or  is  a  more  devoted  lover  of 
peace,  harmony,  and  concord  than  my  humble  self. 

While  I  have  been  proud  to  see  to-day  the  finest  military  array,  I 
think,  that  I  have  ever  seen,  allow  me  to  say,  in  regard  to  those  men, 
that  they  give  hope  of  what  may  be  done  when  war  is  inevitable. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  allow  me  to  express  the  hope  that  in  the  shed 
ding  of  blood  their  services  may  never  be  needed,  especially  in  the 
shedding  of  fraternal  blood.  It  shall  be  my  endeavor  to  preserve 
the  peace  of  this  country  so  far  as  it  can  possibly  be  done  consis 
tently  with  the  maintenance  of  the  institutions  of  the  country.  With 
my  consent,  or  without  my  great  displeasure,  this  country  shall 
never  witness  the  shedding  of  one  drop  of  blood  in  fraternal  strife. 

And  now,  my  fellow-citizens,  as  I  have  made  many  speeches,  will 
you  allow  me  to  bid  you  farewell  ? 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          693 


February  22,  1861. — ADDRESS  TO  THE  LEGISLATURE  OF 
PENNSYLVANIA,  AT  HARRISBURG. 

Mr.  Speaker  of  the  Senate,  and  also  Mr.  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  and  Gentlemen  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  State 
of  Pennsylvania :  I  appear  before  you  only  for  a  very  few  brief  re 
marks  in  response  to  what  has  been  said  to  me.  I  thank  you  most 
sincerely  for  this  reception,  and  the  generous  words  in  which  sup 
port  has  been  promised  me  upon  this  occasion.  I  thank  your  great 
commonwealth  for  the  overwhelming  support  it  recently  gave,  not 
me  personally,  but  the  cause  which  I  think  a  just  one,  in  the  late 
election. 

Allusion  has  been  made  to  the  fact — the  interesting  fact  perhaps 
we  should  say  —  that  I  for  the  first  time  appear  at  the  capital  of  the 
great  commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania  upon  the  birthday  of  the 
Father  of  his  Country.  In  connection  with  that  beloved  anniver 
sary  connected  with  the  history  of  this  country,  I  have  already  gone 
through  one  exceedingly  interesting  scene  this  morning  in  the  cere 
monies  at  Philadelphia.  Under  the  kind  conduct  of  gentlemen  there, 
I  was  for  the  first  time  allowed  the  privilege  of  standing  in  old  In 
dependence  Hall  to  have  a  few  words  addressed  to  me  there,  and 
opening  up  to  me  an  opportunity  of  manifesting  my  deep  regret 
that  I  had  not  more  time  to  express  something  of  my  own  feelings 
excited  by  the  occasion,  that  had  been  really  the  feelings  of  my 
whole  life. 

Besides  this,  our  friends  there  had  provided  a  magnificent  flag  of 
the  country.  They  had  arranged  it  so  that  I  was  given  the  honor  of 
raising  it  to  the  head  of  its  staff,  and  when  it  went  up  I  was  pleased 
that  it  went  to  its  place  by  the  strength  of  my  own  feeble  arm. 
When,  according  to  the  arrangement,  the  cord  was  pulled,  and  it 
floated  gloriously  to  the  wind,  without  an  accident,  in  the  bright, 
glowing  sunshine  of  the  morning,  I  could  not  help  hoping  that  there 
was  in  the  entire  success  of  that  beautiful  ceremony  at  least  some 
thing  of  an  omen  of  what  is  to  come.  Nor  could  I  help  feeling  then, 
as  I  have  often  felt,  that  in  the  whole  of  that  proceeding  I  was  a  very 
humble  instrument.  I  had  not  provided  the  flag ;  I  had  not  made 
the  arrangements  for  elevating  it  to  its  place ;  I  had  applied  but  a 
very  small  portion  of  even  my  feeble  strength  in  raising  it.  In  the 
whole  transaction  I  was  in  the  hands  of  the  people  who  had  arranged 
it,  and  if  I  can  have  the  same  generous  cooperation  of  the  people  of 
this  nation,  I  think  the  flag  of  our  country  may  yet  be  kept  flaunt 
ing  gloriously. 

I  recur  for  a  moment  but  to  repeat  some  words  uttered  at  the 
hotel  in  regard  to  what  has  been  said  about  the  military  support 
which  the  General  Government  may  expect  from  the  commonwealth 
of  Pennsylvania  in  a  proper  emergency.  To  guard  against  any  pos 
sible  mistake  do  I  recur  to  this.  It  is  not  with  any  pleasure  that  I 
contemplate  the  possibility  that  a  necessity  may  arise  in  this  country 
for  the  use  of  the  military  arm.  While  I  am  exceedingly  gratified  to 
see  the  manifestation  upon  your  streets  of  your  military  force  here, 


694         ADDRESSES   AND   LETTEES   OF   ABEAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  exceedingly  gratified  at  your  promise  to  use  that  force  upon  a 
proper  emergency — while  I  make  these  acknowledgments  I  desire  to 
repeat,  in  order  to  preclude  any  possible  misconstruction,  that  I  do 
most  sincerely  hope  that  we  shall  have  no  use  for  them  ;  that  it  will 
never  become  their  duty  to  shed  blood,  and  most  especially  never  to 
shed  fraternal  blood.  I  promise  that  so  far  as  I  may  have  wisdom 
to  direct,  if  so  painful  a  result  shall  in  any  wise  be  brought  about,  it 
shall  be  through  no  fault  of  mine. 

Allusion  has  also  been  made  by  one  of  your  honored  speakers  to 
some  remarks  recently  made  by  myself  at  Pittsburg  in  regard  to 
what  is  supposed  to  be  the  especial  interest  of  this  great  common 
wealth  of  Pennsylvania.  I  now  wish  only  to  say  in  regard  to  that 
matter,  that  the  few  remarks  which  I  uttered  on  that  occasion  were 
rather  carefully  worded.  I  took  pains  that  they  should  be  so.  I 
have  seen  no  occasion  since  to  add  to  them  or  subtract  from  them. 
I  leave  them  precisely  as  they  stand,  adding  only  now  that  I  am 
pleased  to  have  an  expression  from  you,  gentlemen  of  Pennsylvania, 
signifying  that  they  are  satisfactory  to  you. 

And  now,  gentlemen  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Common 
wealth  of  Pennsylvania,  allow  me  again  to  return  to  you  my  most 
sincere  thanks. 


February  27,  1861. — REPLY  TO  THE  MAYOR  OF  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

Mr.  Mayor:  I  thank  you,  and  through  you  the  municipal  authori 
ties  of  this  city  who  accompany  you,  for  this  welcome.  And  as  it  is 
the  first  time  in  my  life,  since  the  present  phase  of  politics  has  pre 
sented  itself  in  this  country,  that  I  have  said  anything  publicly 
within  a  region  of  country  where  the  institution  of  slavery  exists,  1 
will  take  this  occasion  to  say  that  I  think  very  much  of  the  ill  feel 
ing  that  has  existed  and  still  exists  between  the  people  in  the  section 
from  which  I  came  and  the  people  here,  is  dependent  upon  a  mis 
understanding  of  one  another.  I  therefore  avail  myself  of  this 
opportunity  to  assure  you,  Mr.  Mayor,  and  all  the  gentlemen  present, 
that  I  have  not  now,  and  never  have  had,  any  other  than  as  kindly 
feelings  toward  you  as  to  the  people  of  my  own  section.  I  have  not 
now,  and  never  have  had,  any  disposition  to  treat  you  in  any  respect 
otherwise  than  as  my  own  neighbors.  I  have  not  now  any  purpose 
to  withhold  from  you  any  of  the  benefits  of  the  Constitution,  under 
any  circumstances,  that  I  would  not  feel  myself  constrained  to  with 
hold  from  my  own  neighbors;  and  I  hope,  in  a  word,  that  when  we 
shall  become  better  acquainted — and  I  say  it  with  great  confidence 
— we  shall  like  each  other  better.  I  thank  you  for  the  kindness  of 
this  reception. 

February  28,  1861.—  REPLY  TO  A  SERENADE  AT  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

My  Friends  :  I  suppose  that  I  may  take  this  as  a  compliment  paid 
to  me,  and  as  such  please  accept  my  thanks  for  it.  I  have  reached 
this  city  of  Washington  under  circumstances  considerably  differing 


ADDRESSES   AND   LETTERS   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN          695 

from  those  under  which  any  other  man  has  ever  reached  it.  I  am 
here  for  the  purpose  of  taking  an  official  position  amongst  the  people., 
almost  all  of  whom  were  politically  opposed  to  me,  and  are  yet  op 
posed  to  me,  as  I  suppose. 

I  propose.no  lengthy  address  to  you.  I  only  propose  to  say,  as  I 
did  on  yesterday,  when  your  worthy  mayor  and  board  of  aldermen 
called  upon  me,  that  I  thought  much  of  the  ill  feeling  that  has  ex 
isted  between  you  and  the  people  of  your  surroundings  and  that 
people  from  among  whom  I  came,  has  depended,  and  now  depends, 
upon  a  misunderstanding. 

I  hope  that,  if  things  shall  go  along  as  prosperously  as  I  believe 
we  all  desire  they  may,  I  may  have  it  in  my  power  to  remove  some 
thing  of  this  misunderstanding  j  that  I  may  be  enabled  to  convince 
you,  and  the  people  of  your  section  of  the  country,  that  we  regard 
you  as  in  all  things  our  equals,  and  in  all  things  entitled  to  the  same 
respect  and  the  same  treatment  that  we  claim  for  ourselves ;  that 
we  are  in  no  wise  disposed,  if  it  were  in  our  power,  to  oppress  you, 
to  deprive  you  of  any  of  your  rights  under  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  or  even  narrowly  to  split  hairs  with  you  in  regard  to 
these  rights,  but  are  determined  to  give  you,  as  far  as  lies  in  our 
hands,  all  your  rights  under  the  Constitution  —  not  grudgingly,  but 
fully  and  fairly.  I  hope  that,  by  thus  dealing  with  you,  we  will  be 
come  better  acquainted,  and  be  better  friends. 

And  now,  my  friends,  with  these  few  remarks,  and  again  returning 
my  thanks  for  this  compliment,  and  expressing  my  desire  to  hear  a 
little  more  of  your  good  music,  I  bid  you  good-night. 


March  1,  1861. —  LETTER  TO  WM.  H.  SEWARD. 
(Private.) 

WILLARD'S  HOTEL,  WASHINGTON,  March  1,  1861. 
HON.  W.  H.  SEWARD. 

Dear  Sir :  If  a  successor  to  General  Twiggs  is  attempted  to  be 
appointed,  do  not  allow  it  to  be  done. 

Yours  in  haste,        A.  LINCOLN. 


END   OF  VOL.   I. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY— TEL  NO.  642-3405 
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